We find it hard to believe that we are already 6 months into our early retirement blogging journey. It is fair to say that we are loving the experience as a whole as well as the weekly process of bringing our thoughts together to share with anyone that is interested.
The aim was always to give us a creative focus in our early retirement years and to hopefully help anyone else thinking about a similar path for themselves. As we move on in time, slowly but surely the google algorithm is starting to recognise us and we are beginning to reach readers from all around the globe.
We thought that the 6 month milestone was a suitable point to take stock of where we are up to in our plans, share with you our ideas for the next phase of our early retirement and think back on some of the emotions we have experienced so far along the way.
If you want to read more on the decision making that we went through when deciding to retire early, check out our post here.
Financial planning
As you would expect, prior to making such a monumental and life changing decision, we did a lot of financial planning, modelling so many different worst case scenarios to the nth degree and generally lots of soul searching to see if early retirement really was what we were truly seeking.
Once we had set on a plan, the challenge was to put it into effect. We had to do a number of things before September:
Finalise our teachers pension arrangements to access in 3.5 years time at the age of 55.
Clear all debts- including the mortgage!
Maximise our savings in the final 6 months of working.
Establishing a way to release equity from our house.
Work out a workable budget plan that we could live on to get us to 55. Starting at a weekly figure and then building it to a monthly, yearly and overall cost for the 3.5 years of non-income.
Establish contingency plans for if things go awry financially. We are both adamant that we will never return to teaching, but were open to such things as tutoring and exam marking. In addition, we started to think about sources of passive income we could initiate that would potentially grow over time- this incudes this blog, potential Air-b-n-b rental income and even a play with YouTube.
We have more thoughts and detail on the financial side of early retirement here.
Resigning from our jobs
Resigning was the easiest part for me, coping with the guilt of leaving the team I had built and worked so closely with for years was by far the most difficult and emotional aspect of this part of the plan.
Speaking to my boss, who I absolutely love and respect was really difficult. I felt that I was letting him down and leaving him right in the s***. Once we had chatted it through and I had time to explain my reasoning for our decision, we kicked into action mode, planning recruitment timelines, succession planning and hand-over arrangements over a 7 month period. This process brought me a lot of comfort, knowing I was doing everything I could to leave the school in a better place. In reality, I think that it was just a sophisticated distraction strategy that I employed to keep my emotions under control!
My ultimate, and unplanned transition came in the form of an OFSTED inspection about 4 weeks before I was due to leave the school. My boss had never led an inspection before as a headteacher, so this was the final piece in the succession jigsaw. We fought hard and gave no quarter, and together we got the outcome that we wanted for both the school, but also for us personally. I definitely got some closure and ratification that my career had made an impact. Although I absolutely hate OFSTED and the inspection process nearly killed me at the time, the outcome helped me realise that I could retire happy.
When it came to my final day at work, it almost felt surreal- like it was not really happening to me. The day went really quickly, most of the kids didn’t realise (just as I wanted it to be) and I soon found myself locking my office for the last time, handing in my keys and leaving the site alone- with my car being one of the last ones in the carpark- as per usual!
House sale
We always knew that we wanted to relocate to the mountains when we retired. They are what we love and are our playground. By selling our Cheshire home, we knew that we could release some equity from the house to help us get by for the next few years and remain mortgage free. We also knew that we wanted to travel- extensively- so selling our house was a priority.
Over the first few months of the plan, we spent time minimising the house and bringing it up to a marketable standard. When we advertised the house, it sold at the asking price within 3 hours so we must have done an OK job. We knew that we needed the freedom that comes from being cash buyers, so very early on in the process made the decision to end our chain of sale and move into storage.
That is where we find ourselves now- our house sold and possession in storage, living in our van waiting for our Yorkshire Dales house to complete. Living the dream!
Minimising our life- making things more simple
I am not sure if it is a sign of getting old, or as a consequence of spending a lot of time in a tiny Campervan, but over the last few years we have both become increasingly aware of the clutter and excessive amounts of stuff in our lives. Stuff that doesn’t mean very much in our overall lives- it just exists and takes up unnecessary space.
This feeling of overwhelm was magnified when we lost Dad and Mark in quick succession last year. We spent a long time evaluating our lives and what we valued as really important- and clutter wasn’t one of those things.
From that point onwards, we have actively pursued a less is more philosophy in all aspects of our lives and it has brought us real joy. By freeing up the clutter and cutting back our stuff to the absolute essentials that bring value to our lives, we have finally found the space to truly enjoy what life has to offer. I appreciate that this sounds very evangelical and happy clappy- but it really has worked for us. The freedom that it has brought us and the headspace it has provided is truly remarkable and one of the unexpected positive outcomes of early retirement.
Blog project
I have not always loved writing- however it is fair to say I was a reluctant reader at school and spent most of my time in the bottom sets of English as I just couldn’t spell. To this day, getting my English qualification in order to become a teacher remains one of the hardest exams I have ever had to sit. My insecurity about spelling remained with me throughout my professional career. That was until we submitted a travel article to VW Bus magazine that was published. Since then I have written a number of travel articles about our adventures that continue to be published.
We knew that we both needed projects to keep us busy in retirement- myself in particular as I get bored very easily if I haven’t got something purposeful to do. Retiring at such a young age is not that common and we both wanted a way to document our adventures so that we could easily look back on them in the future. A blog seemed the natural solution to this need. In addition, it provides me with daily therapy as the process of writing is a real release. I am even learning how to touch-type to make the process more efficient!
Other ventures
We have just started to get to grips with our new venture of YouTube and it is not easy. There is so much to learn and we currently have so little experience of video making it is really scary. However, we are reassuring ourselves that this is only natural when learning something new. It is actually quite refreshing and exciting to learn something new and see things as an absolute beginner. Of course it is frustrating to be crap, but its not going to kill us and it is a great life experience along the way, where ever it may take us.
If you want to share in our pain, have a look at our fledgling YouTube channel here.
Keeping in touch with the people that we love
This is something that we were really worried about when making the decision to early retire. Although we love each other very much, we didn’t want to become too insular or dependant on each other as a couple. As frustrating as working life is, it does provide us all with a really valuable support networks outside our personal relationships which is so important in life.
We now need to work really hard to maintain those relationships that we really value when we don’t see the people on a day-to-day basis. Technology is an amazing thing, and we need to use it to make sure that we can keep in touch with the people that we love. In addition, we have realised that by not working, we also have so much more time to catch up with people in person. It’s amazing how liberating not having to work is.
So that’s it for another week of early retirement. This weeks blog has been a little different, and normal service will resume next week. As I write this, we are sat in bed, having a morning coffee after our first night in France. We are parked up next to the most stunning monastery in Bourge en Bresse and cannot wait to start exploring this beautiful part of the world.
Have a fantastic week,
Richard & Jackie
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