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Original poster

When do you feel financially secure?

17 replies

meringue33 · 18/01/2023 22:16

Just curious to hear people’s views on this

When would you feel financially secure and like you are ready to downshift, retire, pursue new things etc?

is it when you have paid off mortgage? Or that plus £x savings? How much would you need in the bank to feel confident?

also interested in if you took the plunge, what did you do next? What do you do to pay the heating bills etc? And how old were you?

And if you reached the magic number at 40 or 50 would you walk away from a well paid career or keep going to max pension?

OP posts:

UsingChangeofName · 18/01/2023 23:24

When would you feel financially secure and like you are ready to downshift, retire, pursue new things etc?

I think they are two different questions.

At the point we paid off our mortgage, and we were both in secure jobs at quite a senior level, then it felt 'financially secure' in that we were 'comfortable', and if either one of us had to stop working for any reason, we could still manage.

That wasn't the same stage of life as wanting to retire / downsize etc though.

MrsMoastyToasty · 18/01/2023 23:27

This week. We paid the mortgage off last week.

SophieLaGeroff · 18/01/2023 23:33

I was financially secure when I paid off my mortgage and had six figure savings. Then I bought a more expensive house ...

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General money

alwaysmovingforwards · 18/01/2023 23:39

I've got a mortgage, but I feel financially secure.

Original poster

meringue33 · 19/01/2023 10:43

So what motivated you to keep going?

OP posts:

EspeciallyDetermined · 19/01/2023 10:55

It isn't all about feeling financially secure, there are other good reasons not to downshift, retire etc if you enjoy your work and are happy with your lifestyle generally.

twistyizzy · 19/01/2023 11:01

I think you have asked 2 different things. I started to feel secure when our joint earnings hit 80K, now they are 125K and we save a significant amount every month so yes at the moment we feel secure but are about to blow that out of the water with school fees so we will feel less secure for the next 7 years.
Mortgage will be paid off in 6 years (when we will be very early 50s) but my pension is crap and we would want to get a good lump of savings before we would feel secure enough to retire. Honestly with the state of my pension I don't think I will be secure enough to retire until I'm at least 60 and i can see my husband working until that age too. We can't downsize as we took the decision to stick to small 3 bed semi and pay the mortgage off at 50 rather than upsize.

frozendaisy · 19/01/2023 11:29

Pension contributions are healthy but want our income prediction to be in the region of £40-50k a year before retirement. Excluding state pension. This won't happen until mortgage paid off and kids through uni. Aiming for age 60-62 but hopefully can bring that down a bit, who knows.

Original poster

meringue33 · 19/01/2023 20:13

£40-50k from your pension??

OP posts:

inloveandmarried · 19/01/2023 20:20

I've been wealthy (yacht, swimming pool, gardeners) and proper poor (free school meals) but I've not ever felt financially secure. It can all change in the blink of an eye it really can. The secret is to enjoy each day we are given and to find the pleasure in that day.
I think people focus on when this happens I'll be ok, or when I earn this amount it will be alright. It's false security, learning to live with what you have and being grateful, that's the key.

Mia85 · 19/01/2023 20:29

There's a difference in your OP between feeling financially secure and being financially independent. To me the former is about being in a position to live life comfortably, have security in your home and have enough of a cushion in income and savings that you could weather any of the usual storms of life (redundancy, illness etc) for a reasonable time. Being financially independent is being at the point at which you can be reasonably confident that you will never have to work for money again because your investments/assets/pensions will provide enough to live on indefinitely. At that point you can choose how to spend your time, including continuing in paid work, without money being a deciding factor. It's possible to be financially comfortable without being financially independent.

Mia85 · 19/01/2023 20:31

But I agree with inloveandmarried that you can never be certain that you are financially secure or independent.

RandomPerson42 · 19/01/2023 20:44

Even if I had the mortgage paid off and £1m in my pension I would not feel secure as things can change so quickly.

watchfulwishes · 19/01/2023 20:50

Some people never feel financially secure, it is not related to an amount.

MoomiMama · 19/01/2023 20:52

Agree it’s two different things. I feel financially secure in that are we now fortunate to have enough cushion to cover us through most temporary setbacks. But that doesn’t mean we have anywhere near enough to never work again, ie retire.

Aphrathestorm · 19/01/2023 21:08

Threads like this scare me because people say such high amounts.

I just want my basic costs covered- housing, bills, car then about £100 per week spending money.

That's quite a comfortable life.

Original poster

meringue33 · 20/01/2023 22:54

Such interesting responses!

I agree that financial security is a state of mind

i only recently started to think maybe I should do the sums for retirement though which is what got me thinking

OP posts:

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