what are our long term plans?
It’s been a while since we’ve focused on the long term picture around here, and it’s been noticed by commenter “Is_poss” in his (or her… could be a her) comment here:
Hey TFS, big fan of your work and have been reading your updates for a couple of years. Just wondering what your overall targets are? Do you have an amount at which you would consider yourself FI or where you would RE?
First of all, thank you for the nice comment Is_poss!
And secondly, yep! Just like a bunch of ravenous investment bankers, I’ve been far too relentlessly focusing on the short term stuff such as monthly updates and all of that jazz. This is fair enough because FI is a large and daunting task, so breaking it down into smaller chunks and not thinking too much about the overall goal is probably beneficial, but there is no denying that you must keep an eye on the bigger prize as well, lest it falls completely off the radar!
First of all, if you want to read how my plans/thoughts have changed over the years then you could do worse than following the links on the “welcome new readers” bit that comes at the top of the page, if you would like to read the whole thing just open the blog in an “Incognito Mode/Private Browsing” window (or clear your cookies). But here is the relevant bit with links to save you the bother:
My thoughts and plans have slightly changed in the few years since I set up the blog, you can learn a little bit more about me and the main points on what those plans were and how they’ve changed here, here, here, here and finally here.
Anyway even with that it is clear we are due a bit of an update, a check in to where my mind is at but more importantly where our finances are at in comparison to any long term goals.
So here is my reply to Is_poss with a bit of expansion where I felt it was needed to make this into a proper post rather than something I just wrote up in 5 minutes 🙂
OK, so my original plan was to quit corporate work within 5 years with £250K in the freedom fund to allow me to start my own business, do a bit of freelance/part time work or whatever I felt like doing really. I guess at that point I wouldn’t have been Financially Independent but I would have considered myself Financially Free and no longer a member of the rat race.
I’m not sure with our levels of spending that would have been possible anyway but A LOT has changed since then:
- Bought a new house with corresponding higher mortgage and more principle to pay off
- Started working part time (75% of normal FT hours)
- Had a kid
With all of that it is fair to say there is no way I will hit that original goal with only roughly 1.25 years left to go – yep, I’ve been running this blog nearly 4 years, would you believe it?! No I can’t either! How are we measuring up to the goal though? Here’s how:
Our current Net Worth is £219,000
Our current Freedom Fund is (Net Worth excluding house equity) is £140,000
Our current “Liquid Freedom (Money not stashed in private pensions/house/SIPP) is £65,000
I’d like to think that with a little over a year – the (totally arbitrary and non-significant in any way) final day will be July 3rd 2018 – we can make some in roads into that £250K figure, maybe get the freedom fund up to £200K with a real push and if markets remain strong, but that seems like the best case scenario and we’ll still fall short by £50K.
My thoughts on that are a huge mother f**king “so what?” right now, because of the following reasons:
- I’m already far more free than the average 9-5er, with 25% of the year off, plus 4 weeks holiday. This equates to around 17 weeks not working per year.
- The above means I’ve taken a pay cut in return and True Financial Independence as defined of never having to work again as long as the 4% rule holds true looks a lot longer away than it may have done if I’d remained in full time employment.
- I’m pretty OK with that! We are still saving for retirement and will still likely hit proper FI at the age of around 55 if we maintain our expenses at their current level and save around 35% of our income, which is not exactly an insurmountable task
- This sounds pretty damn good to me. I don’t know anyone else my age doing anything remotely like this and retiring at 55 is still very early for most people.
In answer to the question:
Do you have an amount at which you would consider yourself FI or where you would RE?
The answer is of course 25x spending so that would mean we need near enough 1 million “in the bank” as we spent near enough 40K last year and are on course to do the same this year. Of course 10K of that is the mortgage so once that is paid off the figure drops to “only” 750K. As you can see we are no where near that but as my main plan is and has always been to save up “some” FU money (250K original target), then work part time and freelance on fun projects to keep the stash topped up, there is no major rush now (and in reality there never was) to hit this “goal”. But if you want a scenario where we declare ourselves officially FI, then it is either of the following:
- £1,000,000 in the investment pot + still paying off mortgage
- £750,000 in the investment pot + paid off mortgage
As you can probably tell scenario two is far more likely as when we get anywhere near £750K in investments it is very likely the principle on our mortgage will be practically paid off by then anyway, so we can either just decide to pay the rest off and have done with it, or if inflation has eaten away at the payment amounts in real terms we could just leave it and call it official FI regardless.
the real goal: the good life
The key point in all of this is that when we do finally surmount the summit of the Everest that is Financial Independence, hopefully I am going to have 20 years of part time / fun work to look back on 1… this sounds like the definition of a good life to me and so if I can pull that off then I reckon I will be one happy TFS.
