To think it's perfectly understandable that a high-paid, child-free couple could retire at 50?

[LoomyDee]

Someone I work with is retiring in a couple of years aged 50.

I have the same plan but I'm only just 40.

We were chatting about it the other day at work, and a couple of people were or acted completely befuddled by the situation. When the lady in question went to the toilet, a couple of people starting up with "But how on earth will she afford it?"

I don't get it.

Surely it's not extraordinarily strange and incomprehensible to realise that a couple with high-paid jobs, a fairly normal lifestyle and no children will be able to retire very early?!

Am I missing something? I've run my own numbers and 50 seems very comfortable but I worry I've completely overlooked something with how incredulous these other colleagues were!

You've already benefited by not spending all your earnings on lifestyle, so then you've been able to save your spare money. Then you can carry on your chosen lifestyle because it costs less so you need less money to afford it, or your money lasts longer.

Say they earn £5000 per month and save £1000 pm long term. Meaning their lifestyle costs £4000 per month. After 25 years, they've saved £300k, which is just over 6 years of 'lifestyle' (massively oversimplification, ignoring growth, fluctuations in spending, interest, etc etc, but illustrates the point).

But if they earn £5000 per month and spend £2500 pm, saving £2500 each month, after 25 years, they've saved £750k, and because their lifestyle is cheaper, it will last them 25 years not 6.

It's very possible and plenty of people plan for retirement at 50 where money and lifestyle allows. However you could live for another 45 years after 50, you could have all sorts of health issues for a long time, so you'd need to be really rather wealthy and have a good contingency and lots of savings! Something that is completely out of reach for most people and difficult for many to understand how that could be possible, or not cause a lot of anxiety worrying about 'what ifs'.

Also many people love to work and can't imagine what they would fill their time with.

I think it depends on the people asking the question if they are high earners too. If not retiring early would be a financial struggle and boredom could set in. I think it’s best to keep the mind busy too. To be able to retire and travel and live life as you wish would be a dream to many but definitely a positive. As others have said living childfree would be a huge financial saving.

What they are not able to understand is the degree of financial self discipline and planning involved in pulling this off.

It's perfectly feasible and possible. I suppose I just wonder... why not keep working? If it is a high stress job, I understand wanting to step away from that. But... what do you do?

I've spent time and effort in my career to get to a point in the next couple of years when I can enjoy that expertise. It feels a waste (to me) not to get to do that.

Maybe I will change my mind in 5 years when I turn 50 though! (I won't, we don't have the money and we have children who may well be at uni!)

Without children and 3 relationship/marriage breakdowns that cost me dearly I could probably have retired at 50

We are working towards retiring in our mid-50s. We should pay off our mortgage in the next few years and have chosen not to get a bigger house, even though we could afford it, because we are prioritising getting off the treadmill earlier. We’ve enjoyed our lives in the meantime (having nice holidays and certainly not making our own soap). Being child free has been an essential component of all of this.

My friends retired at 50 - they had one kid. They had high paying jobs but were also as tight as a ducks arse. Their entire life was dedicated to not spending money - their son was convinced they were hiding money (he was correct). They only spent one salary, the other was saved. Two inheritances helped but they didn't need it - they don't even need the two massive pensions they had contributed to. They fully intend to spend everything and not leave any cash to their son. They will never achieve this - it's just not in their DNA to spend money. She used to get very excited about her retirement budget - I told her I wasn't interested - if she was miserable scrounging every penny to go back to work but the reality was they were very happy (they moved to a cheaper area - quelle surprise) - I'd be fucking miserable scrounging every penny - we're all different. They had extra money and they used it intentionally.

I don't know what I'd do with my time. I look at my parents, PIL and their friends and all they do is bicker. My in laws have been retired for 15 years now and I'm not sure their dynamic is healthy at all.

I've got a colleague who's retiring next year at 55 which is great but she doesn't do anything for fun, I've known her for ten years, every penny is saved, no holidays, no nights out, no exercise classes, rarely buys anything. Maybe she's going to have an amazing retirement but it seems like it's come at the expense of enjoying her younger years.

This.

Saving all this would amount to lots.

Of course people can retire early.

Yes, perfectly doable. We have children, but retired in our early fifties by working overseas for 25 years. Before we had children we lived on one salary and saved the remainder.

Yes if you have lots of hobbies, interests, or if you want to volunteer or look after grandkids or things like that. id hate not to be busy.

