I'm very fortunate and have retired early (a few years ago now at 51). I'm still in the mindset where I have a hard time spending money, worrying whether I have enough. Thank you for sharing your numbers. It's so helpful to compare to you guys because you live similarly (but with more travel) to me. My goal for 2025 is to loosen up a bit and do more traveling, to enjoy my life and to share more of what I have. Happy New Year to you both!
Thanks for this Robin. From what we have read- this is a really common issue with retirees and we have spent our whole lives being conditioned into saving for our future, and we don't really know how to let go. There are some staggering data from US studies show that even in late retirement, many retirees are still accruing wealth for "a rainy day" and never get the joy of using it. Obviously there is a balance between spending intentionally and spending irresponsibly. Thanks for the support and Happy New Year to you too👍
Same. I haven't retired but all my debts are paid and house is owned so I'm now moving into full savings mode. However I have to learn to loosen up and change my mindset and start living a bit more. Very hard when you've worked and saved your whole life.
This is your best video yet regarding early retirement. The figures are also great info, it gives people an idea of just what can be achieved when you look after your finances.
Greetings from North bay Ontario. Thank you for not doing Patreon etc. I have followed several people from their start only to get shut out when they went Patreon. It felt like all my early support was tossed aside. I am 78, born and bred in Brum. But emigrated to Canada in 1967. You should plan a trip to Nova Scotia where my husband and I lived for 50 years. But not just the usual Cape Breton and Peggy's cove. Travel the south shore and enjoy some awesome beaches and villages. Sadly, after 52 years together my precious husband died. so PLEASE. Enjoy every lovely minute together...it is so quickly taken from us.
No worries - not something we will ever do 😊 We are hoping one day to take our new van over to Canada and tour between there and the US - there is a company that ships them into Halifax - Nova Scotia 🚐 Sorry to hear about your husband - I can imagine after 52 years there is a huge empty space. We are certainly having a good go at making memories and making the most of our precious time together.
@@earlyretirementwanderlust If you take the South Shore route from Halifax, very near Liverpool is Kejimekujik National park where you can camp on a lot in your van. Or park your van and canoe the awesome lake to one of several isolated sites on little islands where you can camp.. There was nothing to beat a skinny dip at our rmote site with nothing but the Loons ( birds) to see us:):) It is awesome. We did that a lot.
You have good values and set a wonderful example. Thank you for sharing. I just became‘unemployed’ 8 days ago! and using the next few months to see if I can make it permanent… you give me lots to think about and action. Thanks
Thanks for this JC- gutted for you about the job situation, but if something positive for you comes out of it that will be ace. We love what we do, but we think about every expense, and actually say no to way more stuff than we say yes to. It is really quite refreshing and becomes a real habit. Best of luck with your planning, which ever way you choose to play it. 👍
Thanks for being so transparent with your numbers. Your income from Google is well deserved for the very interesting content you provide to this community. ❤
@ definitely! It’s nice to see you have a realistic budget and costs. Many early retirement groups mention pots worth millions and expensive lifestyles. It’s good to see it can be done. My numbers are close to yours.
We’ve also retired early, me at 60 and my wife at 53 and we also have a VW Campervan. We try to get away at least once a month for a week and we have a longer trip each September (we have other commitments in the summer on certain days of the week). We’ve been all over the UK in our van but we’ve not yet been abroad in it. We’ve had it for just over 5 years now. You give a great insight into your life and give us some good ideas of places to go.
Thanks Trevor...we have found that our little van has changed our life for the better over the 7 years we have owned him. It brings us so much joy when we are out and about👍 Glad that you are finding the same. Thanks for the positive feedback. It is always greatly appreciated🙏
Glad you enjoyed it! It is something we get asked about an awful lot as I think it is the biggest concern people have - will I have enough money to live on?
We have been asked quite frequently what our budget is like - I think it is a stumbling block for many people knowing if you will have enough to live off.
As a couple who are close to retirement and have set up a travel TH-cam channel 7 months ago, I really enjoyed your video. Thank you for sharing your journey. As a current teacher, I’m hoping this will keep not mind active when I get to retire. ❤ thank you
It's a pleasure - it sounds like you are on a similar journey to us! For Richard particularly - TH-cam has helped give him a purpose and he enjoys the challenge of learning all the new skills needed. Good luck with all your plans - when do you retire?
@ we are a bit off yet (54 and 55 this year) but we are thinking about early retirement. I watched your travels through Thailand recently and we are in Australia so are going to try 3 months in Thailand and Vietnam this year to see what the realities of the budget are. We are going to TH-cam our experiences to share with others who are contemplating the same. Simon is actually English from Merseyside. Anyway thanks for the videos. I do enjoy watching others approach to long term travel and retirement.
Thanks for the rundown! I think you really hit the nail on the head when you talked about skipping the tea out in town. Sometimes we want things but don't really need them, at least not enough to pay such a premium for them, and your method of having cash definitely makes you more aware of what you are spending. Of course, you may decide to splurge, but you are still aware, which I feel is the important part!
What I do like is that it does feel like a treat when we splurge out a little whereas when we were working we enjoyed going out regularly but it was just the normal thing we did - now it is a real luxury!
Loved this video. You guys are a great inspiration for younger people. I retired aged 45 in 2015. I couldn't have done it without hard sacrifices throughout my working years and you guys show how it can be done practically moving forward. Also, use a pre-paid card and top it up with £200 every week.
Thank you - we know we are lucky to have been able to stick to our plans and retire early - and as you say a few sacrifices in our working years helped - we never lived a lavish life style eating out a lot so we are comfortable with the life that we now live. We have opened an online bank account now where we can pot our money into different pots for spending so may resort to using that if it does keep getting harder to spend cash!
Another great video. So appreciate your candour with real sums. It’s reassured me I am on track 😊 I’m also really pleased you are getting money out of Google they can afford it! Respect for maintaining your values sponsorship/patreons. Excited to see how the year unfolds, enjoy your travels. 😊
Thanks for this- we are glad that you recognise what we are trying to do. We are also exited for the year ahead, as we genuinely have hardly any plans compared to this time last year. Who knows where it will take us? Thanks as always for the support👍
The will power comes from being determined to be able to fit in as much travel as we can on our budget - whenever we think about having a treat meal out we think about that money paying for another campsite instead!!
What an excellent video! I feel like I say this all the time but I incorporate many of your savings, cooking and well-being strategies into our family life and it has been really good for us! Thanks Jackie and Richard! ❤
Thanks again for another great video. As I approach early retirement myself (at 55, in a few months time) there’s always some good advice or ideas I pick up from your videos. I have very recently imparted the same budgeting advice to my adult daughter, who is living on her own and managing household expenses for the first time. Whilst I agree with the “Cash is King!” statement, it can become a little difficult when also spending on a card (online purchases). I think the underlying strength of this strategy is knowing what you can spend on a weekly basis and the transparency of what you have. For my daughter, her bank account offers the ability to segregate money into “pots”. (I believe there many accounts out there with this ability). When she now gets paid, she sets aside her weekly pots for the month ahead and focuses on making those last for the allocated weeks. Very easy to track online and allows for both cash withdrawals and online spends. Maybe worth considering for yourselves, if you’ve sometimes found the cash points have run dry!
We have done the same with our 2 children who have both bought houses in the last 12 months. They both have starling bank accounts and that they make use of all the different pots to save and budget from. When we came back from Thailand the first thing we did was open a starling account as they don't make huge charges when using you card abroad - we might look into making a spending pot 😊
Many thanks for sharing your real numbers. Makes me realise that you can have an amazing time without spending a huge amount. Please keep up your great work.
Well done you too for been so candid. We run a spread sheet every 3 months. Microsoft office now charge to use excel so moved to Google sheets , free and just as good. Our cottage only has electricity and a multi fuel . £12 coal lasts us 4 days . We also have a dual electric tarrif which is great. Very keen on DIY which helps. Learn most tips on TH-cam. Locally we share tools, which may involve buying someone a pint! Keep up the good work. Thanks
Thanks for this Brian- yep gutted about the Excel subscription. We are staying with it for the moment as we use PP so much in our YT stuff. Seems that a lot of companies are jumping on the bandwagon with subscriptions- we had to let Adobe Lightroom go as it was getting outrageous. Adobe are terrible for this. Love the idea of sharing tools...what a great community project, no matter how informal...and it involves pints- BONUS! Thanks for the support👍
Wow! Impressive what you accomplished and the high quality of life you’ve had on what seems to me to still be a very small income! Thank you for sharing!