Of course my mindset may change and I may decide to go back to work FT and shoot for full FI earlier, or it may not. I’m not one to make a rigid plan and stick to it as you may well have noticed.
So I guess you’ll just have to stay tuned for the next 20 years to find out 🙂
Notes:
- I’ll be 36 in June, in case anyone was wondering ↩
Great post. I love the long term but you’ve certainly done the right thing by breaking it down into smaller ‘chunks’. Especially when we’re talking about £750,000 in an investment pot – that sort of money still sounds so scary!
It does sound very scary! However we already have £140,000 and even if you left that compounding for 20 years it would be worth around £300K in real terms (assuming a real return of 4%). Still leaves a lot left to make up but when you think about it like that maybe it doesn’t sound quite so scary?
Well done for seeing through the rat race and doing your own thing.
It is interesting you’ve gone all in on the 4% safe withdrawal rate, most folks who follow that path are Americans with a much lower cost of living than is feasible in the U.K.
A couple of questions spring to mind.
Are you planning to earn (i.e. remuneration as opposed to passive income streams or investment capital gains) the bulk of your wealth? Presumably you are given the ~20 year FI time horizon.
How are you planning to mitigate the foreseeable threats to your income levels? For example everyone being replaced by robots, or your chosen computering niche falling out of fashion, etc?
Do you have any plans to hedge against, or profit from, the Brexit induced falling GBP (e.g. holding some of your investments denominated in other currencies)?
Thanks for the thought provoking post.
Hi Slow Dad,
“gone all in on the 4% safe withdrawal rate” – I wouldn’t say I’ve gone all in on this but it seems like the best thing to base estimates of when we are FI. 3% just seems way too conservative for my liking but I can understand that other people want to be extra sure that they’ll never have to lift another finger before quitting work and calling it FI (which personally I find a bit odd, but there we go). So to answer your questions:
1) Yes!
2) Be flexible, as always. I can’t really be more specific than that as it depends on what happens 🙂
3) No specific plans but I hold VWRL and VHYL which I believe has had me pretty covered with this so far. I’m no expert investor so not going to try to profit from it, just stick some more money into these types of investment as and when I have spare cash.
Cheers!
Hi Slow Dad. I was the original commenter to which TFS made this reply. I’m very interested in your comments re: automation. This is actually my primary motivation towards FIRE as a hedge against “enforced early retirement”. The industry in which I work means I see very little opportunity beyond 1-2 years and I believe the exponential growth of technological change makes retraining an uneconomical prospect. As such I am attempting to cut back to ~20k per annum expenses with a current net worth of ~550k. I’m struggling with whether I’m in the vanguard of people thinking this way or have become an obsessive kook!
> “I’m struggling with whether I’m in the vanguard of people thinking this way or have become an obsessive kook!”
Lol! To my simple mind the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive! 🙂
Automation… well I don’t want to hijack TFS’s great blog, but in short there are many professions today where a large proportion of the current workforce will become structurally redundant by advances in technology. This has been happening since at least the industrial revolution, so hardly a new thing.
The media obsesses about extreme examples like uber/taxi/truck drivers being replaced by driverless cars, but in many cases the changes are subtler and already happening today.
We’ve all seen it happening to shop assistants in Tesco and the London Underground ticket offices, with the introduction of self service check outs.
The same sort of change will remove the much of the demand for paralegals, bookkeepers, medical imaging specialists, database administrators, financial planners, secondary/tertiary teachers… the list goes on. Basically any profession that exists primarily to apply a rule based set of knowledge to solving a discreet set of problems.
If the “robots” can be taught to understand and apply the rules, then the majority of workers in that particular game are an endangered species.
This will create great opportunities for some, but inevitably others will find resentfully find themselves left behind.
The important thing is to keep your eyes open so you can (without being paranoid) see it coming in your profession. That way you can adopt TFS’s excellent advice to “be flexible”, and with a bit of luck ensure you maintain a collection of marketable skills that allow you to remain employable, even if that future employment happens to take you outside your comfort zone or current profession.
