People could cut housing costs to retire early

Once you have moved to a larger house , got used to the space and its quirks, got it set up to suit you , made your memories and spent your best days there moving out somewhere smaller seems almost impossible - the hassle , the change, the costs , the upheaval. Your home is your safe space and as you get older that matters more and more

Spending a year marketing a house , finding somewhere new and paying someone to make all the changes to decor to make the place feel like home , when you may only have a handful of years left ? Seems daft.

And bungalows are in short supply and surprisingly expensive so that downsizing to a bungalow doesn’t leave you much change for a lot less space

the time perhaps to move down is when you retire - only if you are in a couple then it’s also the time one of you is getting cancer treatment or suffering some major health problems- not every couple goes through this but I had been horrified by just how many of my friends get to retirement age with major problems . It’s shaken up how I approach life

my personal approach has always been “it’s big enough” - it’s medium small, it’s not detached ,it’s not south facing ( thankfully ) , but we have space for everything. And no I don’t want to move to a pokey retirement flat when I still am living life thank you

I agree, especially regarding older people. It honestly baffles me why they choose to live in poverty in big houses they can't afford ot heat or maintain when they could just downsize and live a much easier life.

We live in a 3 bedrooms 3 reception rooms house, sounds bigger than it is. Owned it outright from early 50s, our money then went to putting 2 kids through uni at the same time. Now our friends with huge houses struggle with the cost of uni so I’m glad we prioritised
paying our home off.

We moved from the first place we bought in my early 40s. The reason for the second move was to reduce the commute i.e. quality of life. Mortgage paid off in early fifties. I want to move again when I retire to somewhere more suitable in older age. Cost of moving high so had hoped to achieve that with second move but failed to find somewhere suitable.

Only you can determine whether the push of your current living situation is worth moving for. However, you do get more interested in trying to achieve being able early retirement the older you get. It isn't so much wanting to retire as much as having the ability to do so should it get too hard to work into late 60s.

I think the smaller house retiring early only works if you are saving or investing the money you would have used to pay a bigger mortgage. Otherwise you pay off your mortgage and still find all the other bills are a lot of money so you need to keep working.

I think the gamble people are making with a bigger house is that they 'invest' in the house and use the house for a nicer life day to day, then have in the back in thier mind they can sell up and downsize to release the investment.

I think many dont as downsizing costs more than expected, moving is stressful and they think i just spent 25 years paying for this is want to enjoy it. And its a risk that house prices crash.

We were in your position with two kids towards the end of primary. Enough savings to pay off mortgage but chose to move to a bigger house in a better location. What feels small now will feel even smaller when the kids are a bit older, when they start needing their own space, when they no longer want to be attached to you or in the same room as you, when they no longer want to (or can) share a room, when start having friends over and sleepovers or even needing enough space to put all their belongings. It has worked wonders for my mental health to have the space we need and to be in a better area. We are too young to retire and frankly the value of the house is not a consideration for us at the moment as we are living in it so how much it is worth makes no difference. It will be an asset one day for the kids which is also a reason to have the bigger/more valuable property.

I can tell you the quality of life has improved immensely for the whole family so for us it was worth it. Work is stressful regardless of what you do.

We live in a house that, in my opinion is too big for what we need. I would happily downsize to a smaller house, have a smaller mortgage - but I wouldn't use the extra money to retire early. I'd use it to travel with my children and make memories, enjoying it all while I still have my health. I'd work less hours if I could rather than stop working - for a bit of balance.
There's also definitely something to be said for a smaller space and less stress - there is less space so therefore you'd have less stuff, less clutter, less maintenance - less cleaning etc.
I imagine it would encourage a lifestyle that places less value on material things and more value on experiences and memories - which is what life is all about!
If you feel quite cramped though, a compromise of somewhere with a little more space to feel more comfortable but also not being too expensive could be considered.

Just a word on the housing question - we chose to live in a small terrace with 2 kids right up until ds was 14. The change to a house with enough room for us all a garden and trees has done more for my mental health and overall well being than anything else I have ever done.

Re retirement - costs of living are high. Personally I would focus on skills which you can develop that you can then use to be a consultant ie earn more for less hours and plan to do this for a long time.

Teenagers are expensive! No hand me down clothes, expensive clothes. Travel and bus fares alone can be easily £100pcm. School lunches £100pcm. Phones, laptops. Full adult meals in restaurants. Hobbies/ kit/ equipment. If you want a tutor pnce/ week if they’re struggling - £200pcm. Uni - a lot lot more. Loads of us will get caught out by the cost of uni.

I guess it depends how much you enjoy working v how much you enjoy your home.

for me home is very important I want to feel comfortable in my surroundings, enjoy being there, having friends and family to stay, and I enjoy work. I’m mid fifties and shortly taking early retirement, I don’t think I’d have wished to retire earlier, and we now do so with a house we love, that is fully paid off, and an asset.

so everyone will be different here, some will prefer the larger house, enjoy work, others will hate work, be happy in something small and everything in between, only you can decide what’s right for you.

It's a trade off between the benefits of retiring early and the benefits of living in a nice house. If you retire, you will likely be spending more time in your house unless you work from home full-time.

It can be difficult to find a smaller house that still ticks the boxes that count - if you particularly value, say, an en-suite bathroom, a downstairs loo and a garden but you don't mind having only one bedroom instead of four, a tiny kitchen, and not much storage, you won't necessarily find a house that downsizes in those exact places - you either have to compromise heavily or end up with only a marginal downsize which won't bring the significant financial benefits you're looking for.

