What's Your 5-year Plan?

With the years flying by, I've been thinking a lot about what's left of my future!  My partner just turned 60 and I'll be 55 next year.  A few of our friends retired last year, and several more will be doing so in the next 2-3 years, including my partner, probably.  We've been thinking that we're at an age where we might only have another 20 years (if we're lucky) of life left, and I think it's scaring me more than it is scaring him. 

His plan for the future is basically just to live life exactly as he does now, minus the work!  He just plans to stay here in this flat, in this town, and meet his friends in the pub every night; supplemented with trips to UK beer festivals and beer-hunting trips to Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, etc.

That's him, though.  Apart from stress in his job, he is very happy with his life, and just continues to carry on as now.

But for myself... I'm not UN-happy by any means, but I am not living the life I really want.  And I've been doing a lot of soul-searching about how I can achieve what I want, without impacting on my partner's life/plans/happiness too much.  I wish I could start putting things in motion now, but I've got 4 years of car loan repayments still ahead of me, so am still only in the 'thinking' stages.

How about you?  Do you have a plan for where you want to be, what you want to be doing, what lifestyle you are shooting for in 5 years time?

How about you?  Do you have a plan for where you want to be, what you want to be doing, what lifestyle you are shooting for in 5 years time?

Ugh, I completely get your misgivings.  They are issues I've coped with in the past.  But now, I'm looking forward to 5+ years from now with a mixture of eager anticipation, and fear that some disaster will occur to spoil things for us.

Five years ago, at the start of our immigration journey, five years felt like forever.  Our five year plan then was to get the fiancee visa, I move over here, we get married, we start the five years of FLR(M) hurdles, find and buy a house that had all the things we wanted, get through all the immigration stuff, and then simplify our life as much as possible to just enjoy what we were building up to.  Now, the immigration stuff is less than a year from being behind us (I can submit my ILR application on or after May 9th, 2018).  So, our revised plan:

We just bought a house in a rural area, where jobs are scarce.  My husband's job didn't move with us, and so he's had to keep commuting 150 miles each way to stay in our old location during the week for a salary that exceeds the income requirement, then he comes home at the weekend.  After we get my ILR out of the way, he can take a local job making a lot less money and we'll still be financially better off than since the move (our mortgage payments are about the same as our rent had been, council tax didn't change much, utilities are cheaper, and he will no longer have to pay what amounts to between £8-9,000 year to stay in the other location during the week).  Plus, he'll be less stressed and tired, and we'll have a lot more free time together.

Unfortunately, our house needs work.  A lot of it.  (After all, we were able to afford it, so it couldn't have been in great condition, right?)  Some of the work it needs is expensive, like new lime render on the entire exterior, new flooring throughout.  Possibly a complete re-wire.  And there's that whole issue of not having a kitchen.  So, "Fix House" is first on our agenda, once we free up all of the costs-of-commuting and saving-for-visas from the budget next year.

We figure that will take the majority of the next five years.  Maybe all of it, and more beyond.

Meanwhile, we'll also tackle the garden as and when we can... A lot of projects for the garden, thankfully, are weekend jobs, so we can do some of it now.  We want to build an "outdoor kitchen" space for a wood-fired pizza oven, a bbq/smoker, and our gas grill.  Years down the line, we also want to build a summer house which will serve as an outdoor lounge and games room.

If we decide to go somewhere, we will hopefully still have our trusty (previously-owned-but-still-awesome) campervan get us there and to stay in. 

I think what I'm revealing to myself as I write this is my five year plan is to build our home.  And after that's done, then we want to live in it.  We just want to build a peaceful life here together; one that is so nice that we don't feel the need to go away on holiday.  We'll have our small-but-comfortable home, our garden for entertaining in, our workshop (former stables) and our garden shed for playing or taking up hobbies in, and our campervan for getting away if we ever needed to.

Yeah.  That's our plan. 

We want to build an "outdoor kitchen" space for a wood-fired pizza oven, a bbq/smoker, and our gas grill. 