No worries about hijacking here, very interested to hear other peoples view on all of this, I enjoy thinking and writing about it myself, although try not to obsess too much because as I say there are so many unknowns. Also happen to be optimistic about the situation (as I wrote on my parenting: the future, post) but that doesn’t mean I’ll be resting on my laurels waiting for a robot dividend or whatever to be instated for the masses, of course!
Seth’s advice here is good as always:
“The question each of us has to ask is simple (but difficult): What can I become quite good at that’s really difficult for a computer to do one day soon? How can I become so resilient, so human and such a linchpin that shifts in technology won’t be able to catch up?
It was always important, but now it’s urgent.”
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2017/04/24-things-artificially-intelligent-computers-can-do-better-than-you-can.html
Great to have a long term plan, but that’s not the only goal here. I’m sure you’ve discovered a lot on the journey (I know you hate that saying!) as well – like cutting working hours giving you more freedom, finding out what you actually enjoy spending time and money on; that’s what it’s all about.
The Doffer, that is so true!
Aiming for FI has opened up so many doors to new ways of thinking, living, and ultimately just having a more fun and interesting life. The actual end goal is far less relevant now than when I started out, but obviously it’s a great hook to get people into it in the first place.
Given the choice between doing a FS or doing a RIT, I think I would choose a FS. All sounds good – keep it up!
Thanks The Rhino, you too! 🙂
Thanks for the peek into your long term goals again TFS (and for censoring those F bombs – my work filter appreciated it).
I’m feeling pretty inspired right now to simplify my FI goals again and how i’m going to get there. Your organisation/ recording skills are admirable. I’ve been waiting for “budgeting dust to settle” for some time now, trying to make sure i dont leave holes due to my wifes bills now i’m picking these up and there always used to be a bit of a “black hole” somewhere. Its tantamount to procrastination though so thanks for the kick up the jacksie!
Hope you got some seeds out on the weekend…..
Haha I did think of you when I was writing it actually… I think the point still gets across even with the stars in it doesn’t it? 🙂
“Your organisation/ recording skills are admirable” – Why thank you, but have to say I feel extremely unorganised most of the time! Yes I have spreadsheets but they are mainly cobbled together and I always feel like I’m catching up on it rather than keeping on top of things. There is just sooo much you can track, I guess it’s just info overload that frazzles our brains nowadays in any area of life, not just PF. I don’t really track what my investments are doing at all for example like other bloggers do, I’m just not that interested if I’m perfectly honest but I probably would do it if I had the time.
And even with the matched betting I don’t log individual bets like most people do and is the I just take the difference the total £ in all my betting/betting bank accounts at the end of the month and the one at the start and call it profit. Very haphazard as it relies on me remembering exactly where all the money is, but also kinda simple.
Anyway I’m rambling now, so will say thanks and good luck with your budgeting efforts for the future.
Hey TFS
I like that your goal is flexible so you can change your mind should you choose, or to account for things that crop up in life (eg maybe another addition to the family etc). I love that you were able to cut your hours down and still be able to live a great life on the reduced salary. I’m not able to really review my own long term goal just yet, though I will once I’ve settled into another FT job. I’m sure some things have changed but not quite as radically as yours.
Hi weenie,
Yes I feel quite settled at the moment so it seemed like a good point to review and update my long term plan thoughts. Fully understand why you aren’t in such a position to do so right now! Although you are still ticking along very nicely, it has to be said.
Good luck with the job search as always and maybe once you’ve settled into the new job you can have a decent review 🙂
Cheers!
Totally agree with being free already now as you work less. That means more time for what matters now! So, real FIRE is delayed: so what! The here and now also counts, not only a far away 4pct galaxy.
My wife works 80 pct and I got rid of golden handcuffs in exchange for more fun. THAT is a win!
Hi ambertree,
It’s always a balancing act between cake now or cake later, but I think it sounds like we’ve both got the right balance. Most people just want their cake now and who gives a sh!t about tomorrow!
Thanks for the detailed response! I like how FIRE as evolved for you. You haven’t allowed it to become a rigid doctrine which defines who you are. Who knows what changes will develop your thinking in the next five years. Keep up the consistent and rich content and I’ll happily follow along for the ride!