Definitely feasible but children or not, lots of people live close to the top of their income. The child free people I work with tend to live in nicer areas, have better clothes, more expensive cars, more and more expensive holidays and while they may have higher savings and better pensions I do think you have to be fairly frugal/focussed to save enough to be confident to completely give up your salary 7 years before you can even access your pension. Especially both people in a couple. I’d be minted without my dc (the 2 in uni currently cost me £1000 a month) and I’ve enough imagination to understand how if I hadn’t spent money on my dc, I’d have more money, but I’d be too greedy to completely give up my salary. Tbh I think I’ll find it hard at 67.

I can't envisage how different my finances would be if I wasn't a parent /grandparent 🙄
Different world

It is doable with compounding. I've saved for 30 years and brought up two kids alone. Made redundant last year with a great pay off and now doing a course in London for fun. Most of my friends are flabbergasted that I don't need to work. It's been eye opening some of the comments I've had- one wealthy friend and her FD husband telling me they have no pension saved at all. I'm 54.

I adored my career but retired at 48. I'd achieved everything I had set out to and if I'd stayed any longer it would have been more of the same.

Child free by choice I threw my all into my career and studying because I loved it and thankfully I was pretty successful. I have always happily lived a fairly modest lifestyle and saved so was comfortable my money would cover my plans.

The real driver for retirement was that I had so many other things to do. I wanted to travel, study, spend time with those I love, meet new people (from all walks of life - not just people like me in my profession) learn a new language and spend more time on my many hobbies. Also, after a lifetime of long sedentary hours at a desk I wanted to get as fit as possible before old age got the better of me.

At 45 I thought I'd never retire. By 48 it was the only thing I wanted.
I wanted time more than I wanted money.

I'm in my 60s now and my retirement has been more fulfilling than any work I have ever done. When people ask me how I fill my days I have to precis or they wouldn't believe me. I still have a long list of things I want from life and hope I stay healthy enough, long enough to do them.

Your parents and in-laws aren’t childfree though! Many people seem to dread the idea of being retired with their partner, but with childfree/childless couples it’s only ever been the two of them.

My parents did it at 50 as well.

But by that point they'd received two lots of decent inheritances. Their parents had all had excellent professional jobs and never lived extravagantly. All had had nice, large homes in desirable areas that they'd lived in for decades, which sold on for hefty sums. All would have identified as solidly working middle class. Dad's family were from Yorkshire, Mum's were from the black country. All were bright grammar school kids made good.
My parents themselves had never been big spenders, and my dad made himself a tidy sideline selling niche hobby books to Americans on Ebay, long before Amazon really became a thing. Mum has always been good at searching out the best savings accounts, and the best investments.

In the end, it worked out well for them. They had 11 great years of retirement together, loving life and endless adventures. Then dad got suddenly ill, and died almost a year to the day later, aged 62. An age where he could have VERY easily still been working. Mum is 71 now, slowing, but still going well.
If they hadn't retired when they did, they'd have been considered very unlucky. But it was only a series of actions, by many people, across generations, that enabled them to do that.

I can't see myself being able to retire at 50. Most likely I'll still be paying off some mortgage for a few more years. But as soon as that's done, I'd like to reduce my working week to 3 or 4 days.

I can see it’s financially do-able in that situation, but given that it’s also quite possible to live to 90+, I can’t imagine not working for 40 years. Lots of studies out there about the link between retirement and cognitive decline, so I’d like to keep working (even if just p/t) until at least mid-60s to keep my brain active and sharp.

People really do lack the emotional intelligence to realise other people are different than them. It’s like the how are people managing in this economic climate threads. Err they don’t have exactly the same income and outgoings you do? It’s very odd.

People with children can retire early too. It depends on how well off you are.

Perfectly doable if you are childfree and pay off the mortgage early.

But you don't need to work to keep your brain, or body, active and sharp, lots of other ways of achieving that.

I think that’s key but for many people they can’t imagine a way to keep the mind busy that isn’t work. Your brain keeps active by being challenged by new things apparently so keeping doing a job you can do in your sleep won’t help albeit the routine and social side is always a positive.

Similarly ( same article suggested) doing a crossword every day to keep the mind active is good but your brain gets used to it so do a different puzzle. Suppose it’s a bit like when people with dementia can’t remember their name but can sing an old song from start to finish.

My dh granddad retired at 55. Grandma had never really worked. He got an excellent redundancy package so applied for it, got it and left! So a little different that a straight up retirement but he said it was the best thing he ever did.