We always enjoy hearing how other people budge and control their spending. We really shy away from cash and much prefer using the record keeping of our online banks to monitor and track against our budget. Carry on with the great content
Thanks for this Becky...I guess that we are not as comfortable with our online banking as others. Our kids are amazing and rarely carry cash...much to our bemusement! Thanks for your support👍
Thank you Jackie & Richard. Very informative and inspiring vlog once again. Love your channel and look forward to seeing where 2025 will take you ! Happy New Year to you both x
Good to hear from others retiring early. I swapped one car to electric (i3rex) and bought a house battery, this reduced my electric bills to almost zero and no petrol/diesel bill to speak of. I already had solar and shares in ripple energy wind farm. It makes sense to reduce your outgoing for essentials .
As solar becomes more main stream and sophisticated it is something we may look into and hopefully there may be some grants available to help get things set up in the future - but at the moment our electric bill is only about £50 a month and there is no gas so we are quite energy efficient 😊
Hi, when you do the calculations remember to include petrol savings, electricity drops from 26p to 7p per kwh, you get paid 15p per kwh that you don’t use and export to the grid. Ripple is returning about 10% at the moment. So it isn’t just the one bill, plus EVs typically need less maintenance so budget halving of that bill too. It is actually way more difficult to predict than I thought but so far I am glad I secured a low cost future free of inflation and energy shocks. The ability to run the house in a power cut is a soft benefit that I haven’t needed so far.
Brilliant Video! First time to this channel. Congratulations to you both on the life you live! 👏 Living the dream by working hard and thoroughly planning it out, very inspirational. You both look very happy and that you are enjoying the life you have created. Fair play to you!! I will be watching back some of your previous videos. I like the look of the mixture of travel videos and a few book reviews in there too. You have a new subscriber in me. Mark, 37 Lincoln.
Thanks Mark and welcome to the channel. It's great to hear that you like the eclectic mixture of videos that we put out - it is all about our early retired lifestyle - both travel and how we live a retired life. I guess we are still a little in teacher mode 😂
Thanks so much. Fantastic info, so good to be able to measure our theoretical retirement pot against all that you guys do and feel confident that we are on the right track.🎉
It’s a strange one talking about budgets as everyone has very different views and expectations on what you can live on comfortably- having an extra stream of income that still allows us to travel and do what we love is a real life saver
Thanks so much for sharing. The transparency is really refreshing and appreciated. We are not quite there yet, but it feels very doable in the near future. Thank you and looking forward to your 2025 content 😊❤
Thank you ☺️ I find it harder to keep track when we tap and go especially if you are away for a weekend and you get back and check your transactions and go 😳 what did we buy. The run up to Christmas was a good example of that 🤣 but we are back on it now
Thank you Graham - it is something that we get asked about all the time - hopefully it helps people considering early retirement or just retirement in general 😊
Thank you for this. It’s really helpful to have some actual real life numbers. Especially as we are now planning for our retirement which is almost a decade away. I think someone else has mentioned it but I can highly recommend a bank account that allows you to have different pots. We use Starling and you can even get a virtual card so you could easily replace cash with a pot to keep tracks of everything. We also use it to pay a fixed amount into individual pots each month to cover this annual costs and car servicing, it helps make them become fixed costs. And the adverts are annoying but it’s worth it to hear your real life experiences! Thank you.
We have literally just opened a starling account after our Thailand trip where NatWest were diabolical with their charges using a card abroad and we are in the process of swapping things over. Our kids are going to show us how they set up all their pots this while we are all away skiing 😊 thanks for watching
@ it’s a shame Starling don’t pay interest unless it’s a saving space (which you can’t have from a joint account). The spaces are great and the virtual card you can have is a fantastic idea. When we go away we just add a virtual card to our Apple Pay and then use that. So easy.
great insight guys and we try and do the weekly thing you talked about in another video. Living in the van saves us a lot of money for the normal utilities. However we took the cottage for the winter and have realised a return to the van in April to run the campsite is a must! We have a small contingency fund for emergencies which we never touch if possible. Thanks Dave
Sounds great Dave. We love our time in our campervan, but we also love returning to our "base" when we are not travelling. It still feels like returning to a cozy little holiday home👍 Thanks for the comment🙏
Hi Richard and Jackie. Myself and my partner have really enjoyed watching your channel for over a year now. Thankyou for being so open in general and about your budget. Its really helpful to know what will work. Its amazing that you've packed in so much travel and I cant believe that you are off again so quickly after Thailand! The new intro is fine as was the old one, but please, please, please dont ever change the outro music! Its so perfect for your videos! I actually went and looked up what it was - its become our little in joke that we hum it to each other sometimes when discussing the future together 😃🚐
Thanks for this Keith- we both LOL at your comment about the outro music😂 We are so glad that you are enjoying what we do and it is proving some worth. Thanks for the comment👍
Very insightful, I am retiring early this year and I am very nervous about if I have enough pension and savings, luckily my wife has agreed to work another year so this will allow me to get use to a reduced income over 12months. Thanks for the video. I am also thinking of finding a part time job if I have to as a last resort. Lee.
It is quite a daunting feeling when you make the final decision to retire and I remember feeling quite panicky after handing in our notice as it feels so final. We quickly realised nothing actually has to be permanent - retiring early is reversible if the worst came to the worst but like you say, the more likely outcome is maybe doing some part time work in a less stressful job to top up your income. All the best with both of your plans - we have not got any regrets after over 2.5 years 😊
My favourite tip was how you practiced living on the retirement budget BEFORE you retired. Not only was it a reality check but as you said it meant you saved a bit more for the day you stopped working. We found that once we retired, saving money became a hobby in itself.
That was really helpful. I am retiring early soon and have a gap to finance. I enjoy travelling too. I was hoping around £40 K per year as a singleton would be reasonably comfortable, and I was glad to hear your year cost £34 K, so it looks in the right ballpark. Thanks for being so clear and transparent. By the way, your food looks wonderful!
Thanks for your kind words. We are really glad that the content resonated and was of use to you. We are really happy with the budget we have and the compromises we have made to get there- it has led to a really fulfilling early retirement so far. We are no chefs, but we love our home cooked food- and it means we can keep things on budget😂 Thanks for the support👍
Great video Richard and Jackie - I always enjoy your vlogs but found this one particularly inspiring. Will be popping it in my favourites and showing it to my wife ☺️ We’re a similar age to you and I’ve been working out how we can “escape” early and trying to get our outgoings down. I enjoy cutting back on everyday expenses, but was worried about ensuring we included enough for fun stuff like travelling (we have a campervan too!) You have shown that it’s possible to have a great life with plenty of travel but still not spend silly money, it’s very encouraging. More of this type of vlog please 🙏 😊
Glad you found it helpful - we love the fact that in the uk we can pack up the van with our normal weekly shop, wild camp a couple of nights a few nights on a campsite and we are still in our weekly budget if we are careful. It is a really scary big leap of faith to actually early retire and as we said we did need to find an income stream in order to be able to travel - Airbnb was going to be our go to option with a few hrs of tutoring that we could do remotely. We were surprised at how many options there are actually available with some creative thinking to gain a small income. Something a couple of our subscribers have mentioned they do is house and pet sitting which helps them travel to different locations for free or a small income.
Yes that’s the beauty of the campervan - it’s not for everyone, but we enjoy the simple life. That’s interesting - I have factored in a bit of side hustle income in my plans - partly for financial reasons, but also to retain some sense of purpose after retirement, in place of work. Many thanks again 👍🏻
Great candid and insightful video, really helping us get ready for our own retirement. I am really pleased to hear you are making some money on TH-cam…to get a return on something like your videos that all of us get for free is brilliant, well done and keep ‘em coming ! ❤️
We set a budget then remembered we hadn't got a pot for incidentals like coffee, bus fares, clothes shopping, going to gigs, books, online shopping, hobbies etc. We set aside £7k but in reality this is less than £10 each per day. It's amazing how the little things add up.
It's the incidentals that really do add up, and also the unpredictable expenses- that's why we really do need a contingency pot...other wise we are living in la-la land with a budget that is unrealistic. 👍
Love watching you both. Useful and informative budgeting. While I very much see where you are coming from with your TH-cam funding, I think everyone is different and particularly some younger people may be unable to make the same principled choices as you for financial reasons. Sadly I have also seen some limit audiences because of hateful comments.