It makes a difference how old you are and how old are the kids. If you had to take out a mortgage for somewhere bigger how long would it take you to pay it off again? How cramped are you - do the children have to share rooms? Is there space for them to study once they get to be teens?
We bought the big house at 35 and paid off the mortgage in late 40s. We will have dependent children (including their university funding in our calculations) until we are 60. Then we’ll retire and downsize to release some capital. Both sets of parents are still in their massive family homes in their 80s and it’s now too much upheaval to move.

Having moved to a larger property 6 years ago, I often wonder what live would be like if we hadn’t stretched our spending so much. To give some info, we needed to move because of job locations, it wasn’t purely to buy a bigger house, but we also wanted to take on a renovation project. It’s been long and stressful but we are nearly there, and have increased the value of our home significantly. Having said that, if we’d stuck with a similar value property we could have pretty much paid off the mortgage debt by now. Having said all of that, we love our house, we love spending time in it and it gives us the space to host our families as they all live quite far away and stay for a few days when they visit. This was really challenging in our old place. We love the bigger garden with our young child, too.

I would say don’t feel pressured into moving just because that’s what others have done, but also don’t be too comfortable with the income level you have and make sure you are putting enough aside. Whilst we are paying a lot on our mortgage, the equity we are building in it is there for us in the future. Sounds like you are already considering this as you talk about retiring early. When I look at our recent mortgage statement of how much interest we’ve paid it’s terrifying, to be honest, so if you have other ways of investing then do that! Home isn’t just about space, it’s about how you feel, too, and if having the security of low housing costs and freedom and flexibility is right for you then stick with it!

I have downsized.

i moved to an area where I knew nobody. It’s taken me two years to build up friendships and a village.

i may downsize again. But there are NO and I mean NO flats in my small town. The smallest houses are 2 bed one baths and still cost most of the price of my house.

ideally I’d stay in my town and downsize to a ground floor flat or flat with lift access. Bungalow is also a possibility but they have a price premium of about 50%. Massive demand for bungalows.

it’s hard to start again in a totally new place.

We have a big enough house, but would like a bigger and nicer one. The mortgage is close to being paid off so we have relatively cheap housing.

I love the comfort that if either of us were made redundant then we wouldn't be in trouble financially for a few years.
Also we can have holidays and experiences with the children. That is more important to us than they house.

I feel the high cost of housing is so restrictive to people's lives.

If your have young children then you may find they need less space as they become teenagers and don't play with toys any more. We've found small bedroom size ok, but our tight dinner table feels very cramped, passing in the corridor isn't possible any more, and a second bathroom would be amazing.

I'm not sure i understand what you're asking.
But the older people bit is it takes a lot of years and work to own a house and then to give it up after living there for years and making it a home.
Plus these days you would probably have to move to a cheaper area as there is no such thing as a cheap house now.
We actually did downsize to a park home, we are both retired but it was down to circumstances that we still had a mortgage and had an opportunity to buy this place with the equity we had. I would have liked to have kept the home i put blood, sweat and tears into and brought my kids up in. I am glad that we did it but it was a wrench at the time.

It sounds like your children are still quite young? The teenage and university years can be brutal. Having kids 14 and under was cheap and we felt so much more affluent then.
I don't think we'll know what our financial situation is until we're through the other side.

Good lord yes. I will never move. I hope to pay off my mortgage in my 40s and will never move unless I win the lottery because it will give me financial freedom.

In your position I'd stay. It's a wonderful position to have no debt, including mortgage debt.

But moving house out of the home where you've brought up children is no easy matter, emotionally. I think many people also put it off because they also enjoy the space for grandchildren and for entertaining friends, then when suddenly it's too much for them, moving also feels like too much.

We moved from a very small flat to a 5 bed house with lots of green space. I always thought we could live somewhere mid size and retire early but COVID really showed me that you should spend money on your home if you can. Our home became a haven and a safe space and I've not looked back since.
Our kids are also getting older and everyone having their own space is really important.

Maybe it depends on your job too. My job is VERY stressful and I know I bring it home with me daily. The idea of not having a space to retreat to away from everyone else whilst the kids are young to decompress, without getting frustrated at everyone, wouldn't be wise. I know the argument would be, well, retire early and stop the stress but it doesn't matter once the kids have left home. I'd rather be a nice person when they are younger.

I think it would be hard to answer that because "the norm" isn't really universal. For example, the norm for me is several generations of one family living in a flat. My grandparents bought a three bed flat in the 60s. We all grew up there and lived there together at various points in time. I am very comfortable with flats for that reason and don't understand an obsession with a house and a garden at all.
Sharing a room with my siblings is also a "norm" for me. But listening to MN, yod think my parents were committing some kind of a crime.
When we all left home and my grandfather died, granny remained alone in her three bed flat. She won't sell it, not because she needs space but because it is her home. "The norm" for me is to buy a house you live in not as a step in "a ladder".

But what is the norm for me, clearly isn't the norm for most people in the UK. But just because it is the norm for most people in the UK, it doesn't have to impact on your decisions.

There is also a question of retiring early. For what purpose? I love my job and am quite happy to continue doing it until the day I no longer can. But I'd quite happily drop a day. And if that means living in a smaller house or a flat, it's perfect for me. My granny retired at 55 and I look at her now at 87 and my MIL who is 86 and is still working (albeit part time) and the difference in their mental sharpness, engagement with the world and physical functioning is immense!

I work to house myself and my children in the most comfortable, spacious property in the nicest area I can. I save for my retirement at the same time but i think over saving for retirement is deprivation.

Im 43 so not near retirement