In this weeks journey towards early retirement we anxiously wait for a life changing decision on our potential house purchase, have some success in the world of magazine writing and reflect on a whole series of last events that naturally occur when bringing a working career to an end.
VW Bus magazine.
It always makes us super proud when one of our articles appears in print, and this week we had the second part of our 4 years and over 400 nights article published in VW Bus magazine. To see our words and images in print across 5 pages is such a proud feeling and we just hope that the article encourages other people to get out and see the world in their vans.
For me, I always take pleasure in seeing my words in print as I had a really difficult time with English in school all those years ago. I did well in school, but really struggled with English, with spelling being my main downfall. This insecurity has stayed with me throughout my working life, with my English teachers dismissive words regularly echoing in my head. I always say to students that it is ok to struggle with a subject as long as you stay in the game and keep trying.
I think it is so important in our lives to have something that is difficult and requires a bit of grit to stick at it- grit is just like a muscle and needs to be regularly exercised if we don't want to lose it. Writing has now become one of my daily pleasures and I look forward to having more time to devote to writing in our years of early retirement.
The start of the big lasts.
It has been a strange week going back to work this week with the frequency of last events increasing as the days go by.
I only teach GCSE exam classes, and just as the students complete their exams, I complete my time teaching. The maths exams will be complete on Monday, and so will my teaching commitment…for ever. There will be no planning for next year, no transitions and no getting to know the next group of students that come along. It all feels very final. Similarly, this week was my last ever return to work after my last ever school holiday. For 30 years I have always hated that return to work feeling, so I am quite relieved to be seeing the back of that particular experience.
It seems crazy that we are still only 6 months into this big adventure, with things moving along way since we first made our decision to retire early just before Christmas. Since then we have both resigned, payed off our debts, saved like crazy, sold the house, put an offer in on another house in Yorkshire and started a blog where we have been creating material for over 15 weeks. We are not sure where this journey is going to end up, but we are enjoying the ride so far!
One of the natural effects of moving on in life, is that life moves on around you. I have spoken before about an increased feeling of redundancy in my job role as the term moves on. Naturally at this time of year, thoughts and plans in school turn to next September. I have no role to play in those plans, so it is natural to feel a little bit out of it. Previously when I have moved jobs, there has always been things to do to prepare for my new role- how do I now prepare to be an early retiree?
T shirt delivery
We had a surprise delivery from Jackie’s sister this week- two amazing bespoke printed t shirts with our early retirement wanderlust logos on. They look and feel fabulous and have just made us even more excited for what the future may hold in the coming years. It really is a new and exciting chapter of our lives…and so different to anything that we have embarked on before. This lovely gesture has spurred us on to start looking at other logo ideas such as stickers for the van and also some custom art work for the fridge door in the van…don’t ask…it’s definitely a VW vanners thing!
House purchase update
As I sit and type this paragraph, it is Friday morning and D day for our house purchase attempt. The sealed bid process ends at 12 noon today, so we are hoping that we should find out later today (one way or the other) as to what happens next. We have been on tender hooks all week and just want an end to this very stressful experience. Interestingly, there is definitely an aspect of fate in life, as a beautiful house came up yesterday to remind us to keep perspective- there are lots of wonderful houses out there that are waiting for us- we just need to be patient- which is easier said than done when you have started to dream of what might be! One thing is for sure, I should have plenty to talk about in the next paragraph…
So it is Saturday morning and we seem to have bought a house!!! Friday, as predicted, was all very stressful mainly thanks again to our friendly estate agent! It got to 1530 and we had to resort to ringing the agent to get an indication of what was happening. It seems that although they had planed for a 12 noon deadline, they had not yet had time to deliver the bids to the vendor- they assured us they would drop them off later in the day and we may hear that night or more probably on Saturday sometime. We were incensed, but there was nothing that we could do. Anyway, as things turned out, the vendor rang us later in the evening and after a bit of toing and froing we came to a deal.
Things that we have learned so far from this process:
It always pays to be nice to people- the reason our bid was accepted was that the vendor liked us and will be our future neighbour. They wanted us to live next door because we are nice people.
Things happen for a reason- if we had not found the house on rightmove when we were in the area, we would not have met the vendor in person, she would not have realised that we were nice people and we would not have been successful in our sealed bid.
Be genuine with people- integrity still counts for a lot.
Do the things that feel right- gut feeling is often right.
Money is just money, you cannot put a price on dreams. We did not want to lose our dream for the price of a few thousand pounds. Share that cost across 10 to 15 years of happiness and it becomes insignificant.
Things work quicker when estate agents are not involved- communication is much clearer and more transparent.
In other news...
We have become proud grandparents...of two wood pigeon chicks nesting in our garden tree. Not the best move on their parents part, as we have two cats that love to "play" with small creatures, but we have loved watching them grow and develop over the last few weeks. Fingers crossed that they mange to survive the next few weeks until they are ready to flee the nest.
So that's it for another week and what a pivotal week it's been. We are so excited to plan the next steps on our journey towards early retirement. The full renovation of a house is a little scary at this moment in time. As I type, Jackie is actively researching electric heater and boiler solutions as the village doesn't have a gas supply. What an exiting life we lead!
Have a brilliant week,
Richard & Jackie.
Very exciting!