Thanks for this Gill- very much appreciated. We have noticed that retirement is quite an emotive subject on the web with some people having some pretty strong views on it. We do not ATM. We absolutely agree with the point you raised about the younger generation- it is so true. 👍
Excellent video, so much of your advice we're already incorporating into our less work more adventuring future we've been planning the last couple of years.
Thank you for sharing how you manage your finances, so helpful and interesting. Well done on living life to the full in such a careful way. Safe travels to the Alps, looking forward to more videos of your adventures.❤🏔️❄️🚐😍 xxx
Thanks Janet - we are nearly there - tucked up in a little aire just above Geneva. budgeting is something we get asked about a lot because of the amount we travel x
I would recommend starting your own log pile, wood needs to be cut and left for a min of 6 - 9 months. That way you can burn has much has you like. I would collect fallen branches when younger.
When we get back from skiing - our first proper job in the garden is to make a proper log store and start stockpiling wood 🪵😊 It also cheaper to buy it in bulk - our neighbours have given us a couple of great suppliers so we will go to it with a will and be ahead of the game for next winter! Thanks for watching 😊
I'm with you- cash is king :-) I laughed at R getting to hold the money. When we travel we do a daily allocation- I hold the wad of cash but my husband holds the "daily" amount and will buy the things we need as we go- neither of us will ever give up the role we hold- I love the allocation- he likes holding the $$$. We always think- we can do anything BUT just not all at once! Great vid!
Thanks for this- we love your arrangements😂 When we were in work, I never had any responsibility for anything when we were on holiday, Jackie looked after all the cash and I wandered round blissfully unaware of anything. I think that it has transitioned across into our retirement😂 Occasionaly she does allow me to look after the weekly allocation and I love it...but quite happy to hand responsibility over at the end of the week👍 Thanks for the support🙏
Love this,i am not there but can't believe how much of this is inline with my thinking,sadly i cant do the travel as wife disabled but lots of watersport stuff i can do to keep myself busy living near south coast. I have effectively been testing my retirement budget for a few years as what i think i need is based on the current money i spend after saving huge chunk to works pension and cash to retire asap. All very interesting especially the last bit with your overall spending including 30 weeks traveling coming in for both of you at just a few grand more than the "expert" opinion on a "moderate" retirement for a single person.Can see you are pretty sensible with the budget but struggle to see how 30 weeks traveling a year can be considered closer to a minimum than moderate standard of living and really shows how important it is for people to ignore some of the nonsense guides and do their own calculations based on individual circumstances and expectations and go for it before its too late!
Thanks for this Ollie- we think that you are spot on in your assesment of this. There is so much advice out their, you could almost get into a state of decision paralysis if you thought about it all. The thing we have always done is take the advice at face value and then spend time thinking about how it applies to us. There is no one size fits all in retirement, it is an entirely individual situation. We just try to lead as a fulfilled life as possible and work with what we have got. We absolutly agree that life is short, and that is the main driving force behind everything that we do as a couple and as individuals. Thanks for the support👍
I know how much effort a TH-camr has to put in for us the viewer to watch a 20 - 50 min video as I know a couple of the car TH-cam people . ( a five day shoot because of bad weather many many hours of editing for a sub one hour film). You deserve every penny you can make
Thank you - Richard has honed his editing skills and can now turn a video round in a couple of days depending what the subject is - we still enjoy what we do which is the main thing 😊
Hi, just come across your channel over the last week as we are planning a trip to Shetland in our MoHo this year and did a YT search. Really enjoying watching your videos, great content and you show the places you visit really well 😊
Welcome to the channel. We absolutely loved our 2 weeks on the Shetland Islands - there is so much to see and explore, the beaches were wonderful and if you are there may - early August the puffins are adorable! Have a great trip 🚐
Thanks Angela- we thought that you might like this one. (There is a good spreadsheet behind it all😉) Hope you guys are keeping well and having a fab time👍
I like your new intro music. Good advice. Set a budget and control expenditure. I am a great fan of spreadsheets and monitored all our costs so if we overspent one month we could cut back the next. December was always an expensive month, but January was a cheap month using up left overs. I used to add car servicing and insurance costs into my fixed costs so that I have enough saved up for that regular time of year. Also I would save some money for travel each month, but big adventures came out of savings. We downsized our house, which did not produce a huge amount of capital after legal and agents costs, but is has given us a smaller more economical house to run. We can also walk to Booths to do our shopping, so we hardly use our car. Now we are 66 we get free bus passes, which opens up all sort of travel options ( there are some great TH-cam channels on this). Hope you enjoy the alps, although we have plenty of snow on the Dales. Phil
Thanks Phil- after 2 years with the old intro, we figured we needed a refresh. We find it really useful to have our monthly review where we go through all our spends. Agreed that you have to take a more holistic approach than simply bottom line figures. We have found that our use of contingency funds monthly and annually really help with the inevitable surprises. We know a lot of people who are shifting to public transport around their hiking trails- we are quite impressed with how the Dales have it set up...although we have quite a time to wait for our bus passes. You might be interested in our observations on our downsizing in an upcoming video we have in the pipeline.👍
Absolutely brilliant that you are happy to share actual numbers. There are loads of early retirement youtubers - but you never know the actual numbers. I think there is room in the market for people to share actual numbers. We are currently in the pre-retirement testing phase and working on £550 Bills (includes heating) and £1200 per month for Living (food, going out etc). Like you "big holidays" come from outside that budget. One observation - I assume your teachers pension is £2000 per month for life plus inflation. So when you are 66/67 you will then get state pension which will be a massive payrise :-)
Thank you - it is something we have been asked about many times and I know we struggled to find much out there to help us when we were trying to work out budgets to retire early. Obviously everyone will have a different budget they have to stick to and some people would not want to scrimp and save but for us it is plenty to do what we want. We have also clocked that at 67 it will be happy days!! We are hoping if we get our new van next year when we can access our teachers pension and lump sum, then we won't need to replace cars or vans until we get our state pension, same for doing any big jobs on the house if needed 😊
Great channel. Observation: in one of your videos you talk about being away from your home for 30/52 weeks whilst you travel. By not renting out your home to fellow tourists etc you are missing out on £20k a year by letting your family stay there for free. Also don't buy logs by the bag. instead build a wood store in the garden and get a delivery (£180 for the winter).
Thanks for this- really valid points. When we first renovated our cottage, we did think about rentals for when we are away, but we love our house so much we couldnt face doing it, and financially we can just about manage so we decided not to take that route. The log store is on the agenda for the spring when we get home👍 Thanks for the comment🙏
Thank you for this excellent video. My husband will be retiring later this year and we are becoming much more focused on cutting out things that don't add value. For example, a sandwich and drink at a service station because we didn't pack sandwiches is a no, however, tea and cake on an otherwise inexpensive day out might be worth it and we appreciate it all the more. We have a daughter who's in Australia at the moment and one of our sons is about to move to Canada so we potentially have some big trips to save up for!
2 exciting potential big trips - both on our bucket list 😊 we have just had our home made butties in a french service station using up the cheese from our fridge 🤣
Got to say me and my wife are retire we planning are hols for this year with are Auto-Sleeper. We had motorhome 18 years ago going back on the road. Any way nice video take care both off you see you next time .
Once again very informative, thank you. We shop at Booths for the ‘meat deals’ when we are at our caravan but find it very expensive for run of the mill stuff. 12 months ago we swapped to Aldi from Morrisons (both at home and at the caravan) and are saving on average £15 per week.
Thanks for this Jill- when we moved to the Dales we were gobsmacked by the Booths meat deal...we use that deal a lot, but like you, would not shop there for our staples. Funnily enough, our kids and any visitors to the house love a little visit to Booths😂 We are also avid Aldi shoppers for our main shopping- and we always have been. We just need to be more organised as our closest Aldi is now 20 miles away😬
Another excellent video. We're just starting our "budget year" to see how much our house/lifestyle costs over 12 months. From that figure we can then finalise a date in the future as to when tell the boss to ........😂
Thank you! Always best to have your ducks in a row before telling the boss the good news (for you😂) We quite liked the time testing out the budget- it helped us realise how wasteful we had been in the past and how much we could really save in that test period. Good luck and enjoy👍
So true re coffee and cake expense. I made a boiled fruit cake and a date and pecan loaf recently after seeing slices in a cafe at £4.50 per portion! My bakes portioned out at those prices would be £36 per cake. Unbelievable.
