Retired folk, care to share with us?

[virgo]

Living in Asia

I'd really like to know



3/ Are you comfortable?

Living in Asia as it is cheaper than Oz. We are renting out our house in Sydney and living off the rent.

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

Living very well, off to Bali in the next week, then Macau. Doing some travel every 6 weeks. My wife gets homesick sometimes, we will probably go back to Sydney for a few weeks this year. I couldn't care if I never went back.

Hi Bobby

Very excited to hear you are living in Asia as this is what hubby and i are planning to do!

Would love to hear a little more eg. which country? why? what do you do to keep yourself occupied in that country? could you work there? how much base assets do you think is the minimum required before you zoom off?

Please share a little more!

thanks so much

 

[bobby]

Living Overseas

Hi Virgo,

There isn't much I can share with you. Regarding the asset base, the more the better. I don't believe in burning bridges, that is we have kept our real estate because eventually we will go "home". Most expats do. No Australian will ever give up their passport and I am no exception. I am not sure what country will suit you as that is an individual choice, we started off in NY visiting our youngest daughter who is a artistic director for Cirque du Soleil. We then travelled through the US and went to Mexico. We didn't like Mexico, too much corruption.

We have found a place we like in Asia and each day we go to the gym, go out for a meal. We tend to eat when we are hungry not designated meal times. We could have a maid/driver but have chose not to. We go to the movies (A$2.50), or I take my wife shopping, I plan our next "holiday" - I don't get bored. I don't drink much alcohol although Sundays I have a few beers here and there, usually at the the local markets. Their isn't much for us left in Sydney. Our youngest is travelling in the US and our eldest is in Africa (I have attached a u tube of her) so we are comfortable here. After I recieved a redundancy my wife was still working, so I went to Bikram Yoga at Darlinghurst most days to fill in the time but I just about had enough of Sydney towards the end. Drunks and nut cases off their meds on the Sydney buses, bad drivers and the expense of living there.

We have some losses from the margin loan trapped within a HDT structure. It is a shame not to utilise them. I could probably get back into the share market with a margin loan (again) but I am not game enough. We are looking at purchasing a property. Due to the threshold on trusts being favourable in Queensland we will probably buy there but I don't know when. See what happens there....

All the best,

Bobby

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM4JHFDh8ks

 

[virgo]

Retiring in Asia

Hi Bobby

Thanks for the sharing! My hubby and i have lived in Asia for 7 years before settling down in Sydney. We have made some lovely friends in Asia and we envisage will spend half a year living there on retirement. We plan to teach and /or do volunteer work once that happens.


All the best and stay young at heart!

 

[BayView]

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.

One thing I've learned about old folk and the retired - never say...

"How are you?" as a greeting.

Because they will bloody-well tell you for the next hour.

 

[The Y-man]

Y man: I would love to read your posting during this period, but how would I find them as your post only go back to last year.

regards

Sorry I took so long to get back about this....

Probably the easiest way (unless someone enlightens me otherwise)

Try a Google search with somehting like this

2007 y-man site:somersoft.com

Or whatever other year/terms you want

The Y-man

 

[Dazz]

Probably the easiest way (unless someone enlightens me otherwise)

For me Y-man, definitely the easiest way would be for you to take 4 intensive days out of your life and simply write it all down again for our reading pleasure.

 

[sash]

Hi Y-man

If it is any consolation...I was down about 25k in share trading for 2008-2009.

2009-2010 was not much better at a 10k loss.

Some of this is a paper loss....

To top it off it the losses are trapped in a company strucutre.

One of the reasons why I prefer to stick to my knitting in real estate.

Sorry I took so long to get back about this....

Probably the easiest way (unless someone enlightens me otherwise)

Try a Google search with somehting like this

2007 y-man site:somersoft.com

Or whatever other year/terms you want

The Y-man

 

[Brenda Irwin]

1/ How old were you?

I retired from paid work when I got married 20yrs ago.
Hubby retired from a J.O.B. at 48.

2/ How, did you do it?

Bought 27 houses and did quite well. Sold nearly all when their values doubled and trippled. Went into the easier stockmarket for passive income and capital growth.

3/ Are you comfortable?

Yes thankyou.

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

Loving living with my stress free husband and my teen sons who don't have the pressure of racing out to a job yet till I kick em out.

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

No regrets in anything I have done in life. I invested when I was ready to listen.

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?

Being retired means we don't rely on that regular weekly or fortnightly paycheque but we seem to withdraw about 1k a week for basics and entertainment. We have a mix of rent (very little now), share dividends, and share trading.

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're not really the glamorous, globetrotting, big partying type but we love being with family.

 

[jazzlobber]

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...

Y-man, thanks for sharing your story, it sounds like you were very very leveraged and double dipping, I believe margin loans are for the muppets.

The main lenders charge about 9-10% currently on these accounts, unless you have a cyrstal ball and can pick em well its very risky to buy stocks on high street margin accounts.

Considering the long term all ordinaries probably only returns about 12% including dividends, i dont see the point, unless you have a system with a positive expectancy of at least 6 or 7 percentage points higher than this, and can hold for a fair few years.

I think most systems dont recommend using more than 1.5 leverage, buying blue chips at 70% LVR is 2.3

Yes i don't like CFD's either

If you still have the shares and didn't sell at the bottom, well i guess they must be getting closer to the 2008 values, but still a ways to go.

shame to have to start off-loading your IP's to fund the margin calls, normally the calls have to be paid in 24hr