Thanks Is_poss and thanks again for nudging me to write this up, it was good fun to put it together. I will try my best with the content 🙂
So true to say that most people now won’t have a cat’s chance in Hell of retiring at 55. For my generation (I’m now in my early fifties) that was a goal that many of us would and could have achieved almost without thinking – helped by property prices, defined benefit pensions and a maybe a more frugal outlook (and no iphones to buy or Kardashians to emulate.) It’s still so doable with a bit of sense, but where is the mainstream information on how to go about it? We’re in the web bubble, so we’re in the know, but everyone else? Let’s hope through the blogs we can do a bit to blow it bigger. Keep it up!
Hi Jim,
I agree about the web bubble we’re in. It’s hard to remember just 4ish years ago I was totally blind to any of this, literally no idea that ER was even a thing or possible, and this is how >95% of the population is like right now at a guess. Scary stuff!
Cheers and you too Jim.
I enjoyed your article, as I always do I am glad to see you are more realistic than many FIRE blogs I read in terms of the figures needed. £750k is realistc, some talk of £300k and this is not enough. I am in my 30th year of FIRE, although in my day it was simply called early retirement planning. There are downsides to having such a long term goal and maybe you could write about your own experiences one day on it. I am talking about not being able to get the figures out of your head. I wake up and go to bed thinking of net worth’s, compound returns etc, it’s all been worth it, but there must come a time when I need to stop thinking financially or the freedom will not be complete. I am also forward thinking of the day when I get to spend some money and see my net worth decrease, am I trained too well that I may never let go…………
Hi Glen,
Thanks for chipping in with your considerably experienced view! 30 years of FIRE… wow, that’s amazing!
I have to say I’ve not been obsessing over the money and net worth etc yet but that may be because it’s fairly insignificant money at the moment and we’re not living off the nest egg. Although it kind of sounds like you aren’t yet from your last comment or have I read that wrong? Or have you seen your NW increase despite spending out of it due to smart investing and market winds behind you in recent years?
Thanks!
Thanks for replying TFS, no not living off the nest egg yet, I will have to wait until age 55 to be free, as a large proportion of my assets is within the Pension wrapper, good job too considering the pension freedoms being such a game changer. My net wealth increases like a freight train these days, which is only because of the hard work done in the late 80’s and 90’s so I can see that lots of people working hard for freedom that post comments on your site will well and truly succeed, just don’t lose focus. For instance I see that Weenie has passed £100k mark after 10 years, but believe me in the last year of her plan, she will make more than the whole first ten years. What seems like being so hard for decades somehow evaporates and you can’t even stop making money even if you want to. I mentioned about the net wealth decreasing after age 55 and that will definitely be the case as I want to pass money down to my daughter while we are both young enough and of course I do not plan to be the richest guy in the cemetery. Keep up the good work, your site is very inspirational and extremely well written.
Aha, sorry I misinterpreted your sentence “I am in my 30th year of FIRE” thinking you were already retired for 30 years! 🙂
I have therefore also mis-guessed your age by probably at least 15 years (sorry about that 🙂 ) – but that doesn’t detract from the value of hearing from someone at the other end of the journey. It’s great to know that all that good work you put in during the 80’s and 90’s has paid off!
Not being the richest guy in the cemetery… love that phrase and it’s so true, what’s the point in having it all when you can’t see what good it could have done or what fun you could have had with it. I don’t get why people leave such large amounts to charity after they die!? Why not give at least half now so you can see the benefits? Are they scared of running out of money with *only* 20 billion rather than 40 billion? Odd.
Thanks for the kind words and I hope you stop by and comment again soon 🙂
I really hope you’re still writing and I’m still reading in 20 years. That would be fascinating.
I’d imagine if I kept it up that long I’d at least be as big as MMM by then so that would be pretty cool 🙂
I have just been reading through all 4 links leading to your previous posts, and as others have alluded to I found it really refreshing to see you set goals, make predictions and to then adapt and readjust as you realise things didn’t pan out the way you thought they would and your circumstances, knowledge, opinion and life priorities changed.
Have a great Easter Weekend !
~TwentytoWealthy
Hi Twenty To Wealthy,
Thanks for taking the time to read through all the links, that’s dedication! 🙂
Hope you’re also having a great long weekend.
Cheers!