The maths of it is quite scary...but we don't begrudge cafe owners making a profit as it must be so difficult these days. For us, we now treat our cake as a real event- rather than something that we do on a regular basis. There is nothing better than a piece of cake and a big pot of tea after a cold winter walk in the hills. BTW- your cake options sound fab❤️
Well done on your retirement plans.I cant help but feel you enjoy saving money rather then spending it.Have you a target of how much money in the bank you want when you die ? Its a horrible question.I asked it my self when I retired at 56,4 years ago.I only ever worked in a factory.I get a brand new MX5 every 3 years now.The last one was more or less £40,000.I pay for them on my debit card(no finance/loans).I aren't dieing with a load of money in the money in the bank.I'm spending and enjoying it whilst I can.
Loving the new intro 😊 Thanks for being open about your spending - it’s so helpful. I don’t use cash as it’s not accepted in many places , but what I did last year when I took a break from work was to load up two debit cards with my spending money for the month. One was for shopping and petrol and the other was for personal spending. I found this worked really well. When it’s gone it’s gone! Can I ask how you get paid if any of your subscribers pay TH-cam monthly for the ad free version? Do you receive a % of that?
That is also a great idea which we could do now as we opened a new bank account for our travels that does not have any charges abroad - we could just put our £200 in there each week. You are right it is getting harder to pay cash in some places Good question - yes we still get a small payment from the people who are onTH-cam premium - not sure how it is calculated?
Thanks for such a detailed break down. You guys are helping to sway my hubby towards early retirement ! I retired from the nhs last year and am now running a little air B and B attached to our home, so let me know if you need any air B and B tips if you decide to rent out the cottage . Mandy x
Thank you - it is something we might still consider in the future - for now our kids and family are making the most of us being away - they all see it as their little holiday cottage in the Dales 😂 I have had to train them all to change and wash the bedding before they leave so we don't have to do it!
Hi Jackie & Richard, I really enjoy your pragmatic approach to budgeting, it's both insightful and inspiring! If it's not too personal a financial question, when you mentioned receiving a £2K-a-month teacher's pension, is that combined or £2K each? I hope it's the latter, as that should certainly provide a comfortable retirement, especially when supplemented by your state pensions. Keep up the fantastic work, and thank you for sharing your wisdom! Best regards, James
Thanks for your lovely comment 😊 It will be just over £2000 between us - maybe a little more as they have had a couple of pyrites since we retired. I only worked part time and had time off with the children - Richards is the main pension. When we get the state pension it will feel like we are back in luxury!
I got involved in leading walking history tours in my home City for 3 years. I did this via MeetUp and people gave me ‘tips’ or bought me a coffee via an app. I didn’t want to make a profit so mostly the income simply covered all my costs which included paying for MeetUp and public liability insurance etc, so in effect I had a great hobby that paid for itself.
Fantastic video guys. Being very close to retirement. The breakdown on expenses is very informative. Like yourselves we are currently on schedule to retire early with only two DD. We intend using the cash is king mind set I did read somewhere ur 8 x more likely to buy non essential items if u use a credit card over cash. Richard Just as a follow on that no one tends to answer what would u say would be a good / average rainy day fund I know this is different for everyone but what would you think mid 50s with no debt would be a good rainy day sum to keep topped up. Thanx
Thanks for this Alan- we love the soundbite stat' of cash is king. It certainly feels like that. We have definitely found that our spending has become more intentional since using cash. The rainy day fund is a really tough question to answer, as how much is really enough? We are quite conservative in our risk management so we always have more than we probably need. It would be wrong to put a specific value on it as everyone's circumstances are different, but assessing potential risk factors is a key starting point. For instance we have a contingency fund put to one side for our septic tank, as we have a known risk that someday that will need replacing. Once we feel happy that we have our risks covered, our rainy day fund is complete. Hope this helps without dodging the question😉 Thanks for the support👍
@@earlyretirementwanderlust I like your forward planing on Risk and rainy day funds. Iv never really thought about drilling it down where possible to itemise risks but it makes sense. I know So many ex colleagues Who have retired with great cash sums and years later have never Spent a penny. I just see that as experiences lost. Love the channel you too guys are truly inspirational love watching your videos and alternative life choices.
I'm very fortunate and have retired early (a few years ago now at 51). I'm still in the mindset where I have a hard time spending money, worrying whether I have enough. Thank you for sharing your numbers. It's so helpful to compare to you guys because you live similarly (but with more travel) to me. My goal for 2025 is to loosen up a bit and do more traveling, to enjoy my life and to share more of what I have. Happy New Year to you both!
Thanks for this Robin. From what we have read- this is a really common issue with retirees and we have spent our whole lives being conditioned into saving for our future, and we don't really know how to let go. There are some staggering data from US studies show that even in late retirement, many retirees are still accruing wealth for "a rainy day" and never get the joy of using it. Obviously there is a balance between spending intentionally and spending irresponsibly.
Thanks for the support and Happy New Year to you too👍
Same. I haven't retired but all my debts are paid and house is owned so I'm now moving into full savings mode. However I have to learn to loosen up and change my mindset and start living a bit more. Very hard when you've worked and saved your whole life.
So true great comment. 😊 @@earlyretirementwanderlust
You Tubers with integrity. Quite unusual these days but thank you for staying true to your own guiding principles. Love your content x
Thank you ☺️
You guys are absolute legends. So relatable, so honest, so natural on camera. Your success is well deserved 🙂
Thank you - we do really enjoy what we are doing which helps
Thank you for sharing so openly. Very interesting and informative.
Glad you enjoyed it and found it helpful 😊
This is your best video yet regarding early retirement. The figures are also great info, it gives people an idea of just what can be achieved when you look after your finances.
Thank you...feedback like this really does make a difference to us when we read it🙏. Glad that the extra detail helped👍
Greetings from North bay Ontario. Thank you for not doing Patreon etc. I have followed several people from their start only to get shut out when they went Patreon. It felt like all my early support was tossed aside. I am 78, born and bred in Brum. But emigrated to Canada in 1967. You should plan a trip to Nova Scotia where my husband and I lived for 50 years. But not just the usual Cape Breton and Peggy's cove. Travel the south shore and enjoy some awesome beaches and villages. Sadly, after 52 years together my precious husband died. so PLEASE. Enjoy every lovely minute together...it is so quickly taken from us.
No worries - not something we will ever do 😊
We are hoping one day to take our new van over to Canada and tour between there and the US - there is a company that ships them into Halifax - Nova Scotia 🚐 Sorry to hear about your husband - I can imagine after 52 years there is a huge empty space. We are certainly having a good go at making memories and making the most of our precious time together.
@@earlyretirementwanderlust If you take the South Shore route from Halifax, very near Liverpool is Kejimekujik National park where you can camp on a lot in your van. Or park your van and canoe the awesome lake to one of several isolated sites on little islands where you can camp.. There was nothing to beat a skinny dip at our rmote site with nothing but the Loons ( birds) to see us:):) It is awesome. We did that a lot.
@christinebrush4399 sounds fantastic ❤️
Just come across this channel right up my street fair play to the 2 of you
Thank you - glad you found it interesting 😊
You have good values and set a wonderful example. Thank you for sharing. I just became‘unemployed’ 8 days ago! and using the next few months to see if I can make it permanent… you give me lots to think about and action. Thanks
Thanks for this JC- gutted for you about the job situation, but if something positive for you comes out of it that will be ace. We love what we do, but we think about every expense, and actually say no to way more stuff than we say yes to. It is really quite refreshing and becomes a real habit.
Best of luck with your planning, which ever way you choose to play it. 👍
Found your videos today. Very inspiring and you’re both great in front of the camera. Look forward to watching more 😊
Thanks so much! 😊 Glad you have found them interesting. It has taken some getting used to talking in front of a camera but we are getting there!
Thanks for being so transparent with your numbers. Your income from Google is well deserved for the very interesting content you provide to this community. ❤
I appreciate that! We do really enjoy what we are doing x
Thanks for sharing your real numbers. Many aren’t willing to do that. You’ve had an amazing year and the channel is growing nicely.
