It’s finally my last day of full-time work on Tuesday (17th July 2018), which means that the following day, Wednesday 18 July 2018, is my first day of my semi-retirement years. This also happens to me my 45th birthday, sounds auspicious.
Just a few thoughts on why I had to quit, how I managed to quit full time work at the age 45, and on what I'm going to do next.
This is also basically my leaving speech, which I'll be delivering in half an hour or so at work!
Why I had to quit work
It’s got everything to do with what’s happening to the line of work I’m in… teaching.
Firstly, funding cuts have just meant a steady increase in workload every year for the last several years. It’s just no longer possible to have a life outside of work and meet the unreasonable demands of the job. It simply isn’t worth the money, it hasn’t been for ages.
Secondly, marketisation induces stress and anxiety in everyone, and I can’t go on passing the shit down anymore.
Thirdly, we all know that exams have very little to do with the positive aspects of education, and I’ve managed to get myself into a position now where I can educate without any of the unnecessary stress of exams or results.
If you like this sort of 'why I quit teaching' thing - this post provides 10 reasons why I quit in much more detail.
How I’ve managed to semi-retire at age 45
It’s mainly thanks to a book called ‘early retirement extreme’ by a guy called Jacob Lund Fisker. He pointed out that most people spend 90% of their income and only save 10% towards their retirement, and suggested that we’d be better off inverting this ratio - if you can learn to live off 10% and save 90%, then assuming you can go on living off the same amount of money, you would then be saving enough for 9 years of retirement every year.
Obviously that’s not feasible for most people - but I set myself the target of 50-50 ratio a few years back, managed 60-40% and as a result I’ve got a big fat wad of cash in the diversified investments that’ll easily las me from about age 54 to 60 (when my TPS kicks in). That's also required me to be frugal, and avoid relationships and kids, or in early retirement terms, ‘the lock in’.
I’ve also set up a couple of blogs one centered around sociology revision revisesociology.com and this steemit blog in which I focus on more personal stuff, and together they're earning me pretty good money, and that’s enough for me to live off, and I haven’t even really started with either of them yet, plenty of room for growth.
Finally, I’m gonna have to move out West - I can’t afford to live around here, and thankfully now I’ve quite I don’t have to, because I find the unnecessary middle class pretensions of Reigate utterly detestable.
If you like this sort of 'early retirement extreme' thing - this post provides more details about my plan and progress.
What I’m gonna do next….
I’m gonna spend August looking for a house somewhere west or north - I’m gonna see what the market offers me….. If I find a nice detached wreck in Wales, I’ll do the whole self sufficiency thing, if I find an nice town house in a university town, I’ll rent it to students and go digital nomad.
For money I’ll be blogging - I’ve got lots of interests and thankfully platforms that pay me for writing, so I’m just gonna develop my craft….. I think there’s plenty of scope for developing truly multi-media sociology resources with my own personal twist to them, totally unconstrained by exam boards, syllabuses, or any educational institution.
I'll probably start each day around 5.30 a.m. go for a walk or run, then ablutions, then listen to Radio 4 over croissants and coffee and decide what I want to blog about for that day. Besides that I don’t know what I’ll be doing, making it up as go along basically…
If you like this 'what am I gonna do next' thing, follow me and connect, I'll be writing lots more on this in the next few weeks and months.