Hi TFS,
Thanks for sharing the longer term – it is always good to look back at how things are going overall – the small steps help a lot to keep on track but its great to see where you are overall as well!
As others above, you already have part freedom by just doing the part time work which must be a great sense of freedom and also still be able to build up savings!
The liquid fund is growing slowly and steadily so fingers crossed you will get to the £250k before you know it and then start out on your own!
Cheers,
FiL
Hi FIL,
No problems, hopefully it is interesting to others, it’s certainly spawned a few comments here so guess it must be!
It will be interesting to see what I do when we hit the 250K mark. I feel like I’m in a pretty cushy situation at the moment but I guess I could be fed up of it in a few years by the time we get to that point. Also another thought, surely it should be more than 250K because of inflation, when I started the blog 250K (or the interest/income generated from that) could buy me more than it will do once we get to the region of 250K in the pot. Just 3% a year over 5 years we’re talking about £290K instead so not an insignificant increase! Yikes!
So maybe it should be £300K we aim for instead…
It’s interesting to see your FI target particularly in terms of a ‘we’, and with a child. Perhaps I am overly fearful, or decadent. Either way, congratulations on taking a dynamic approach to such a long term goal and making in-flight adjustments as you go. And for keeping your eye on the prize – the real goal of being the good life, whatever that means to you and yours.
The difference a discharged mortgage makes later in your career is massive, if you are in the region of the HRT threshold, because this is money you don’t need to earn. Earlier, not as much, although who knows what the tax and pensions scenario is like in 20-30 years time.
Oh and I wish you all the best of luck to go with the skill you’ve shown in piloting your way through the pathless land of FI!
Hi ermine,
Thanks for the considered comment as always, really appreciate it whenever you can chip in on things 🙂
The mortgage is still something I’m undecided on, I know deep down overpaying seems like a good idea but on the other hand it seems like any spare cash should really be going into investments.
Cheers again!
Hi there. I’ve only very recently stumbled across the FIRE movement although I’ve been naturally gravitating towards it over the past few years. Damn shame I didn’t find out about it sooner but better late than never.
I thought I was a pretty hard saver at 27% pa but am now working to get that up to 50% over the rest of this year. I’ve doubled my pension contributions and will be increasing my monthly S&S ISA investments DD too.
At nearly 47 years old I’ve discovered, due to a company pension I contributed to from 1987 to 1993, that I can very realistically retire at 55. Good ol’ compounding!
I’ve been doing the sums and being naturally frugal, something which I enjoy, I’ll be able to retire early. Not extremely early but way earlier than I was expecting.
The FIRE blogs I’ve been bingeing on have been eye-opening and It’s great to find a UK focussed one which is similar in tone to MMM’s.
Just as an addition, I over-paid my mortgage when I had one and have now been mortgage free for nearly 10 years. I can’t recommend over-paying your mortgage enough.
Hi ChromeBabay,
We all wish we discovered it sooner, that is for sure! The second best time to start saving & investing is now as they say, the first being 20 years ago of course.
27% is very respectable especially if you never “knew” 50%+ was even a thing that people did. I don’t think I would ever have sustained that high a savings rate as I never knew that you could buy freedom with it, that was the key slice
missing from my pie chart of knowledge in the area personal finance.
8 years from FIRE, very pleasing news there! 55 is still very early I think, especially in the UK. It has surely got to put you in earliest 1% of retirees I would have thought.
Thanks for the comparison to MMM, I’ll take that as a great compliment! Although I started out kind of trying to copy MMM in tone, I would hope I’ve found more of my own voice as the years have passed, although maybe not… hah 🙂
Another proponent of the mortgage payoff. I dunno, I have a fixed rate for 10 years now so it just doesn’t seem like an urgent thing, although with markets at all time highs and Brexit and Trump uncertainties, maybe it will be a good time to divert funds to the over paying instead. I will have to decide soon as all of my matched betting profits are starting to sit around doing bugger all now so I need to put them to work somewhere ASAP!
Thanks for the comment and hope to see you around here again soon.
Thanks for the reply, TFS. I’m supposed to be ‘ChromeBaby’ but my stupid fingers decided otherwise! 😉
Yes the discussions of overpaying one’s mortgage on the numerous FiRe blogs I’ve gorged on recently have been very surprising to me. I just hate being in any kind of debt so from a head/heart decision ratio it was higher in the heart area but still the head came into it. When I was overpaying interest rates where higher too.
