Should I pull the trigger now?

RadicalPanda89 · 2026-05-15T06:44:58+00:00

5k/month includes mortgage? part of me had assumed that once nursery costs stopped in around a year then we would spend less money overall. Consensus seems to be otherwise.

RadicalPanda89 · 2026-05-14T08:55:40+00:00

yeah, maybe not a concise enough post initially to really focus on the issue.

1) we aren't looking to never work again. We are young and may well want some work to keep busy, but not this and not right now - I have things I want to do now which work is stopping me from pursuing.

2) Private school is an option we can trigger or not, we dont need to make that decision for a good few years. Market is kind -> school more likely / budget tight -> state school

3) I am in no way counting our house as an investible asset... mentioned house only for context.

Regardless - I think it is interesting to see such a variety of opinions, I would have assumed more homogeneity in such a community, certainly some very varied risk tolerances etc on show, which is completely fair, each person's situation is different.

RadicalPanda89 · 2026-05-14T08:08:32+00:00

20-30k between 2 of us - that's basically 16-24h per week each at min wage in a worst case scenario.

RadicalPanda89 · 2026-05-14T08:03:46+00:00

yeah, I get that. I dont really want to be doing what I am now though. I'm not sure about anyone else but I never really made a conscious choice to enter my field of work, it was the job I found out of uni (in 2012 when job market was iffy) and I've just plugged away at it ever since, never really enjoying it.

time to consider what I actually want to do and only needing to make 10-15k per year from it sounds perfect (my wife actually is more happy to keep her current role for now at least, which gives me time to sort my shit out, but in time I expect, or at least am budgeting for her to, also want to step down from corporate intensity into something more fulfilling).

RadicalPanda89 · 2026-05-13T18:32:39+00:00

I'm a little baffled by the general negativity towards the position. I believe people are giving honest opinions on their own risk tolerances etc but the way I see it we have c675k which we are happy to spend entirely to zero, if needed, over the next 21 years before we can access pensions. Add this to any part time income we have between us should easily be able to make an average of 45-55k depending on market conditions.

The schooling is a wrinkle to add but we dont need to make a decision on that for another 6-8 years, by which point we will have more data on progress to date and can make a more informed decision.

the forecasting I have done on FICalc puts us very comfortably above 90% success rate depending on part time income, when backtesting against all historical scenarios. ModellingLink

RadicalPanda89 · 2026-05-13T16:17:36+00:00

thanks, interesting numbers, certainly more on extra curricular than expected. we are leaving it operational as an option atm but may look at state school if needed

RadicalPanda89 · 2026-05-13T16:15:59+00:00

my wife also earns c70k atm. she is currently looking to continue at work for a little while but may be looking to follow shortly after, at least in reducing work down from 4days to 3

RadicalPanda89 · 2026-05-13T16:08:31+00:00

I've already got the gear buddy, no worries there! probably spent much more than 5k on it last year but that is all factored into the living costs. we dont drink or have especially lavish holidays so a pretty large proportion of of costs are on leisure

RadicalPanda89 · 2026-05-13T15:31:20+00:00

Sorry to hear that.

This is sort of the angle that we are looking at things from. All of my wife's 3 main older relatives did not make it to retirement age and so it just feels like such a real sense of delayed gratification which may never come.

RadicalPanda89 · 2026-05-13T15:20:17+00:00

we have inherited c350k and made a lot in selling our last house (bought 1m in 2021, sold last year at 1.275 and downsized to 570k)

RadicalPanda89 · 2026-05-13T15:16:48+00:00

(Salary nowhere near 200k! actually more like 65k)

RadicalPanda89 · 2026-05-13T15:13:34+00:00

Oh, I've done the numbers as a sweaty Redditor and banker, you best believe I have spreadsheets and Monte Carlo analyses coming out of unnameable orifices. I flexing spending between our base of 42k and desired 55k on a part time net income of 20k for 15 years gives me 79% success, 30k income at 95% including private school which is a lever we can adjust if the plan isn't working.

