Ahead of Schedule and Overwhelmed

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Pkate
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Jan 30, 2018 9:55 pm

Ahead of Schedule and Overwhelmed

Post by Pkate »

Hello from Northern New England!

Where to start.... I am overwhelmed. Luckily it is a good kind of overwhelmed and I think this forum will go a long way to help. My husband always planned on retiring early and we hoping to get there in 10 years or so. Well it turns out he could retire next month when his current contract ends. We have hit financial independence in terms of net worth but we need to figure out how to transition to living off investments instead of only acquiring them. We are have been paying off debts and debating what to do next.

wolf
Posts: 1102
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2017 5:09 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Ahead of Schedule and Overwhelmed

Post by wolf »

Welcome Pkate to the ERE forum! That is quite a start! Regarding "living off your investmens" there is a book called "Living off your money" which I can recommend you. There is also a thread about it and the first 100 pages are free. You can find it here viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9462
But, how did you manage to reduce your estimated time till retirement from 10 years to 1 month?

Pkate
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Jan 30, 2018 9:55 pm

Re: Ahead of Schedule and Overwhelmed

Post by Pkate »

The short version is my husband made some investments 5 and 6 years ago that really took off last year. Our other investments are conservative and are chugging along. As far as debt goes we are down to just mortgages to pay off. Due to paying off debt and a down cycle in my husband's work contracts a couple of years ago our cash reserves are low and we are working on correcting that. Beyond that we need to figure out what to do next. Our investments need to be re-balanced and we need to shift to more income producing vehicles. This is where the overwhelmed feeling comes from.

We have a two unit rental property that is cash flow positive but we are still underwater on in terms of market value. Long term we want to sell this property because we don't like being landlords. Right now it has good tenants and we want to take our time getting it ready to sell.

We moved from that house 4 years ago to a house on 2.5 acres and have been turning it into a tiny farm ever since. I am at the point where I am producing more than half the vegetables we eat a year, most of the eggs, all the honey, and we are working on expanding the fruits, nuts and mushroom production. More animals is still up for debate. This house will need renovations at some point since the kitchen and bathroom are from 1986. I want to renovate them to handle aging in place including wheel chairs. It is a 3 bedroom ranch house so this shouldn't be too difficult.

For now my husband is planning on working part time since we still have improvements to the farm we to make including more fencing, garden pond, greenhouse, and a fruit and nut orchard. We don't have any children but I do have some medical problems that will only get worse as I age hence the need to renovate for limited mobility. We are on either side of 40 years old and we may wind up having our in laws move in as they get older too.

So I am here and starting to read through the forum to get ideas to make all this happen.

Dodo
Posts: 8
Joined: Sat Jan 06, 2018 4:01 am

Re: Ahead of Schedule and Overwhelmed

Post by Dodo »

Hello Pkate,

thanks for sharing. Admittedly, your mentioning of an own farm was what caught my eye instantly.
Retiring early from the corporate job and the city that it is connected to, to go back to the countryside is one of my main drivers.
I used to live in a small village, we had a garden there but nothing akin to a farm.
Could you please elaborate how you made this transition? Were you both already living in the countryside and have prior experiences in gardening, poultry-farming etc.?
How did you chose the farm? Was the quality of the land a cirteria, did you pick one with an own well?
I wonder how to incorporate fruits and nuts in timely fashion. Is it best to chose a piece of land with the trees already on it, since they take a long time to reach a proper size to bear fruit?

Good luck and greetings to the island of Avalon!

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