Early retirement\semi retirement

gordon_adl · Senior Member

Early retirement\semi retirement

bill12 · Guru

I want to win Gold Lotto, and fish until its all gone...........I am serously thinking of doing just that, but changing your lifestyle after 20 years of working for yourself is dawnting.Its nice to think about it, though.

-- Edited by bill12 on Thursday 30th of June 2011 04:35:15 PM

gordon_adl · Senior Member

Thank you for the very condescending response.
bill12 wrote:
I want to win Gold Lotto, and fish until its all gone...........I am serously thinking of doing just that, but changing your lifestyle after 20 years of working for yourself is dawnting.Its nice to think about it, though.

-- Edited by bill12 on Thursday 30th of June 2011 04:35:15 PM

jules47 · The Happy Helper

Sorry Gordon - I didn't think Bills response was condescending at all - just that we all have a dream - and that's his. Anyway my thoughts -
1) Pub - limited opening hours = limited income - though some of the pubs here are open 7 days, and close throught the week at 8ish -
2) Caravan Park - 24/7/365 = have friends who had one, built it up, sold it and now their daughter and S-I-L have one, which they live at and co-manage
- unless it is pretty small - need assistance - reliable assistance
3) Bush camping tours - reckon this is the winner - do it very well, to places people can not normally get to, and you will be set - work when you want to as well

Anyway that's my 10 cents worth, for what it's worth - I am sure others will have input as well.

bill12 · Guru

I am sorry if you took my post that way. I was only trying to help. I am having the same dillema myself.I have some saleable skills, but do I take the big chance and just do it. BIG question. I have been thinking about it for years.Its a big decision, that I will have to make , eventually.

milo · Guru

pub would be good

caravan park, my cousins own one and they can never leave it,

ozjohn · Guru

Good money in both,but like a corner shop, one must work long hours to make a good quid.
As an ex park owner and multi park franchiser, I can tell you they're hard work and Pubs have have minimum hours set my the State licencing agency.
Best of luck Ozjohn.

beachball57 · Senior Member

i looked into doing something similar with the bush tours but with my love of fishing was looking a fishing guide,, the liability insurance is what killed it for me, because you are taking people out and for a fee you have to carry public liability ins, and for me to do what i was going to do i had to have $10,000,000.00 worth of ins, which was about $10,000.00 a year, way over my head and i'd say that you would have to have something the same just in case something happened,,, good idea but check all the fine print before you get to worked up......at 54 i'm looking to change my "life style" as well but like you just don't know what to do

gordon_adl · Senior Member

Hi Bill,
Please accept my apologies. I have misunderstood your comment.

gold dandelion · Senior Member

from reading this site i would give the pub and caravan park a miss.

wendyv · Guru

I too would be wary of the tour idea. It was something we once considered - looking at "shepherding" solo travellers who were wary of tackling remote places alone, but gave up the idea in the face of insurance type issues.

Have you considered seasonal work? It is something we fell into unintentionally - by being campers in a place that was very short staffed. It was totally different to our previous careers (we retired at 52 and 57, to travel), but we loved that work and finished up doing several seasons in remote places. It was our experience that once started in a place, offers for work somewhere else next season tended to happen.

We also did mango harvest work - in the packing sheds. That was ok, too. Some grey nomads follow a harvest trail, ranging from the tropics - mangoes - to Victoria - fruit, tomatoes, grapes.

Cruising Granny · Guru

Been there, done that, many times. I only ever had jobs or small businesses, not "careers".
A girl's gotta eat and feed her children, so I did whatever I had to do.
As you're aware I've recently rejoined the workforce, in a job I chose because my head still works pretty good, I love driving, I want to keep travelling, and the bonus is, I get paid. (Well I should get paid).
Just think it through, sort out your priorities, think about your age (not being insulting but practical), what you'd most like to do, then do what you have to do to get it happening.
Pubs are not always the cheery, happy places you sip a beer at over your counter lunch. There are licensing conditions, insurances, stock, staff and running costs. I've been a barmaid in several places in SA including fishing and tourist towns, and it's long hours and hard work unless you're on an outback roadhouse. Now there's an option.
The tour thing has been expressed by WendyV.
A small caravan park in a cute little village would be the go, but again there are overheads, insurance and constant maintenance. If you buy a run-down park there's a lot of work to do to bring it up to some sort of acceptable standard.
How long have you got? What have you got to put into it?
Most of my jobs/careers/businesses have evolved out of hobbies. My journalism/media consultancy started out as a hobby which turned into a one-person industry.
I'm not trying to pour water on your plan, it just pays to be prepared.
Be careful what you wish for, and I really do wish you all the best.

gordon_adl · Senior Member

Wendy,
That sounds very interesting. We too are will be in that age range. I shall have to look into that for sure. Thanks.

chris & terry · Senior Member

Hi, just my two bobs worth with regards to semi retirement to pub ownership. I owned & was the licensee of a NSW country hotel for 14 years, considered a very long stay in one hotel at the time. There is no such thing as a very small pub with limited open hours. Very small pub, yes, limited open hours, no. Income from the former would be limited, & income from the latter would be non existent. I guess with the hindsite of retirement, I would say that unless you put full energy into any enterprise you are setting yourself up for failure. So a late career change, yes, if you wish. But semi retirement seems to me to be like being semi pregnant. Total retirement is much more appealing to me.

regards Terry

lilly31 · Guru

I would think from owning a couple of small business over my working life ,any small business would be full on work in this day and age with wages..running cost ect .
I think sometime semi retirement would be best if working for someone else collecting a wage at end of week and have no worries and then if you feel like you need and new destination you are free to go .... but that my thought anyway ..

gordon_adl · Senior Member

Such good advice everyone. Thanks.

