Retired folk, care to share with us?

[investor2009]

I just thought it would be a nice idea to hear stories from the ones who have retired.

I'd really like to know


1/ How old were you?

2/ How, did you do it?

3/ Are you comfortable?

4/ Are you enjoying life, more-so than before? And how so?

5/ Do you wish you had done this earlier in life?

6/ And if you're really keen to share (and I hope you are)
What type of income(s) do you receive, and how much does this equate to?

I figure this might even help those who are retired see how their budget is looking, and what it might look like into the future, it's always healthy to do this.

 

[charttv]

1/ How old were you?

Don't you mean "how young were you?"

 

[investor2009]

I don't know what I mean, because NO-ONE has replied to the thread yet..!



I know it's a touchy subject to some, I'm not sure why, because everyone does it.

 

[The Y-man]

Maybe there is no one here who considers themselves retired?

Could have left work force and be full time investors for example....

The Y-man

 

[investor2009]

Full time investors (in my view) are retired, or most probably have the ability to do whatever they please, like a retired person would.
If this is the case, please, chime in!

I will rephrase the question.
Instead of the word 'retired' lets use 'finacially free'

Maybe there is no one here who considers themselves retired?

Could have left work force and be full time investors for example....

The Y-man

 

[Deena]

I can't speak for myself but my dad, and then not with money specifics.

Dad retired at 55, at the time thought it was a monumental mistake as after a long illness our mum, his beloved wife had died 6 months before. I thought he would be lost since he had been in a responsible shift working job. He planned to go around Australia in his camper van. Well he met another woman, who he married after another 6 months, again my sister and I thought this may have been a mistake, but 20 years later they are happily still together.

And what a lifestyle they lead. They are mortgage free, but consider in 1975 when Mum and Dad built thier home it cost $6000 for the block and $12000 for the 4 x 1 double brick and tile they built.

Dad worked for the federal government, I know he had to pay a large percentage of his income into super way before super was a common thing really.

23 years down the track, Dad is still a self funded retiree, him and his wife travel around each year, going to eithier Queensland, or Darwin and all the places between, they are gone for up to three months. They play golf several times aweek and are very active within the golf club they are members of. They never travel without the golf clubs.

I guess I would consider they live a careful frugal lifestyle, they do not waste money, but have updated carpets, paint, aircon, kitchen. They are not stingy but thier generation have memories of hard times and have never changed thier habits, nor do they want lots of new things.

I would love to know how much super dad has, but doubt he would tell me, I know he pays a couple grand tax every year, and what would his mere daughter know to help him in tax reduction. I have also tried to assist him to make more money with tax deducts so he does not pay tax every year, but he is a stubborn man who does not take any advice from me.

I would say my Dad is very happy and does not regret retireing at 55 at all.

 

[bene313]

I would guess that many of the retired forum users have also retired from using the forum.

 

[Corey Batt]

If its an consolation investor2009, I'll tell you in 10 years.

 

[chrispy]

I am an expert at retiring, as I have done it 8 times. I started at 54. Each time it is the last time but then an exciting job offer comes in and off I go. One was working for the UN in Geneva for a short while, living in a million dollar apartment on Lake Geneve.

Now I am truly retired, as work gets in the way of travel.

I love not having to get up when the alarm goes off unless I am catching a plane.

I live off rents and invested funds.

In between travelling I renovate the properties, mainly to maintain a good rental yield, I have just spent the last little while painting one house ready to sell and one unit ready to rent out again.

Paperwork and organising trades people takes a lot of my time. I do have a PM to collect the rents but the fixing up is my responsibility. I also go to the gym 6 days a week and walk for 45 mins 7 days a week. I am determined to stay fit.

I really don't know how I had the time to work, my days are completely full.

Retirement - I love it

Regards

Chris

 

[The Y-man]

I just thought it would be a nice idea to hear stories from the ones who have retired.

I'd really like to know


1/ How old were you?

2/ How, did you do it?

3/ Are you comfortable?

4/ Are you enjoying life, more-so than before? And how so?

5/ Do you wish you had done this earlier in life?

6/ And if you're really keen to share (and I hope you are)
What type of income(s) do you receive, and how much does this equate to?

I figure this might even help those who are retired see how their budget is looking, and what it might look like into the future, it's always healthy to do this.

We could have retired a few years ago....

