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Semi retired lifestyles

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FWIW - emigrating to Australia is expensive and time consuming and unless you have an anchor as I have ...pricey all around for living. Three months or 6 months on a visitor is easy to get approval and it's a huge continent. There are motorcycles to rent and camping is a passion plus AirBnb - plenty of choice.

If you are under 32 I think you can get work/visit visas which is organized through the gov.

Three weeks is sort very minimum for a visit - three months much better.
As mentioned tho....speed enforcement is very strict. If you want to blitz around hit the outback with offroad or dual sport.
 
I'm 31 now, self employed and work 6-7 months a year due to mainly seasonal business and usually go away for a month or so in decemeber (bali, thailand, etc). This year I drove out to BC from Hamilton and went to 5 of the best ski resorts in the country. (9000+ km) I should be able to "slow down" by the time I'm 40 due to good saving practices, inheritance and no mortgage thanks to my parents essentially giving me the house I grew up in when they built another one. I lost my brother to cancer last year at only 33 so I am the only beneficiary now. So I guess you could say I'm already semi retired as I don't do much in winter anyways and not making any big purchases other than vehicles anymore. Also visit my parents for a week or so in the winter as they spend it in Arizona and California on their motorhome. (not this year) I guess you could say life is good, other than losing my brother.

Edit - hoping to spend more and more time abroad in asia over the winters. Have been watching alot of Ex pat vlogs from the phillipines lately. Here is a guy that interviews other ex pats and gets their story. Interesting videos if you scroll down. Many men sick of the 9-5 and politics in the states, this guy was ready to take his own life even bought the rope, and now 180 degree turn around and seemingly happy and stress free.
Every Man Has a Story - YouTube
 
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Mikedezo44 said:
I'm 31 now, self employed and work 6-7 months a year due to mainly seasonal business and usually go away for a month or so in decemeber (bali, thailand, etc). This year I drove out to BC from Hamilton and went to 5 of the best ski resorts in the country. (9000+ km) I should be able to "slow down" by the time I'm 40 due to good saving practices, inheritance and no mortgage thanks to my parents essentially giving me the house I grew up in when they built another one. I lost my brother to cancer last year at only 33 so I am the only beneficiary now. So I guess you could say I'm already semi retired as I don't do much in winter anyways and not making any big purchases other than vehicles anymore. Also visit my parents for a week or so in the winter as they spend it in Arizona and California on their motorhome. (not this year) I guess you could say life is good, other than losing my brother.

Edit - hoping to spend more and more time abroad in asia over the winters. Have been watching alot of Ex pat vlogs from the phillipines lately. Here is a guy that interviews other ex pats and gets their story. Interesting videos if you scroll down. Many men sick of the 9-5 and politics in the states, this guy was ready to take his own life even bought the rope, and now 180 degree turn around and seemingly happy and stress free.
Every Man Has a Story - YouTube
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Asia is certainly one of the most interesting places to see coming from the west, imo. Not much left on my to do list there but i hope to get 'er all done within the next few years.
 
I'm pretty much retired and comfortable. If you have a modest home paid for and have contributed to CPP along with your spouse, CPP and OAS will keep a roof over your head and a jar of peanut butter on the shelf.

We've worked steady and been frugal except for some expensive toys once in a while and one at a time. As someone here posted, you can have anything you want but not everything you want.

We've dodged a few bullets and survived a few wounds but on the other hand we've been fortunate with some real estate situations.

Due to some issues with family and in-laws I tend to be over cautious with just about everything from riding to travel and finances. I like big safety cushions.

I could work a few days a month in my field and make a few thou but it would be working under a boss that knows less than me and I would bleed to death from biting my tongue when I hear him explaining things to clients. If I want something, I have enough to buy whatever I need in my current lifestyle. If I wanted a pricier lifestyle it would take a lottery win of five or ten million to make it worthwhile. Why move from a 25 foot boat to a 26 footer, gain a few hundred square feet of house.?

Covid has been a real piss off as I've found some long lost relatives in New Zealand and we've really hit it off. I want to visit and they want me to come but I've spent most of my life adjusting to schedules set by others and my retirement concept is to do my thing on my schedule. Airlines, scheduling and regulations are a PITA, even if necessary. Funding isn't an issue. One even offered to pay for my quarantine, not that it's a factor in the decision.

Going forward the thing I dread is losing the ability to have a shop to make or fix things. Years back I was talking to a friend of my mother and he was living in a seniors building. He wanted to show me one of the three wooden clocks he was building, one for each of his kids. They were made of Popsicle sticks.

Right now I'm working with spalted maple, trying to perfect four corner grain matching on a trinket box. Next spring, if I can make the room, I want to build another small boat, this time a lapstrake canoe. Popsicle sticks are for mixing epoxy.

All in all, life is good, possibly too content. Nothing like a bit of aggravation to get the blood pumping.

Cheer up they told me, things could be worse. So I cheered up and sure enough, things got worse.
 
First - "Cheer up they told me, things could be worse. So I cheered up and sure enough, things got worse." I've never heard that before. Holy crap, that's good.

I guess I'm retired uncomfortably, though it's getting better quickly.

Financially we're good, we never had kids, I don't spend a lot, our investment advisor told me I don't have to work and my wife wants me to follow that advice for my health, but up until very recently I was balking.

I closed our family nursery business 5 years ago. Right thing to do, right time to do it, left no debts unpaid with money in the bank, but still an agonizing decision that weighed on me. For 4 years I looked at starting something else, while keeping an eye open for employment opportunities. All to the backdrop of people telling me not to. In retrospect I was pretty miserable.