That sounds amazing! If you ever need a guest you can call me 

I'm in a very different place from the two of you. I'm 27, have been married less than a year, and have a 3 month old baby. My 5 year plan is to move temporarily to a new country for work - ideally something exotic (I'm thinking Asia). I may have to compromise on this as I work for a German company with lots of room for upward mobility. It's looking like they might be sending me back there. By the time the baby goes to primary school I want to move to Milan, Italy, where my wife is from, get a cushy well-paid job, and live the "dolce vita". Also I want to get a private pilot's licence.

If I won the lottery I would buy a piece of land in Tuscany and open an agriturismo (something kind of like a country B&B) and work the land.

Very interesting thread - looking forward to other responses!

Hmmmm...  I have a feeling I'll mull over this question a lot in the coming days!

Kimberly, how does your house not have a kitchen?!?

We just want to build a peaceful life here together; one that is so nice that we don't feel the need to go away on holiday.

That's basically what I want to do.  But it can't happen in our current home, and my partner refuses to move. So I'm currently thinking I'm going to have to move house on my own, and hope he will eventually follow. Or that we will both be happy in separate homes.

We currentl live in a 2nd floor flat, and I want a dog.  But I don't want a dog in our current situation... I want to move to a ground floor place, that has a garden.  And I'd need it to be near my work so that I can pop home at lunchtime to let the dog out.  Or maybe 2 dogs.  (I volunteer for a greyhound rescue, and we sometimes get bonded pairs of hounds that need to be homed together).  I just want a simple, basic ground floor flat with a garden...nothing fancy or expensive.   I don't think it's asking for too much, and I think it's definitely do-able, but I don't want my partner to think I'm leaving him... I still love him, and still want to be his girlfriend, if that's possible, but I don't want the same lifestyle/future that he wants... but I still want him in my life. 

That sounds amazing! If you ever need a guest you can call me 

hehe  I am looking forward to the day when we have the space of our dreams, so we can invite people over!

Hmmmm...  I have a feeling I'll mull over this question a lot in the coming days!

Kimberly, how does your house not have a kitchen?!?

It has a room that is meant to be a kitchen.  But the only kitchen fixture in it when we moved in was cabinets that were falling apart (and strangely high!) with a sink that leaked.  No cooker, or anything.  And then we discovered the well entrenched mouse situation.  So we ripped out the cabinets and sink, with the intention of building a replacement kitchen after the exterior gets re-rendered.... but that is a project in and of itself.  We've come to the conclusion that lime render is necessary for this crumbly old house, and we didn't expect the commuting costs to eat into our savings quite so much... so we're having to put off any progress on the interior of the house until the commuting days are over and we can afford to do the exterior work.  It's all a bit annoying.

But in the meantime, I have about 30" of worktop, a sink, refrigerator, microwave, kettle, and a camping stove (single burner) in the utility room, so I do all of the cooking in there.  And we sit around the coffee table in the lounge to eat our meals.  It's not a great system (and we definitely can't have guests over!), but it's a system, and it's getting us by.

That's basically what I want to do.  But it can't happen in our current home, and my partner refuses to move. So I'm currently thinking I'm going to have to move house on my own, and hope he will eventually follow. Or that we will both be happy in separate homes.

So, my mother did that once.  Well, technically she "left" my dad.  But then they reconciled, and he moved in with her in the farmhouse she'd rented.  And that left the family home that they owned empty, so I moved home.  It wasn't long before they moved back in, and I no longer occupied a four-bedroom house all for myself.  *sigh*

But, yeah, I totally get where you're coming from!  We didn't need to be near any place in particular, since my husband hates his job and was going to quit as soon as the visa stuff is behind us.  So we looked for a detached house, with garden, and off-street parking.  These were all deal-breakers.  The outbuildings we got were just bonus.  Then again, no kitchen, and it needs a lot of work.  We had priorities, and now we're living with what we got. 

