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Regretting small house/FIRE - should we upsize?

28 replies

Upsizer · 27/04/2022 09:13

DH retires next year and we’ve always planned for an early retirement and made sensible savings etc. paid off mortgage on small house early and have 200k in savings.

However we rather regret our small house and are not sure it’s right for retirement. We both love gardening and this house only has a small yard.

If we moved we’d basically have to plough all our savings into another house and not have a rainy day fund. Is it worth doing this so that we can have a garden for our retirement? We would probably grow savings again as we are very frugal but this is the opposite of what we’d always intended to do!

OP posts:
riotlady · 27/04/2022 17:26

Do it!! There’s no point retiring early and not enjoying it

WombatChocolate · 29/04/2022 15:47

You are still in a strong position. Most people will never get near £45k private oension before they access their state pension.

At what age can you acccess those pension levels? How long is that off? Assuming they are DB pensions as you know exactly what you’ll have.

How soon until you stop work?

You can use your savings and trade up to the house with garden. That’s viable if you’re retirement is soon and the pensions will deliver an automatic lump sum and replenish your savings.

If you are liking working and plan to keep going, you can use your salaries to keep replenishing the savings you use.

You coukd take a short and flexible mortgage - so you can keep paying it whilst working and pay it all off from savings or pension lump sum when you stop.

Eseentially though, you have enough to let yourself have the thing you want. You are in the mindset of saving and sacrificing so you can save and retire. Well, you’ve done it. And now you can reap the benefit and have the house with the garden you like. Do it soon.

FIRE devotees often find it tricky to start are always looking ahead, even when they are in the phase where spending is meant to happen. It’s always ‘pension’ or ‘deposit for the kids’ etc etc. Generally speaking it’s a good thing, as long as you have some balance and know when you’ve achieve your target or when you’re on track and there’s some flexibility to play with.

and if you’re finding that actually stopping work early isn’t what you want as you like work, well you have even more flexibility.

My DC are in mid teen years. We’ve been frugal and now I want to have some memorable holidays in the years we have left where we can all enjoy it together. We’ve always done bargain basement, but we are going to have a couple of years of choosing nicer holidays and accommodation. We’ve set aside money for pensions and it’s all looking good for the future. But balance is good.

Have your garden and enjoy it.

ChateauMargaux · 29/04/2022 15:55

Your pension sounds healthy given that you won't be paying for kids or mortgage. Go for it... buy the dream house. You could tell us what region your elderly relatives are in and we could make some suggestions...

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