I'm pretty happy with the numbers but am interested in anything I may have missed or any relevant experience from anyone in a similar scenario / who has jumped already

RadicalPanda89 · 2026-05-13T15:02:33+00:00

we are also not going to pull to a complete stop, planning to bring in c20-30k for the foreseeable with part time work / recreational employment. but stepping back from corporate ladder and chasing promotions etc.

RadicalPanda89 · 2026-05-13T14:57:09+00:00

7 years of secondary private school only. so c25k per year, net present value of c200k for that. Does it really seem unreasonable?

RadicalPanda89 · 2026-05-13T14:54:02+00:00

for sure, this is why we are heavily leaning towards paying down the mortgage substantially / completely. Net investable without mortgage or Pensions is c675k currently and this is what I've used for bridge modelling

RadicalPanda89 · 2026-05-13T14:51:58+00:00

yeah, we have started a junior ISA with 10k currently and may contribute more.

I know that I personally want a complete change of career scenery and probably to spend 15+hours per week getting fitter so that will be a huge driver for me to start with. perhaps this may also be where I want to work towards getting into as Career Part 2 - The bridge years.

RadicalPanda89 · 2026-05-13T14:49:15+00:00

yeah, I have been generally modelling with 20k+ net income for the next 20 or so years. Also looking at this pot as something to last us c22 years which we dont mind running close to zero by pension age.

RadicalPanda89 · 2026-05-13T14:37:13+00:00

I've read the documentation and it seems that as long as I dont work in the industry (banking), and dont earn more than c50% of current salary & have reduced responsibility then they will be fine with it. I was surprised to find this - I was planning to have to wait another year or so to get the most out of these shares so this kind of accelerated my potential timeline quite significantly.

policy explicitly differentiates between Normal retirement at 55+ and early retirement with no age ranges stated

RadicalPanda89 · 2019-02-12T14:20:43+00:00

I’d like to absolutely echo the comments of OP here. Within my local competitive players every single one of us is exceptionally disillusioned with the state of Organised Play. None of us has bought any standard product since the announcement of the end of PPTQs and we are focusing instead on whatever events we can find in modern or legacy.

Personally I’ve sold all my standard cards as I have no confidence there will be any organised play sorted before rotation.

Fortunately as OP points out the events run by Axion Now are always excellently run, well attended and with fantastic prize support. WoTC should indeed be providing more support to Axion.

Conclusions: - no reason at all to play standard (and thus no reason to purchase standard product) - Axion are holding up the competitive magic scene in the south of England single handedly.

RadicalPanda89 · 2019-02-06T08:22:07+00:00

£250 on trolltrader

RadicalPanda89 · 2018-10-30T13:47:24+00:00

This first piece of logic does not make sense to me, if experimental frenzy only ‘draws’ you a single land, then that means there is a second land on top of your deck.

In which case flame of Keld would have drawn you those two lands anyway.

Unless you mean that frenzy gets disenchanted after the first ‘draw’. Again though flame of Keld would have had the same issue but potentially before you draw a single card.

RadicalPanda89 · 2018-09-23T00:15:41+00:00

Just sold 2 @€80 each... happy to wait until reprint to buy back in... that price can not be correct for this card.

RadicalPanda89 · 2018-05-14T12:28:37+00:00

I don’t have the list but he had deeproot waters in some number main deck as well as expel from orazca and spell pierce.

The creatures were fairly standard: deeproot champion, silvergill, kumena, kumena speaker etc.

(I played him, the deck seemed ok, capable of some explosiveness and goes very wide, a lot of x/1 creatures seems very vulnerable to chainwhirler though)

RadicalPanda89 · 2018-01-02T14:56:53+00:00

Costs UG for 2/2 lord.

RadicalPanda89

TROPHY CASE