YouTubers really making the most of early retirement

 So I was watching a YouTube vlog from Early Retirement Wanderlust (ERW) this morning.  They were answering questions about early retirement specifically (1) How do you decide when was the right time to retire; (2) What do you do all day; and (3)Aren’t you worried about running out of money?

As always on their channel the vlog presented an upbeat, polished, entertaining, personal perspective which I have, no doubt, will prove both interesting and helpful to many watching who are in the throes of thinking about retirement, early or otherwise.

From what I have gathered they retired in their early 50s from teaching careers having made the decision after a truly miserable 2021.  They had gone straight into work from university and started their family early.  As a result they had, albeit reduced, teachers’ pensions they could access at 55 (a few years after they retired) and with buying back a few years they are in for full state pensions in due course.  Their decision to early retire certainly appears to have worked for them, hence the upbeat entertainment, but there have been some compromises to achieve that.  They downsized the family home and moved areas.   I can’t say I would regard moving to the North Yorkshire Dales could be considered a sacrifice but it was quite some downsize, a scary level of decluttering and a total renovation project.  Their budget is both tight and strict though YouTube now seems to be providing some contingency and whilst they travel extensively most of this is in a camper van.  Until the end of last year that was a VW camper van with no bathroom facilities, they do now have a slightly larger (5.4m) van complete with loo and shower.  

Now I can entirely understand the desire to change things following losing several people close to them in 2021.  In 1997 my dad decided to retire early at 54 after both my grandmothers died.  S and I went through a similar rough patch in 2016-2017 when my daughter died, S’s dad died, my dad had a serious head injury, S’s grandmother, godfather and a couple of slightly more distant relatives died.  We were fast reaching the point where we didn’t want to pick up the phone when it rang.

That was far too early for us to even contemplate retirement but even if it wasn’t it would have been a non starter.  For various reasons we were not quite so quick out of the blocks as regards pension savings (me)/pensionable employment (S).  I have enough years for full state pension when I get there but S is missing most of the 90s which could not be bought back in the recent push.  Whilst technically we can both access our pensions due to our age my DC pot would be better for a bit longer and the Civil Service hasn’t been paying out new pensions for a while and we can’t even get S’s figures from them to plan.  

For us, therefore, the answer to question (1) well it’s obviously not yet; and to (3) What do you mean run out of money?  The powers that be have to let S access any of it first.  

This leaves (2).  So far this year from what I have seen ERW have spent several weeks in Florida with her mum, written a travel book for No Fuss Travel, presented on the Inspiration stage for 3 days at the NEC Motorhome Show, had a few weeks skiing in the Alps in the camper van, posted 2 vlogs on YouTube each week plus, I think, the odd extra one or two, had several short stays away in the camper van and there have been a few blog posts also.  Never mind what they do all day the more pertinent question might be ‘when do they find time to sleep?’ 

I see no prospect of us struggling to fill our days when we get there and I very much hope it will not be too many years away.  What I do know, however, is that the compromises ERW have made would be too much for us.  We would never manage to adhere to their budget.  We are not likely to downsize, where we live it will not release any funds and the loss of the garden and garage would be a huge wrench.  Given the slow progress decluttering my wardrobe and the kitchen and S not even trying to declutter we have no hope of fitting in anything smaller.  Just keeping in what we have is enough of a challenge.  Whilst we do have plans for driving in Europe it will need to be rather larger than a 5.4m camper van if we wish to be on speaking terms for any longer than the initial drive.

In short, leaving aside we are already rather late to the party, we are not likely to be emulating ERW’s example but I wish them well and hope they continue to post on their channel for some time as I do enjoy much of their content.