I'm still angst-ing about this whole thing.  But I had a thought!!  You know that new rule that came out a couple of years ago which said you could cash in your pension (or part of it) at age 55?  I did a bit of digging and it would appear that my pension pot from my previous employer (if I am understanding the updates the pension provider sends me periodically) would be sufficient to provide a deposit on a flat, and to pay off my car loan if I cashed part of it in.  And it would be available to me next year when I turn 55!

Surely it can't be this easy.  Surely I'm missing/misunderstanding something.

I probably need to take this issue to the financial matters board....

I'm still angst-ing about this whole thing.  But I had a thought!!  You know that new rule that came out a couple of years ago which said you could cash in your pension (or part of it) at age 55?  I did a bit of digging and it would appear that my pension pot from my previous employer (if I am understanding the updates the pension provider sends me periodically) would be sufficient to provide a deposit on a flat, and to pay off my car loan if I cashed part of it in.  And it would be available to me next year when I turn 55!

Surely it can't be this easy.  Surely I'm missing/misunderstanding something.

I probably need to take this issue to the financial matters board....

And the way returns vs. inflation works out in these days of low interest rates, you'd probably be money ahead to spend it now.  Especially if you are paying interest on your car loan.

Surely it can't be this easy.  Surely I'm missing/misunderstanding something.

The negative to doing that would be that you've now spent a chunk of your pension pot so your income in retirement would be less.
(That's assuming you're right about the rules.)

The negative to doing that would be that you've now spent a chunk of your pension pot so your income in retirement would be less.
(That's assuming you're right about the rules.)

That's true, but i'm not bothered about it. I'll still have my current work's pension, my state pension(hopefully!), inheritance from my parents (assuming they die before I retire), and whatever provision my partner makes for me (dead or alive, I expect there will be *something*). And I will be living a quiet and simple life with my hounds and my little garden flat, so I wont need much.

Five years?  Oh my. I have two running simultaneously:

1) If Brexit goes badly for us, moving to either another EU country that is beneficial for the Daughter (i.e., where she can either continue her education or go to work for a living - I'm not getting any younger and when I kick off, the income I have goes with me) or back to the States to someplace like Vermont and finding a house with some land.  I'd love to be able to buy it, but unless I was working and thus able to secure a mortgage, that's not likely. And in 5 years, nobody in the States will hire me because of my age.  I also don't want to leave the kiddo with a house with a mortgage, unless I can find life insurance for a lot cheaper than I have seen for someone of my age so that it can be paid off for her to live in after I've kicked the bucket. But the places I'd like to live would have almost no opportunities for her to earn a living, so.... she might have to sell the place and hopefully make a profit on it.

2) If Brexit goes well, get the Daughter through her education here in the UK.  She should just about be done and launched in 5 years. She's on degree 2, and a PhD may follow.  Where that would be done is up in the air, as there's funding to consider and they are not cheap when you are not a resident of a given country. If she has to, say, go to Germany to get the degree, it could negatively impact her ability to live in the UK in the future.   As I'm Irish as well as USA, I can come back here (unless they change the rules), but she would not be able to unless sponsored on a work visa. Which I don't see happening, as her field is kind of esoteric and there won't be a huge demand - but I could very well be wrong.  If we are able to actually secure Irish citizenship for her, everything changes - but that's an incredibly long shot.

But eventually, when all the Daughter-driven stuff is taken care of, I would really like to live in a small house in a nice rural village or near a nice rural village. Someplace where I could have a few animals and a substantial veg and flower garden.  I would also like to be able to travel a little bit. 

It also might be nice if I could, perhaps, run a small general store - milk, bread, fresh veg, diapers, duct tape, etc. - like with a post office in it or something, out in the sticks.  Since I already have a steady income for life (knocking on wood), as long as I broke even it'd be ok.  That gives me 5 years to learn about how small businesses work in Scotland.  There was such a place (the village store in Kilmartin) that was up for sale earlier this year and I was soooo wishing I had the kind of experience it takes to run a place like that, as I'd have loved to have done it.

In the meantime, I am still working on understanding some of the local accents. I was up to about 75% comprehension of the Tesco delivery guy last week!