You are quite welcome- we decided that we weren't giving away state secrets, so we were ok with that. Hope it helped? 👍
@ definitely! It’s nice to see you have a realistic budget and costs. Many early retirement groups mention pots worth millions and expensive lifestyles. It’s good to see it can be done. My numbers are close to yours.
We’ve also retired early, me at 60 and my wife at 53 and we also have a VW Campervan. We try to get away at least once a month for a week and we have a longer trip each September (we have other commitments in the summer on certain days of the week). We’ve been all over the UK in our van but we’ve not yet been abroad in it. We’ve had it for just over 5 years now. You give a great insight into your life and give us some good ideas of places to go.
Thanks Trevor...we have found that our little van has changed our life for the better over the 7 years we have owned him. It brings us so much joy when we are out and about👍 Glad that you are finding the same.
Thanks for the positive feedback. It is always greatly appreciated🙏
All good info and tips, but the most important lesson here is for couples to be on the same page and rowing in the same direction!
Absolutely - it would be so hard if we both wanted different things in our early retirement or if one of us resented having to budget carefully 😊
Another wonderful video, the full disclosure and transparency is so refreshing. Thank you, happy travels.
Glad you enjoyed it! It is something we get asked about an awful lot as I think it is the biggest concern people have - will I have enough money to live on?
Very interesting watch… thank you for sharing what for many are personal details. Some very good points and advice here.
We have been asked quite frequently what our budget is like - I think it is a stumbling block for many people knowing if you will have enough to live off.
As a couple who are close to retirement and have set up a travel TH-cam channel 7 months ago, I really enjoyed your video. Thank you for sharing your journey. As a current teacher, I’m hoping this will keep not mind active when I get to retire. ❤ thank you
It's a pleasure - it sounds like you are on a similar journey to us! For Richard particularly - TH-cam has helped give him a purpose and he enjoys the challenge of learning all the new skills needed. Good luck with all your plans - when do you retire?
@ we are a bit off yet (54 and 55 this year) but we are thinking about early retirement. I watched your travels through Thailand recently and we are in Australia so are going to try 3 months in Thailand and Vietnam this year to see what the realities of the budget are. We are going to TH-cam our experiences to share with others who are contemplating the same. Simon is actually English from Merseyside. Anyway thanks for the videos. I do enjoy watching others approach to long term travel and retirement.
Thanks for the rundown! I think you really hit the nail on the head when you talked about skipping the tea out in town. Sometimes we want things but don't really need them, at least not enough to pay such a premium for them, and your method of having cash definitely makes you more aware of what you are spending. Of course, you may decide to splurge, but you are still aware, which I feel is the important part!
What I do like is that it does feel like a treat when we splurge out a little whereas when we were working we enjoyed going out regularly but it was just the normal thing we did - now it is a real luxury!
@@earlyretirementwanderlust It's amazing what a little bit of perspective will do!
Loved this video. You guys are a great inspiration for younger people. I retired aged 45 in 2015. I couldn't have done it without hard sacrifices throughout my working years and you guys show how it can be done practically moving forward. Also, use a pre-paid card and top it up with £200 every week.
Thank you - we know we are lucky to have been able to stick to our plans and retire early - and as you say a few sacrifices in our working years helped - we never lived a lavish life style eating out a lot so we are comfortable with the life that we now live. We have opened an online bank account now where we can pot our money into different pots for spending so may resort to using that if it does keep getting harder to spend cash!
Living the dream 🎉 well done guys we're also retired and having the best time of our lives. 😊🎉 thank you for sharing your top tips. Rosie O 🏴
You are quite welcome Rosie🙏
Really well done. Practical and with good principles. Have a good time skiing!
Thank you - just driven an hour through snow blizzards in Northern France - good job we have the all season tyres for the mountains!
Another great video. So appreciate your candour with real sums. It’s reassured me I am on track 😊
I’m also really pleased you are getting money out of Google they can afford it! Respect for maintaining your values sponsorship/patreons.
Excited to see how the year unfolds, enjoy your travels. 😊
Thanks for this- we are glad that you recognise what we are trying to do.
We are also exited for the year ahead, as we genuinely have hardly any plans compared to this time last year. Who knows where it will take us?
Thanks as always for the support👍
Another fantastic and honest vlog with some great advice. Certainly something to take on board. Just need some of your willpower 😂
The will power comes from being determined to be able to fit in as much travel as we can on our budget - whenever we think about having a treat meal out we think about that money paying for another campsite instead!!
What an excellent video! I feel like I say this all the time but I incorporate many of your savings, cooking and well-being strategies into our family life and it has been really good for us! Thanks Jackie and Richard! ❤
You are so welcome Sharon - it feels strange talking about our finances but it a question we get asked so much!
A budget is a must and the dinners looked nice - Getting hungry now - Greetings from NZ :)
Thanks- we love our home cooking❤️
Thanks for being so open about your finances. I appreciate it a lot.
It is strange talking about finances but budgets but it is something so many people worry about x
Congrats. A very enjoyable 20 min watch ❤
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks again for another great video. As I approach early retirement myself (at 55, in a few months time) there’s always some good advice or ideas I pick up from your videos.
I have very recently imparted the same budgeting advice to my adult daughter, who is living on her own and managing household expenses for the first time. Whilst I agree with the “Cash is King!” statement, it can become a little difficult when also spending on a card (online purchases). I think the underlying strength of this strategy is knowing what you can spend on a weekly basis and the transparency of what you have. For my daughter, her bank account offers the ability to segregate money into “pots”. (I believe there many accounts out there with this ability). When she now gets paid, she sets aside her weekly pots for the month ahead and focuses on making those last for the allocated weeks. Very easy to track online and allows for both cash withdrawals and online spends.
Maybe worth considering for yourselves, if you’ve sometimes found the cash points have run dry!
We have done the same with our 2 children who have both bought houses in the last 12 months. They both have starling bank accounts and that they make use of all the different pots to save and budget from. When we came back from Thailand the first thing we did was open a starling account as they don't make huge charges when using you card abroad - we might look into making a spending pot 😊
Always a great video ;) Loving the numbers 👍. So simple really 🤔 ❤🇬🇧👍
Thanks! 😃
Hi guys. I just found this channel and love it! Especially this budgeting advice, really helpful 🎉
Welcome to the channel, glad you are enjoying some of our content 😊
a very practical outlook and refreshing viewpoint. Thought provoking! thanks
Thanks for this Suzanne- glad that you found it of use👍
Thanks for sharing your numbers. This sort of real world data is incredibly useful
Glad you found it useful - it is something we have been asked about by lots of people 😊
Many thanks for sharing your real numbers. Makes me realise that you can have an amazing time without spending a huge amount. Please keep up your great work.
Thanks Debbie for such kind words- glad that it resonated with you. 👍
Great video. I love the fact you guys are very honest in what you spend. The cash is king principle is a great idea. Have a great trip 😊
Thank you! cash is king definitely works for us x
I really liked this video and got a lot of value from it. Thanks
Glad it was helpful!
Great video - gave out real relatable examples.
Glad you liked it!
Well done you too for been so candid. We run a spread sheet every 3 months. Microsoft office now charge to use excel so moved to Google sheets , free and just as good. Our cottage only has electricity and a multi fuel . £12 coal lasts us 4 days . We also have a dual electric tarrif which is great. Very keen on DIY which helps. Learn most tips on TH-cam. Locally we share tools, which may involve buying someone a pint! Keep up the good work. Thanks
Thanks for this Brian- yep gutted about the Excel subscription. We are staying with it for the moment as we use PP so much in our YT stuff. Seems that a lot of companies are jumping on the bandwagon with subscriptions- we had to let Adobe Lightroom go as it was getting outrageous. Adobe are terrible for this.
Love the idea of sharing tools...what a great community project, no matter how informal...and it involves pints- BONUS!
Thanks for the support👍
Thank you for sharing your budget, it certainly gives us food for thought. Happy travels
Glad it was helpful!
Wow! Impressive what you accomplished and the high quality of life you’ve had on what seems to me to still be a very small income! Thank you for sharing!
Thank you - we certainly try and make every penny count and still be able to get away travelling as much as possible 🚐
Love these videos. Thanks and have a great trip in France. Bon voyage!
Thank you - we are in a lovely little town below Dijon tonight
We always enjoy hearing how other people budge and control their spending. We really shy away from cash and much prefer using the record keeping of our online banks to monitor and track against our budget. Carry on with the great content
Thanks for this Becky...I guess that we are not as comfortable with our online banking as others. Our kids are amazing and rarely carry cash...much to our bemusement!
