Early retirement

[cdnmatt]

Plumbers, electricians, mechanics, kitchenhands, carpenters - rejoice, cdnmatt has set you free!

Yes, I'm a genius like that. Thanks for noticing.

[arsenal]

A rather confused Matt wrote.

"Not to sound overly modern here, but it's 2021. Retire, and find a way to earn money online to suppliment your savings and lifestyle. I have no idea what your skillset or current business is, but I'm certain it can be translated into online income some how. Whether that's writing, consultancy, mediation, logistical analysis and support, or what have you. Or follow one of your passions, and see what you can do to turn that into an online income stream.

You get the best of all worlds then. Retire early, live wherever in the world you want, live the life you want, and still have a project you're working on and passionate about to keep you busy, plus supplement your income."

You seem to be having trouble understanding the word retired.

[a447]

"Retired" means you stop work. It means you don't need to earn an income any more.

You can continue to work if you want - I'm doing a bit of real estate but it's not to make money. It's a hobby I can give up if I get bored with it.

Working from home on the computer is not "retired."

[christianpfc]

One crucial point is money. I have met some, and heard stories of many other, people who retired too early and ran out of money, and now they scrape by (too old to find a new job, too young to qualify for a pension, or their pension is too low to live on comfortably). If in doubt, rather continue working.

If your money is in a foreign currency, you need a security of at least 2, i.e. the currency of the country you are living in could appreciate by the factor of 2 over the years. Same for stock markets or anything else where you have your money.

Unless you are a person who can sit in front of a TV or sit at a bar all day, you need something to keep yourself occupied. For me it's traveling, boy hunting, and learning languages (first Thai in 2011, now Chinese since 2018) of the countries I spend most of my time in.

[Nirish guy]

All very interesting views on the thread so far and all very valid observations.

I though I always quite liked Latins idea of simply sitting at the bar all day but Im guessing the novelty of that becomes old quite fast as even on an extended holiday I find a week or two of that is "enough" usually.

I also remember on first visiting Pattaya and on seeing some of the barflies sitting around the bars I made a mental note to myself to try to ensure I didn't become one of "those" people.

This being the type who perhaps nursed the one beer for half the afternoon and either sat there desperate to talk to everyone and anyone and might walk in, with their tales of how they'd lost everything to some boy / girl who had broken their heart and robbed them in the process. Or perhaps the people at the other end of the spectrum who sat alone and refused to speak to anyone, at least in any friendly manner as they'd just heard it all before and had the look of someone who was just "done" talking in general in life and in fact had appeared to have almost lost the very will to live and in fact were just sitting there to mark time until their time was up.

Matt you have a point re doing "something" online and that thought had crossed my mind too but as has already been mentioned there's then that grey area as to whether you are truly "retired" or not if still (having) to "work" at something, either for financial reasons or just boredom I guess.

There's actually a great example of a guy who's currently trying this who posts on "Tiktok" ( his profile name on Tiktok is lenhaykojr should anyone wishes to follow him there) . He's an American who seemingly ran a very successful gym franchise business in the US but due to Covid had to sell up, so being disillusioned and at the mid life crisis 50 something age decided to "sell up and move". So put his nice house on the market, sold it within weeks, booked a ticket to Phuket and just "went" ! I have to give him credit as this was at the height of the Covid regulations but he still went ahead anyway and made it all happen - well at a fairly high cost it seems in paying agents to get him a retirement visa etc etc !.

He has now ( at 50) learnt / signed up to do "affiliate marketing" i.e he basically recommends / promotes products on his Tiktok and Youtube pages and if people use the links he uses to buy that stuff he gets a commission on the sale from the Suppliers. I have to say that IF ?? the numbers he's showing are accurate he seems to be doing quite well out of it and certainly it's a very profitable retirement side hustle perhaps ! But either way he's there now and "loving life" in his lovely condo with it's private pool etc. It's funny of course watching someone with ZERO knowledge or experience of Thailand simply parachuting in as a newbie and after listening to him giving it all the "no I'll not be letting any woman get the better of me etc" after TWO whole days he'd been befriended by a ( genuinely) nice Thai lady on the beach and she'd picked him up and taken him to an orphanage where HE suggested he could raise funds for them / the kids there ( fair play to him for that of course) but still all "text book" first arrival stuff of course in his trying to "rescue" the poor Thai people, so it will be interesting to see where his story goes in the coming months

But getting back to retirement he I guess is a good example of the new "in between" option of either totally working or totally stopping. My own view currently seems to be that STOPPING would be just fine as to keep your brain in the two worlds of "work" and "not working" is almost to much hassle to bother, but that I guess also depends on ones finances of course, mine telling me I should keep on working until I'm about 83 I think currently it seems !!! :-( lol

[goji]

One crucial point is money. I have met some, and heard stories of many other, people who retired too early and ran out of money, and now they scrape by (too old to find a new job, too young to qualify for a pension, or their pension is too low to live on comfortably). If in doubt, rather continue working.

If your money is in a foreign currency, you need a security of at least 2, i.e. the currency of the country you are living in could appreciate by the factor of 2 over the years. Same for stock markets or anything else where you have your money.

After all these years, it's nice to see another member warning of things like currency movements and quoting a safety factor of at least 2. Which I agree with. [For an example, just look at the best and worst GBP-JPY rates over the last 20 years]

By all means retire early, but the finances do need to be in order. It's very dangerous to retire to Thailand, with (for example) an income entirely in GBP, where you can just about afford to live at 40 baht to the pound. If the rate moves to 20 in the next 5~10 years, it's game over. Some stress testing of the finances is in order.

Much better to have a safety margin and if you control your investments, a globetrotting lifestyle should probably be matched by a diversified portfolio of international investments.

[Ruthrieston]

My wee pension was doing fine until the UK voted to leave the EU. The day before the vote I decided to transfer the last of my little bit of capital and the rate was 56 Baht to the pound. The day after the vote the rate fell to 36 Baht to the pound. Ouch! Since I rely on transferring my pension each month it has really hurt me badly. Even as we now hover around 43 to the pound five years later it is still hurting me badly. At least I bought my condo so I don't have to pay rent, but losing almost 30% of my income was a big shock. Not something I could have planned for really, and I was never good with money. Ah well, such is life.

[StevieWonders]

My wee pension was doing fine until the UK voted to leave the EU. The day before the vote I decided to transfer the last of my little bit of capital and the rate was 56 Baht to the pound. The day after the vote the rate fell to 36 Baht to the pound. Ouch! Since I rely on transferring my pension each month it has really hurt me badly. Even as we now hover around 43 to the pound five years later it is still hurting me badly. At least I bought my condo so I don't have to pay rent, but losing almost 30% of my income was a big shock. Not something I could have planned for really, and I was never good with money. Ah well, such is life.

The GBPUSD exchange rate initially fell when Cameron announced a referendum in 2013 that Remain was tipped to win. The eventual results simply returned to the 2013 position. Correlation does not mean causation. If you read the Whingers & Whiners Forum (Thaivisa) there have been thousands of posts over the past ten years from Americans, Australians and British about how they have been singled out (joke) for FX losses against the Thai baht.

https://www.exchangerates.org.uk/bre...e-rate-tracker

[Moses]

Retired at 40. Have hobbies, sometimes give paid consultations for fun, run charities. Most time on travels (before COVID).

[a447]

Sounds ideal, Moses.

Charity/volunteer work is very satisfying, both for the giver and the receiver.

A win-win situation all round.