Wombat 280 · Guru

bill12 wrote:
I want to win Gold Lotto, and fish until its all gone...........I am serously thinking of doing just that, but changing your lifestyle after 20 years of working for yourself is dawnting.Its nice to think about it, though.

-- Edited by bill12 on Thursday 30th of June 2011 04:35:15 PM

Same here Spend half on wine women and song and just waste the other half and die happy

gordon_adl · Senior Member

Have got the girl and the wine. Now just need a song.

Wombat 280 · Guru

Never to late to change horses, it's getting up the nerve to do it All the ones you mentioned seem to impose to many restrictions on your time to go smell the roses . Some Councils employ camp hosts others employee show ground keepers . Don't be afraid to move outside your current employment expertise and remember you don't have to be the CEO , too many blokes who change career paths strive to become the top rooster while in fact they need to consider becoming the feather duster and taking it easy. We are only here for a short time so make it a good time .

Loffty · Senior Member

Oh, so well said. Take it easy and go with the flow is all I can say

dogbox · Guru

after a life time of working for a living do you give it up to start living to work

if you are going start a new career ,job ,business make sure it is some thing you want to do with a passion .how many times have you heard someone say " wished i have done it years ago when i had the chance"

-- Edited by dogbox on Saturday 2nd of July 2011 08:07:09 AM

Rip and Rosie · Guru

My idea is to turn a hobby into an e-business.

Don't want to be tired down, and can do this from the van as long as telstra give me a signal.
Can do it when ever and wherever. Might not make a mint, but that's ok.

Had a friend who did scrapbooking, and set up a website selling supplies. As that grew, she began to host google ads for other scrapbooking sites (at a profit), and soon ceased selling and made her money without much effort.

I reckon that, even without the e-business side of things, there are retirees out there with skills to sell on a regular or semi-regular basis without too much hassle. Like the lawn bowler or golfer who could coach folk new to the sport, or the experienced caravanner who could teach newbies to reverse safely for a price. All it would take is an ad in the local paper.

Keep your pub and your caravan park.

wendyv · Guru

gordon_adl wrote:
Wendy,
That sounds very interesting. We too are will be in that age range. I shall have to look into that for sure. Thanks.

Some useful extra qualifications for that type of work: medium or heavy rigid vehicle licence; food handlers certificate; ditto bar; forklift ticket, senior first aid.

beachball57 · Senior Member

like other son this site i'd like to retire too and it's all well and good to say well just retire and be done with it but i have in the past been "hungerry" and i didn't like it then and i doubt that i'd like it now, so like they so no pay no play,, it wouldn't take much for me to tell the boss to "stick it" but then what do you do after, you still have to eat and pay the bills and i'm not yet at an age where is can draw on super or go on a pension for that matter,,getting married last year i not only took on the bride but also her 10 year old daughter so you see we're here for the next 8 to 10 years,, i have spent most of my working life behind the wheel (of a semi trailer) sometime unside down but most of the time right side up,, i would give my left *** to be able to give it up but how can you when you still must provide for your family....also after being in the same sort of job for such a long time you get for want of a better work in a rut and become use to the same old ****e day in day out and sometimes it takes s fair amount of courage to change direction

Esmeralda · Guru

Late last year I took a package and rather than look for another job straight away I decided to just stop working for as long as possible. I had a very stressful job and needed to seriously unwind.

It has now been nearly 8 months and although I have only had one trip away (for various reasons), I have bought the van and the vehicle and done a bit of research; and when Esmeralda has finished her forced renovations (soon I hope) I plan to hit the road again for another trip. But then, because I want to keep some money as "insurance against a slow job market" I plan looking for work again. This time I am planning temporary/contract work - so I can work for a while and then travel for a while. All going well in a few years I will stop work permanently and live off some of my super.

Gordon maybe you could think of leaving the full time workforce and take on short to medium term contract work, be it in your usual occupation or something entirely different. Use this money and time to explore your options.

gordon_adl · Senior Member

After reading some of the stories here and also doing some research I think, at the end of the day, we'll probably just take and extended holiday. If we find a place that we quite like, we'll look for contract work. As I'm in I.T. and my other half is an accountant, I reckon we should have no problem getting tempt\contract work. Mind you, I did say we're in the early stages of planning. Probably looking at another 3.5 - 5 years before anything.

This thread kind of ties up into my thread about super too. I think for the time being we'll just ramp up our super and plan more carefully once the time comes.