Thanks for your support👍
Thank you Jackie & Richard. Very informative and inspiring vlog once again. Love your channel and look forward to seeing where 2025 will take you ! Happy New Year to you both x
Thanks Allison for your continued support of the channel and what we do. It is very much appreciated🙏 Happy New Year to you too. 👍
Thank you so much for sharing your journey! As a teacher myself this is inspirational.
You are quite welcome. We are loving what we do...as you can probably tell😉
In our humble opinion, you are in the best profession in the world👍
Good to hear from others retiring early. I swapped one car to electric (i3rex) and bought a house battery, this reduced my electric bills to almost zero and no petrol/diesel bill to speak of. I already had solar and shares in ripple energy wind farm. It makes sense to reduce your outgoing for essentials .
As solar becomes more main stream and sophisticated it is something we may look into and hopefully there may be some grants available to help get things set up in the future - but at the moment our electric bill is only about £50 a month and there is no gas so we are quite energy efficient 😊
Hi, when you do the calculations remember to include petrol savings, electricity drops from 26p to 7p per kwh, you get paid 15p per kwh that you don’t use and export to the grid. Ripple is returning about 10% at the moment. So it isn’t just the one bill, plus EVs typically need less maintenance so budget halving of that bill too. It is actually way more difficult to predict than I thought but so far I am glad I secured a low cost future free of inflation and energy shocks. The ability to run the house in a power cut is a soft benefit that I haven’t needed so far.
Brilliant Video! First time to this channel. Congratulations to you both on the life you live! 👏 Living the dream by working hard and thoroughly planning it out, very inspirational. You both look very happy and that you are enjoying the life you have created. Fair play to you!! I will be watching back some of your previous videos. I like the look of the mixture of travel videos and a few book reviews in there too. You have a new subscriber in me. Mark, 37 Lincoln.
Thanks Mark and welcome to the channel. It's great to hear that you like the eclectic mixture of videos that we put out - it is all about our early retired lifestyle - both travel and how we live a retired life. I guess we are still a little in teacher mode 😂
Thanks so much. Fantastic info, so good to be able to measure our theoretical retirement pot against all that you guys do and feel confident that we are on the right track.🎉
It’s a strange one talking about budgets as everyone has very different views and expectations on what you can live on comfortably- having an extra stream of income that still allows us to travel and do what we love is a real life saver
Great little watch , you both inspire us to live life to the full .
Thank you ☺️
Thanks so much for sharing. The transparency is really refreshing and appreciated. We are not quite there yet, but it feels very doable in the near future. Thank you and looking forward to your 2025 content 😊❤
Thanks for your ongoing support of the channel and all that we do Michelle. It is very much appreciated👍 Have a good one too🙏
Brilliant, my wife is retiring from teaching early @ 55…. Your videos are helping her to understand that we need to budget lol…
😊
Glad they are of some help 😊
A great timely video to remind me to grip those ‘budgetary reigns’ for 2025! 😊👍 Many thanks for sharing.
Thanks Jan - we are back on it 😊
Some great insights here both. Love the way you set out your budget. We are similar, however still tap and go! Like the cash idea 💡
Thank you ☺️ I find it harder to keep track when we tap and go especially if you are away for a weekend and you get back and check your transactions and go 😳 what did we buy.
The run up to Christmas was a good example of that 🤣 but we are back on it now
This is a really useful video. It’s full of handy tips. Thanks.
Thank you Graham - it is something that we get asked about all the time - hopefully it helps people considering early retirement or just retirement in general 😊
Thank you for this. It’s really helpful to have some actual real life numbers. Especially as we are now planning for our retirement which is almost a decade away.
I think someone else has mentioned it but I can highly recommend a bank account that allows you to have different pots. We use Starling and you can even get a virtual card so you could easily replace cash with a pot to keep tracks of everything.
We also use it to pay a fixed amount into individual pots each month to cover this annual costs and car servicing, it helps make them become fixed costs.
And the adverts are annoying but it’s worth it to hear your real life experiences! Thank you.
We have literally just opened a starling account after our Thailand trip where NatWest were diabolical with their charges using a card abroad and we are in the process of swapping things over. Our kids are going to show us how they set up all their pots this while we are all away skiing 😊 thanks for watching
@ it’s a shame Starling don’t pay interest unless it’s a saving space (which you can’t have from a joint account). The spaces are great and the virtual card you can have is a fantastic idea. When we go away we just add a virtual card to our Apple Pay and then use that. So easy.
great insight guys and we try and do the weekly thing you talked about in another video. Living in the van saves us a lot of money for the normal utilities. However we took the cottage for the winter and have realised a return to the van in April to run the campsite is a must! We have a small contingency fund for emergencies which we never touch if possible. Thanks Dave
Sounds great Dave. We love our time in our campervan, but we also love returning to our "base" when we are not travelling. It still feels like returning to a cozy little holiday home👍
Thanks for the comment🙏
Hi Richard and Jackie. Myself and my partner have really enjoyed watching your channel for over a year now. Thankyou for being so open in general and about your budget. Its really helpful to know what will work. Its amazing that you've packed in so much travel and I cant believe that you are off again so quickly after Thailand!
The new intro is fine as was the old one, but please, please, please dont ever change the outro music! Its so perfect for your videos! I actually went and looked up what it was - its become our little in joke that we hum it to each other sometimes when discussing the future together 😃🚐
Thanks for this Keith- we both LOL at your comment about the outro music😂
We are so glad that you are enjoying what we do and it is proving some worth.
Thanks for the comment👍
Very insightful, I am retiring early this year and I am very nervous about if I have enough pension and savings, luckily my wife has agreed to work another year so this will allow me to get use to a reduced income over 12months. Thanks for the video. I am also thinking of finding a part time job if I have to as a last resort. Lee.
It is quite a daunting feeling when you make the final decision to retire and I remember feeling quite panicky after handing in our notice as it feels so final. We quickly realised nothing actually has to be permanent - retiring early is reversible if the worst came to the worst but like you say, the more likely outcome is maybe doing some part time work in a less stressful job to top up your income. All the best with both of your plans - we have not got any regrets after over 2.5 years 😊
My favourite tip was how you practiced living on the retirement budget BEFORE you retired. Not only was it a reality check but as you said it meant you saved a bit more for the day you stopped working. We found that once we retired, saving money became a hobby in itself.
Thanks for this Simon, it is true, it really did help us to reframe our thinking and prepare for living more simply...which we love👍
That is very interesting to see a proper breakdown of what you spend😊
It is strange talking about budgets but it is something so many people worry about x
That was really helpful. I am retiring early soon and have a gap to finance. I enjoy travelling too. I was hoping around £40 K per year as a singleton would be reasonably comfortable, and I was glad to hear your year cost £34 K, so it looks in the right ballpark. Thanks for being so clear and transparent. By the way, your food looks wonderful!
Thanks for your kind words. We are really glad that the content resonated and was of use to you. We are really happy with the budget we have and the compromises we have made to get there- it has led to a really fulfilling early retirement so far.
We are no chefs, but we love our home cooked food- and it means we can keep things on budget😂
Thanks for the support👍
Really good advice, thank you for sharing 😊
You are welcome! 😊
Great video Richard and Jackie - I always enjoy your vlogs but found this one particularly inspiring. Will be popping it in my favourites and showing it to my wife ☺️ We’re a similar age to you and I’ve been working out how we can “escape” early and trying to get our outgoings down. I enjoy cutting back on everyday expenses, but was worried about ensuring we included enough for fun stuff like travelling (we have a campervan too!) You have shown that it’s possible to have a great life with plenty of travel but still not spend silly money, it’s very encouraging. More of this type of vlog please 🙏 😊
Glad you found it helpful - we love the fact that in the uk we can pack up the van with our normal weekly shop, wild camp a couple of nights a few nights on a campsite and we are still in our weekly budget if we are careful.
It is a really scary big leap of faith to actually early retire and as we said we did need to find an income stream in order to be able to travel - Airbnb was going to be our go to option with a few hrs of tutoring that we could do remotely. We were surprised at how many options there are actually available with some creative thinking to gain a small income. Something a couple of our subscribers have mentioned they do is house and pet sitting which helps them travel to different locations for free or a small income.