1 year ago I found a job with a company of which I was a customer (not a nursery) as their warehouse manager. They paid me more than I ever paid myself, and they (said they) wanted me to bring my experience to fix their inventory control operations as they had some serious issues. it was a one hour commute one-way but I like driving/riding so no big deal.

After a few months it became apparent that they really didn't want to change the way they did things. As time wore on it became apparent that I was regarded as nothing more than a pair of hands. The executive (I just can't call them leadership or management because they were neither) was absolutely convinced in their infallibility and it was becoming apparent as more and more responsibility was piling on me that the position was untenable and was inadvertently set up to fail.

Over the Christmas break, my wife told me I looked like crap. I was stressed and exhausted all the time. Our financial advisor laid out the numbers showing me that I didn't have work and that there would be enough for a comfortable life for my wife if I drop dead. My best friend of 40 years reminded me that for the 35+ years in the nursery I worked hard for 60-80 hours a week, and said he'd be ticked off if I dropped dead with a pile of money in the bank for nieces or nephews to fight over.

So I resigned in mid January.

I'm glad I took the job when I did, but I'm also glad to have left it when I did. I can physically feel a difference.

I'm becoming more comfortable with not working anymore at 55. My father worked into his mid eighties and I always compare myself to what he did. I'm slowly coming to terms with it. I don't have a shortage of things to do, and after COVID I may volunteer with a local organization of some sort. Or not, we'll see. There are options.

I was listening to a Bob McCowan podcast last week. He was interviewing the former program director for The Fan590, Nelson Millman. Nelson was saying that he had a difficult time after being let go by Roger and entering retirement.

He credits his wife for the best advice I've heard for someone struggling with their place in the professional world late in life. She said, "It's just not your turn anymore."

I thought that was a good way to look at it.
 
You can go online and find out what you will recieve from CPP and OAS. With these numbers and a bit of background any finnacial advisor can spit out various scenarios based on how much you think you need to live on using a few different rates of ROI (return on investments). Of course it's better to be conservative here but it's fun to see a few different rates used.

These are usually graphs showing when your investments run out, when you need to sell the house and lastly, as I like to say, when you start eating dog food.

The last one we had done showed us making it to 99 years old without having to sell the house (ROI was 3-5%) - time to crank up the spending. For the record I'm 58 and retired last May.

However for any of this to be worth while you must have a good handle on your expenses. My wife and I thought about this years ago and began to write down EVERY thing we spent money on. We now have about 10 years of data and know exactly how much we need. We added an amount to that for additional travel during retirement ( tentativly 3 months in the southern US living in our RoadTrek with a bike in an enclosed trailer behind it - I estimated an extra 15K)

I recently found a bunch of handwritten receipts for bikes I have bought in the past and now I can go back through our spending data and find out what I ACTUALLY paid for them.
 
timtune said:
You can go online and find out what you will recieve from CPP and OAS. With these numbers and a bit of background any finnacial advisor can spit out various scenarios based on how much you think you need to live on using a few different rates of ROI (return on investments). Of course it's better to be conservative here but it's fun to see a few different rates used.

These are usually graphs showing when your investments run out, when you need to sell the house and lastly, as I like to say, when you start eating dog food.

The last one we had done showed us making it to 99 years old without having to sell the house (ROI was 3-5%) - time to crank up the spending. For the record I'm 58 and retired last May.

However for any of this to be worth while you must have a good handle on your expenses. My wife and I thought about this years ago and began to write down EVERY thing we spent money on. We now have about 10 years of data and know exactly how much we need. We added an amount to that for additional travel during retirement ( tentativly 3 months in the southern US living in our RoadTrek with a bike in an enclosed trailer behind it - I estimated an extra 15K)

I recently found a bunch of handwritten receipts for bikes I have bought in the past and now I can go back through our spending data and find out what I ACTUALLY paid for them.
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Keep in mind that when you turn 65 some perks kick in, like the Ontario drug plan, transit costs and in some cases, reduced property taxes. My investment guru says I don't have to worry but we do have an adult offspring but she's not dependent.

Re transit and ignoring Covid, off peak cash fare for Mississauga transit is a dollar. Go Transit was half price.

My problem is that I'm a capitalist at heart and a capitalist has to have a dollar more today than they had yesterday. The money you saved for your old age doesn't count. I was used to buying a bike or toy and paying for it out of income and not seeing the bank balance drop.
 
Covid has been a real piss off as I've found some long lost relatives in New Zealand and we've really hit it off. I want to visit and they want me to come but I've spent most of my life adjusting to schedules set by others and my retirement concept is to do my thing on my schedule. Airlines, scheduling and regulations are a PITA, even if necessary. Funding isn't an issue. One even offered to pay for my quarantine, not that it's a factor in the decision.
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Not sure you can regardless just now but it is a world of difference being away from Covid, masks , lockdowns.
You should go if the gov will let you. For your own risk management, mental health ( no Covid ) and wonderful place.
Air New Zealand flies Toronto, LAX then Auckland. The flights are on Dreamliners which are very comfortable to fly in.

I'm still adjusting ( happily ) to a Covid free world in Queensland.
 
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One of the better way to head down to A/NZ is via Emirates if you're not on the clock. You can do a multiport/leg itinerary which basically works out to. YYZ ->DBX - SIN ->A/NZ.

You can spend a day and night in Dubai first, which is more than enough for most people. Two days and and nights in Singapore which is also good enough time to take in most of the city. From there you can just hit up any major city in Aus or Auckland. The cost is usually about the same depending on the time of year and all that jazz. You get to see some cool world class cities and take in some culture and sceneries and most importantly, the food; on your voyage austral.

MacDoc said:
Air New Zealand flies Toronto, LAX then Auckland. The flights are on Dreamliners which are very comfortable to fly in.

I'm still adjusting ( happily ) to a Covid free world in Queensland
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