DH and I have been having lots of discussions about when to actually leave work and how best to spread out our leave for the best tax advantage. I’ve also talked to one of my managers at work about leaving who was so supportive and excited for me. It’s starting to feel real!

I’ve just updated my countdown in the sidebar to my new date – 220+ days earlier than my original five-year plan. So I’ll work first term plus the holidays next year so I have time to hand over and finish up my work projects. If I do decide I want to leave earlier than that (if covid gets bad here) then I can just bring my date forward.

Eleven weeks of that time will be student holidays – I will have four of those weeks off over Christmas)  and twenty-one weeks will be term time. I have only 32 weeks until I retire and twenty-eight weeks left to work!    Doing a little happy dance here 🙂 

 I’m feeling much better than I was a few days ago after our appointment with the financial planner yesterday. After running the numbers and doing various projections he assured us we have enough to retire now if we want to and we will be OK. Seeing our costs and spending projections in detail, with dates up until age 105 was really helpful. We will not run out of money on our current spending.  I felt relieved, now we can start planning the income details and thinking about retirement dates. 

 There is still a lot of detail to be sorted out and I will work at least till the end of the year to complete this contract and possibly for a few months next year to finish up and handover. But it feels so good to know I could actually finish working when I choose to.

So I am excited and relieved today after seeing the projections. The end is in sight! This time next year I won’t be working or worrying or feeling tired all the time. I’ll have time to read, sew, garden, cook, go for walks and do whatever I want all day long. Now I need to start planning what needs to be done before I leave work and when to actually leave. I’m sure work will not feel as stressful now as I know there is not long to go!

 I’ve had a lovely week. DH and I took a few days off together making it a four-day weekend. Neither of us did any work and it was really nice just to have some time to catch up and hang out together. 

We met with our financial planner and had a very detailed talk about what we want our retirement to look like, how we’ll spend our time & money, and going over our current finances. And the good news was that he thinks that we could probably retire much sooner than we had planned. That was a pleasant surprise and a relief. I just feel that all the hard work has paid off and we are going to be OK. 

In 2010 we were in a bad place financially and we have turned that around. I felt a bit emotional after our meeting ended, and since then I have just been daydreaming about what’s ahead – gardening, sewing, being free to fill my days as I please. There is still a lot more detailed planning to be done before anything will happen officially but I feel less stressed already.