Yes that’s the beauty of the campervan - it’s not for everyone, but we enjoy the simple life. That’s interesting - I have factored in a bit of side hustle income in my plans - partly for financial reasons, but also to retain some sense of purpose after retirement, in place of work. Many thanks again 👍🏻
Great candid and insightful video, really helping us get ready for our own retirement. I am really pleased to hear you are making some money on TH-cam…to get a return on something like your videos that all of us get for free is brilliant, well done and keep ‘em coming ! ❤️
Thanks Adam👍 Glad that you are enjoying what we are doing.
Thanks for the support🙏
We set a budget then remembered we hadn't got a pot for incidentals like coffee, bus fares, clothes shopping, going to gigs, books, online shopping, hobbies etc. We set aside £7k but in reality this is less than £10 each per day. It's amazing how the little things add up.
It's the incidentals that really do add up, and also the unpredictable expenses- that's why we really do need a contingency pot...other wise we are living in la-la land with a budget that is unrealistic. 👍
Hi very enjoyable channel. The adds help you create more content for us to enjoy so watching a few adds is my contribution towards that.
Thanks - that is a great way of looking at it!!
Good talk. Thanks for sharing.
You are welcome. We are glad that you enjoyed it👍
Very insightful - can't believe how much you have travelled in 2024!
We definitely embraced our wanderlust last year! 🚐✈️⛰️🏝️⛷️
Love watching you both. Useful and informative budgeting.
While I very much see where you are coming from with your TH-cam funding, I think everyone is different and particularly some younger people may be unable to make the same principled choices as you for financial reasons. Sadly I have also seen some limit audiences because of hateful comments.
Thanks for this Gill- very much appreciated. We have noticed that retirement is quite an emotive subject on the web with some people having some pretty strong views on it. We do not ATM.
We absolutely agree with the point you raised about the younger generation- it is so true. 👍
Excellent video, so much of your advice we're already incorporating into our less work more adventuring future we've been planning the last couple of years.
Thanks Fiona- glad that it has been of some use to you. Good luck with your plans👍
Thank you for sharing how you manage your finances, so helpful and interesting. Well done on living life to the full in such a careful way. Safe travels to the Alps, looking forward to more videos of your adventures.❤🏔️❄️🚐😍 xxx
Thanks Janet - we are nearly there - tucked up in a little aire just above Geneva.
budgeting is something we get asked about a lot because of the amount we travel x
I would recommend starting your own log pile, wood needs to be cut and left for a min of 6 - 9 months. That way you can burn has much has you like. I would collect fallen branches when younger.
When we get back from skiing - our first proper job in the garden is to make a proper log store and start stockpiling wood 🪵😊 It also cheaper to buy it in bulk - our neighbours have given us a couple of great suppliers so we will go to it with a will and be ahead of the game for next winter! Thanks for watching 😊
I'm with you- cash is king :-) I laughed at R getting to hold the money. When we travel we do a daily allocation- I hold the wad of cash but my husband holds the "daily" amount and will buy the things we need as we go- neither of us will ever give up the role we hold- I love the allocation- he likes holding the $$$. We always think- we can do anything BUT just not all at once! Great vid!
Thanks for this- we love your arrangements😂
When we were in work, I never had any responsibility for anything when we were on holiday, Jackie looked after all the cash and I wandered round blissfully unaware of anything. I think that it has transitioned across into our retirement😂
Occasionaly she does allow me to look after the weekly allocation and I love it...but quite happy to hand responsibility over at the end of the week👍
Thanks for the support🙏
Really interesting. Thanks for your insights. Love the new intro btw.
Thank you - we thought it was time for a change - and it’s much shorter 😊
Love this,i am not there but can't believe how much of this is inline with my thinking,sadly i cant do the travel as wife disabled but lots of watersport stuff i can do to keep myself busy living near south coast. I have effectively been testing my retirement budget for a few years as what i think i need is based on the current money i spend after saving huge chunk to works pension and cash to retire asap. All very interesting especially the last bit with your overall spending including 30 weeks traveling coming in for both of you at just a few grand more than the "expert" opinion on a "moderate" retirement for a single person.Can see you are pretty sensible with the budget but struggle to see how 30 weeks traveling a year can be considered closer to a minimum than moderate standard of living and really shows how important it is for people to ignore some of the nonsense guides and do their own calculations based on individual circumstances and expectations and go for it before its too late!
Thanks for this Ollie- we think that you are spot on in your assesment of this. There is so much advice out their, you could almost get into a state of decision paralysis if you thought about it all.
The thing we have always done is take the advice at face value and then spend time thinking about how it applies to us. There is no one size fits all in retirement, it is an entirely individual situation.
We just try to lead as a fulfilled life as possible and work with what we have got.
We absolutly agree that life is short, and that is the main driving force behind everything that we do as a couple and as individuals.
Thanks for the support👍
I know how much effort a TH-camr has to put in for us the viewer to watch a 20 - 50 min video as I know a couple of the car TH-cam people . ( a five day shoot because of bad weather many many hours of editing for a sub one hour film). You deserve every penny you can make
Thank you - Richard has honed his editing skills and can now turn a video round in a couple of days depending what the subject is - we still enjoy what we do which is the main thing 😊
Thanks, that was inspirational. If we ever meet, I'll buy you both a pint (I'll pay for it in cash, obviously!).
Pay by cash...I nearly spat my tea out when I read this😂😂😂
Thanks Mr Mobsi- love your YT photo👍😻
Hi, just come across your channel over the last week as we are planning a trip to Shetland in our MoHo this year and did a YT search. Really enjoying watching your videos, great content and you show the places you visit really well 😊
Welcome to the channel. We absolutely loved our 2 weeks on the Shetland Islands - there is so much to see and explore, the beaches were wonderful and if you are there may - early August the puffins are adorable! Have a great trip 🚐
@ Hi, we are planning for June this year, also planning to go to Scalloway Campsite so it was good to see that on your video too
We really liked Scalloway campsite - the owners were lovely
This is fab and helpful. Thank you.
Thanks Angela- we thought that you might like this one. (There is a good spreadsheet behind it all😉)
Hope you guys are keeping well and having a fab time👍
Booths! Not cheap, but very nice food. My wife’s favourite shopping experience 😂.
Definitely not cheap apart from their meat deals at 3 For £12 🤣
@ , we’ve just had a weekend in Barbon (lovely place), finished with a trip to Kirby Lonsdale’s Booths, 3 chickens for £12, absolutel bargain!
I like your new intro music. Good advice. Set a budget and control expenditure. I am a great fan of spreadsheets and monitored all our costs so if we overspent one month we could cut back the next. December was always an expensive month, but January was a cheap month using up left overs. I used to add car servicing and insurance costs into my fixed costs so that I have enough saved up for that regular time of year. Also I would save some money for travel each month, but big adventures came out of savings. We downsized our house, which did not produce a huge amount of capital after legal and agents costs, but is has given us a smaller more economical house to run. We can also walk to Booths to do our shopping, so we hardly use our car. Now we are 66 we get free bus passes, which opens up all sort of travel options ( there are some great TH-cam channels on this). Hope you enjoy the alps, although we have plenty of snow on the Dales. Phil
Thanks Phil- after 2 years with the old intro, we figured we needed a refresh.
We find it really useful to have our monthly review where we go through all our spends. Agreed that you have to take a more holistic approach than simply bottom line figures. We have found that our use of contingency funds monthly and annually really help with the inevitable surprises.
We know a lot of people who are shifting to public transport around their hiking trails- we are quite impressed with how the Dales have it set up...although we have quite a time to wait for our bus passes.
You might be interested in our observations on our downsizing in an upcoming video we have in the pipeline.👍
Good, helpful video thanks. 👍👏👏👏
Thank you ☺️
Absolutely brilliant that you are happy to share actual numbers. There are loads of early retirement youtubers - but you never know the actual numbers. I think there is room in the market for people to share actual numbers. We are currently in the pre-retirement testing phase and working on £550 Bills (includes heating) and £1200 per month for Living (food, going out etc). Like you "big holidays" come from outside that budget.