1. Late 30's

2. Working a couple of jobs, residential IP, shares....

3. Yes - not that lifestyle changed any...

4. Life was good - but always with pressure of managing the portfolio

5. I think you always wish you did things earlier

6. We could have retired earning $60k pa easily (varied from year to year - some years the forward estimate was $100k pa)

That was of course until it all turned to...... a bit of a mess (I got greedy and $%^@# up.....).... oh well.... got to climb back up.....

The Y-man

 

[The Y-man]

inv2009,

Just adding a bit more detail for you and others as to the "how"

We bought 9 IP in 2001-2002 in Inner Melbourne.
We sometimes worked 2 jobs each, and overtime when we could.

The properties were an average of $200k each (so total val $1.8m and geared at around 90% - i.e. loan of about $1.6m)


By 2008, they were an average of $400k each - i.e. total val $3.6m - so if we sold out that point, could have netted say $1.8m net of costs (prob less actually with CGT and whatnot) and if we had thrown that into an interest bearing acct at 5%, we would have got $90k pa (then deduct tax).

Of course there would have been the permutations of selling some, keeping others, buying LPT (REIT), dividend paying shares etc for various return / tax / risk arrangements.


The Y-man

 

[FormerLurker]

We could have retired a few years ago....

1. Late 30's

2. Working a couple of jobs, residential IP, shares....

3. Yes - not that lifestyle changed any...

4. Life was good - but always with pressure of managing the portfolio

5. I think you always wish you did things earlier

6. We could have retired earning $60k pa easily (varied from year to year - some years the forward estimate was $100k pa)

That was of course until it all turned to...... a bit of a mess (I got greedy and $%^@# up.....).... oh well.... got to climb back up.....

The Y-man

May I asked how you #$%^# up? feel free to not answer if it's personal/painful etc.

Just trying to figure out what pitfall an astute investor fell into in the hopes of avoiding something similar befalling myself.

 

[Television]

I am an expert at retiring, as I have done it 8 times. I started at 54. Each time it is the last time but then an exciting job offer comes in and off I go. One was working for the UN in Geneva for a short while, living in a million dollar apartment on Lake Geneve.

Now I am truly retired, as work gets in the way of travel.

I love not having to get up when the alarm goes off unless I am catching a plane.

I live off rents and invested funds.

In between travelling I renovate the properties, mainly to maintain a good rental yield, I have just spent the last little while painting one house ready to sell and one unit ready to rent out again.

Paperwork and organising trades people takes a lot of my time. I do have a PM to collect the rents but the fixing up is my responsibility. I also go to the gym 6 days a week and walk for 45 mins 7 days a week. I am determined to stay fit.

I really don't know how I had the time to work, my days are completely full.

Retirement - I love it

Regards

Chris

Living the Dream, Chris.

 

[The Y-man]

May I asked how you #$%^# up? feel free to not answer if it's personal/painful etc.

Just trying to figure out what pitfall an astute investor fell into in the hopes of avoiding something similar befalling myself.

Oh that was easy to do - just ramped up the loan to 80% of the 2008 value (i.e. take another $1.2m in loan) and then used that to act as collateral for a margin loan of another 70% LVR (so a further loan of $2.9m secured by the home loan ) and bought $3.1m of shares .... then this GFC thing came along ... The rest as they say is history.....

To avoid major margin calls and manage cashflow etc, had to sell off half the properties (just at a stage where Melbourne had peaked and prices were beginning to fall...)



Moral of story: Try not to get too greedy.

The Y-man

p.s. I don't think I am very astute!! Still learning...

 

[investor2009]

Chrispy! Thanks for sharing, I remember you from years ago, congratulations on your efforts.

Y-man, thank you for sharing.
9 properties around Melbourne, well done my friend!
Thanks for sharing your sharemarket story. We're all human, everybody makes mistakes. And to your credit it was very hard to see this coming.

In regard to you saying that you could have traded in your chips and stuck the profits into an interest bearing account, I was re-reading Jan Somers red book last night and ran across a story of an investor that sold his 30 properties, stuck that into an interest account, lived way beyond the wealth of most Aussies for a few years until his profits were eroded SO much he was elightable for a part pension and earning below the poverty threshold.
So it may be a good thing you didn't do that.

 

[Television]

Oh that was easy to do - just ramped up the loan to 80% of the 2008 value (i.e. take another $1.2m in loan) and then used that to act as collateral for a margin loan of another 70% LVR (so a further loan of $2.9m secured by the home loan ) and bought $3.1m of shares .... then this GFC thing came along ... The rest as they say is history.....

The Y-man

p.s. I don't think I am very astute!! Still learning...