Some of the arguments against mortgage overpaying, and even home ownership, on some of the FiRe blogs are proving hard to get my tiny brain cell around. Very insightful though.
Although I avoid debt I did get a new kitchen, to help sell my previous house, on 0% finance. So that felt like a sensible decision.
Because I can only realistically reach FI at 55 I’m including my current pension contributions in my savings calculations. I just need to find that right balance of what proportion of the eventual 50% pa savings rate I’m willing to lock away into my current pension fund. The tax relief pros are obviously very persuasive.
I’ve subscribed to your inspirational blog so will be studying your ‘journey’ 😉 with intense interest.
Thanks for the follow up and clarification on the name, although I did quite like Babay haha 🙂
What’s funny about discussions on some blogs regarding mortgage OP or not, and rent vs own* that I’ve seen is they present their opinion as near absolute fact. Surely it is most obvious that you just run the figures yourself for your given situation, throw in a bit of the “heart” factor into the decision as well and come to your own conclusion. There is no one right answer for all situations, is that not just a ridiculously obvious point and no one should be saying “this the right way”?
*I haven’t even read it but Millennial Revolution springs to mind on this one from what I have seen of their comments on other blogs.
Thanks also for subscribing, and sorry for the lack of posts of late, been busy prepping and running the Marathon. Normal service resumed hopefully tomorrow if not next week! 🙂
Love the post, and I am toying around with the idea of moving to some part time arrangement to transition into FI. As you said, the whole point is just to enjoy your time. Maybe a jog towards FI is better than a sprint!
Glad you liked it DbF.
I would definitely be part time already if I were as close as you, but I know there is a flip side which says, let’s just get this over and done with. Various shades of grey, as usual nothing is ever black and white is it.
Cheers!
Hello Mr Firestarter, one of the reasons I used to visit every day is because your blog roll would say the dates each blog was last updated and it was a great gateway to other blogs… Can you fix it? Recently I’ve been going to Retirement Investing Today because his blog still does that but your blog roll is longer (and better imo) and I’d really like to be able to use your blog this way again. Don’t take that the wrong way, I do like reading your blog too! I’m reading this back and realised I’ve used the word ‘blog’ a lot.
Hi Wephway,
No worries on the overuse of the word “blog” or using my site as a jump off point. I’ve mentioned the blog roll before here so click through for an explanation of why it’s broken and why I haven’t fixed it yet (in short, it’s not a quick easy one or I would have done it by now):
http://thefirestarter.co.uk/january-2017-incomeexpenses-update-tax-man-traumas/#blogroll
Just to clarify on why RIT and other blogs you see still have that functionality, it’s because they are on the “Blogger” platform rather than WordPress so they obviously have a different code base and plug in/blog roll system entirely.
I have yet to find another wordpress blog with this kind of functionality still working but if you find one point it out to me and I will ask what plug in they’re using! Cheers!
I created my own blogger blog purely so I could have my own blogroll to read, based on TFS’s list. Its easy to do.
I’m not sure I’d call it a FIRE plan if I only had 20% of the sum required. It makes the timescales very long, and who can plan that far ahead at 36.
I think you should think of it as a buffer fund that allows you to do what you want. It doesn’t sound that you want to retire from paid gigs anyway.
I’m 49, and am much more convinced I don’t have the ambition to work for myself or anyone else when I can potter. With a lot more money I am both FI and RE, but I only aimed for this for 5 years. For you I think you should aim for a partial FI so you can choose what you work at, rather full FI which would allow you to do nothing.
(6 months pottering, no problems so far)
That’s a great idea about the blogger blog John! 🙂
You’ve hit the nail on the head with the rest of your comment, that is exactly my thinking at this point in time.
As I say, if I want to change this and go for full FI I can easily speed things back up by going back to work full time, going for promotions, changing jobs to achieve a higher salary, and so on. And I’m not saying that won’t happen, but the above conveys my current thinking on the whole thing.
As to whether or not it should be called a FIRE plan, you may well be right but we’re just arguing over semantics at this point and that generally doesn’t help anyone (See: retirement police nonsense on other blogs and forums. Entertaining reading both sides of the argument for sure, but it’s furthering no ones knowledge in the slightest). Having said that can you think of a better name? Partial Freedom Plan maybe? PFP, has quite a good ring to it 🙂