One observation - I assume your teachers pension is £2000 per month for life plus inflation. So when you are 66/67 you will then get state pension which will be a massive payrise :-)
Thank you - it is something we have been asked about many times and I know we struggled to find much out there to help us when we were trying to work out budgets to retire early. Obviously everyone will have a different budget they have to stick to and some people would not want to scrimp and save but for us it is plenty to do what we want. We have also clocked that at 67 it will be happy days!! We are hoping if we get our new van next year when we can access our teachers pension and lump sum, then we won't need to replace cars or vans until we get our state pension, same for doing any big jobs on the house if needed 😊
Great channel. Observation: in one of your videos you talk about being away from your home for 30/52 weeks whilst you travel. By not renting out your home to fellow tourists etc you are missing out on £20k a year by letting your family stay there for free. Also don't buy logs by the bag. instead build a wood store in the garden and get a delivery (£180 for the winter).
Thanks for this- really valid points. When we first renovated our cottage, we did think about rentals for when we are away, but we love our house so much we couldnt face doing it, and financially we can just about manage so we decided not to take that route.
The log store is on the agenda for the spring when we get home👍
Thanks for the comment🙏
Thank you for this excellent video. My husband will be retiring later this year and we are becoming much more focused on cutting out things that don't add value. For example, a sandwich and drink at a service station because we didn't pack sandwiches is a no, however, tea and cake on an otherwise inexpensive day out might be worth it and we appreciate it all the more. We have a daughter who's in Australia at the moment and one of our sons is about to move to Canada so we potentially have some big trips to save up for!
2 exciting potential big trips - both on our bucket list 😊 we have just had our home made butties in a french service station using up the cheese from our fridge 🤣
@@earlyretirementwanderlust Bon voyage!
Got to say me and my wife are retire we planning are hols for this year with are Auto-Sleeper. We had motorhome 18 years ago going back on the road. Any way nice video take care both off you see you next time .
Hope you are enjoying the new van - where are you heading to?
Like the new intro!
We wondered if people would notice 😊
@@earlyretirementwanderlust we did it’s fab
Once again very informative, thank you. We shop at Booths for the ‘meat deals’ when we are at our caravan but find it very expensive for run of the mill stuff. 12 months ago we swapped to Aldi from Morrisons (both at home and at the caravan) and are saving on average £15 per week.
Thanks for this Jill- when we moved to the Dales we were gobsmacked by the Booths meat deal...we use that deal a lot, but like you, would not shop there for our staples. Funnily enough, our kids and any visitors to the house love a little visit to Booths😂
We are also avid Aldi shoppers for our main shopping- and we always have been. We just need to be more organised as our closest Aldi is now 20 miles away😬
@ totally understand your visitors liking a visit to Booths. For me it’s the ‘Waitrose’ of the north.
Another excellent video.
We're just starting our "budget year" to see how much our house/lifestyle costs over 12 months.
From that figure we can then finalise a date in the future as to when tell the boss to ........😂
Thank you! Always best to have your ducks in a row before telling the boss the good news (for you😂)
We quite liked the time testing out the budget- it helped us realise how wasteful we had been in the past and how much we could really save in that test period.
Good luck and enjoy👍
Saw Nelson 5am this morning in Dover. Off to the Alps. Hopefully see you there. 👍🏻
🤣🚐🏔️⛷️staying in Dole tonight
So true re coffee and cake expense. I made a boiled fruit cake and a date and pecan loaf recently after seeing slices in a cafe at £4.50 per portion! My bakes portioned out at those prices would be £36 per cake. Unbelievable.
So true! Can’t believe how expensive a piece cake can be.
The maths of it is quite scary...but we don't begrudge cafe owners making a profit as it must be so difficult these days.
For us, we now treat our cake as a real event- rather than something that we do on a regular basis.
There is nothing better than a piece of cake and a big pot of tea after a cold winter walk in the hills. BTW- your cake options sound fab❤️
@@earlyretirementwanderlust yes I am not saying we don't buy a cake and coffee occasoionally but when you cost it out its a surprisie. Cheers
Wow £36! .at least I have Lidl carrot cake at £3 a box kept telling myself "You can't buy happiness but you can buy cake"
Well done on your retirement plans.I cant help but feel you enjoy saving money rather then spending it.Have you a target of how much money in the bank you want when you die ? Its a horrible question.I asked it my self when I retired at 56,4 years ago.I only ever worked in a factory.I get a brand new MX5 every 3 years now.The last one was more or less £40,000.I pay for them on my debit card(no finance/loans).I aren't dieing with a load of money in the money in the bank.I'm spending and enjoying it whilst I can.
We are definitely not saving at the moment 😂 All our spare money that we earn goes on our travels. One of Richards favourite books is die with Zero
It is hard to budget, but it is super important.
Agreed👍
Loving the new intro 😊
Thanks for being open about your spending - it’s so helpful.
I don’t use cash as it’s not accepted in many places , but what I did last year when I took a break from work was to load up two debit cards with my spending money for the month. One was for shopping and petrol and the other was for personal spending. I found this worked really well. When it’s gone it’s gone!
Can I ask how you get paid if any of your subscribers pay TH-cam monthly for the ad free version? Do you receive a % of that?
That is also a great idea which we could do now as we opened a new bank account for our travels that does not have any charges abroad - we could just put our £200 in there each week. You are right it is getting harder to pay cash in some places
Good question - yes we still get a small payment from the people who are onTH-cam premium - not sure how it is calculated?
A really informative vlog thank you both.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Loved this TY 💕
Thanks Julie👍
Good stuff. Very motivating. Thanks 👍 💪
You are welcome👍 Thanks for the comment🙏
Well done guys. Good discipline.
Thanks Alan - the discipline does get tested sometimes but it keeps us on the right path so we don't have to do any proper work 😊
Thanks for such a detailed break down. You guys are helping to sway my hubby towards early retirement ! I retired from the nhs last year and am now running a little air B and B attached to our home, so let me know if you need any air B and B tips if you decide to rent out the cottage . Mandy x
Thank you - it is something we might still consider in the future - for now our kids and family are making the most of us being away - they all see it as their little holiday cottage in the Dales 😂 I have had to train them all to change and wash the bedding before they leave so we don't have to do it!
Hi Jackie & Richard,
I really enjoy your pragmatic approach to budgeting, it's both insightful and inspiring! If it's not too personal a financial question, when you mentioned receiving a £2K-a-month teacher's pension, is that combined or £2K each? I hope it's the latter, as that should certainly provide a comfortable retirement, especially when supplemented by your state pensions.
Keep up the fantastic work, and thank you for sharing your wisdom!
Best regards,
James
Thanks for your lovely comment 😊 It will be just over £2000 between us - maybe a little more as they have had a couple of pyrites since we retired. I only worked part time and had time off with the children - Richards is the main pension. When we get the state pension it will feel like we are back in luxury!
I got involved in leading walking history tours in my home City for 3 years. I did this via MeetUp and people gave me ‘tips’ or bought me a coffee via an app. I didn’t want to make a profit so mostly the income simply covered all my costs which included paying for MeetUp and public liability insurance etc, so in effect I had a great hobby that paid for itself.
A great way to meet people and make it a 'free' activity for yourself 😊
Great video,
Glad you enjoyed it 😊
Fantastic video guys. Being very close to retirement. The breakdown on expenses is very informative. Like yourselves we are currently on schedule to retire early with only two DD. We intend using the cash is king mind set I did read somewhere ur 8 x more likely to buy non essential items if u use a credit card over cash.
Richard Just as a follow on that no one tends to answer what would u say would be a good / average rainy day fund
I know this is different for everyone but what would you think mid 50s with no debt would be a good rainy day sum to keep topped up. Thanx
Thanks for this Alan- we love the soundbite stat' of cash is king. It certainly feels like that. We have definitely found that our spending has become more intentional since using cash.
The rainy day fund is a really tough question to answer, as how much is really enough? We are quite conservative in our risk management so we always have more than we probably need. It would be wrong to put a specific value on it as everyone's circumstances are different, but assessing potential risk factors is a key starting point. For instance we have a contingency fund put to one side for our septic tank, as we have a known risk that someday that will need replacing.
Once we feel happy that we have our risks covered, our rainy day fund is complete.
Hope this helps without dodging the question😉
Thanks for the support👍
@@earlyretirementwanderlust
I like your forward planing on Risk and rainy day funds. Iv never really thought about drilling it down where possible to itemise risks but it makes sense. I know
So many ex colleagues
Who have retired with
great cash sums and years later have never
Spent a penny. I just see that as experiences lost. Love the channel you too guys are truly inspirational love watching your videos and alternative life choices.