Was this move attempting to emulate the success that KeithJ had? I don't entirely understand the strategy either of you have used but it reads similar in my head.

 

[Ms Jade]

Thanks for sharing the story, Y-Man. However, I think you're being hard on yourself. You didn't get 'too greedy.' You just didn't know enough to put insurances in place or look closely at risk minimisation. You're certainly not alone in getting done by the market crash. It's only money after all, and you will rebuild it I'm sure.


As an aside, I do hope more retirees contribute to this thread - after they're back from fishing this arvo.

 

[The Y-man]

Was this move attempting to emulate the success that KeithJ had? I don't entirely understand the strategy either of you have used but it reads similar in my head.

No - our strategy was quite a mixed bag.
I have posted before (while we were doing it actually) but it involved mutiple activities (all ultimately linked to the share market) - day trading, managed funds, ETO trading to name a few (didin't get to CFD's )

You just didn't know enough to put insurances in place or look closely at risk minimisation.

I knew the risks - and it could have been a lot worse had some steps not been taken. There was use of put options etc to protect some of the capital... but in the end, greed won out (didin't seem worth the costs)

There was a worst case scenario I knew could happen - the thing was it did ... well almost!

What was ok?

IP values didn't crash down... so we were able to sell down and settle some unhedged debts

We both still had jobs (lucky didn't quit the dayjob!)

The gold stash had doubled in value - so sold that down to settle some unhedged debts.


The Y-man

 

[SKM]

Hi
Regular lurker, not much of a poster though.
Don't really like to think of myself as `retired folk' but I have been living off passive income for a while.
I have learned a bit from the early retirement thing though which might be useful for someone.
Please excuse my incompetence at quoting other people's text.

1/ How old were you?
First time 30, mucked it up. Second time older and wiser 40.

2/ How, did you do it?
Residential property, then businesses (offline and internet), then commercial property. Never bought a share or did any of those financial `masters of the universe' type of things. Bought mostly in recessions where values didn't rise for years and everyone was saying `there's no money to be made in property any more it isn't like the 70s/80s/90s' [take your pick]. Looked for ways to add value myself.

3/ Are you comfortable?
Yes

4/ Are you enjoying life, more-so than before? And how so?
Yes, love my life, it is quite different from before, less structured, which has pros and cons. The biggest lesson on all of this for me was I always wanted to get to the point where I had choices. Funny thing is when you get there you realise you had choices all along. Unless we are truly on the receiving end of some terrible tragedy most of us in the developed world choose how we live our lives, we just imagine we don't. Money has very little to do with it. That probably sounds very cliched but it was a huge realisation for me.

5/ Do you wish you had done this earlier in life?
No I think everything happened exactly as it should have.

6/ And if you're really keen to share (and I hope you are)
What type of income(s) do you receive, and how much does this equate to?

Rather not share exact numbers, but it is more than I need to live my life. I'm not a big shopper (those frugal property investor habits die hard) but I mostly travel business class and eat out too often! I've only been retired a couple of years though and am starting to think I will get back into it and do another project to keep the brain stimulated.

One of the things I would add is that I imagine I am similar to most people on this board and pretty goal oriented. That's why we are the ones investing and striving for something. One of the points to consider if you are thinking about retiring is how you are going to feed that side of yourself. It is fine to go out for coffees, do charity work, mentor other business people, go to the gym but unless you are running the charity or business or training for a marathon those things don't propel you in the same way as aiming for a goal.

Maybe one day I'll be mature enough to just live in the moment and not need a goal but I'm not there yet
I do realise how privileged I am though and wouldn't change a thing.

Cheers,
Melanie

 

[sash]

Don't know if almost counts....almost pulled the trigger early last year......but then a job came long and thinking I would be bored senseless did not do it...felt I was too young.

1/ How old were you? 42

2/ How, did you do it? Mostly investing in so called slums. Was ready to see down properties and have minimal debt and buy a unit to live on in the lower North Shore

3/ Are you comfortable? Yes.....maybe too comfortable....

4/ Are you enjoying life, more-so than before? And how so? Enjoying life as I am still investing...have a job but it is not particularly stressful and enjoy it.

5/ Do you wish you had done this earlier in life? Nope.....know people who have retired in their 40s and are driving their spouses nuts.

6/ And if you're really keen to share (and I hope you are)
What type of income(s) do you receive, and how much does this equate to? Through appropriate structuring I can have 80-100k coming living in a unit in Sydney. I can comfortably live on 50-60k per year net.