Jon Ellis, 54, retired at the age of 52 alongside his wife Jo after having a “eureka moment”, with the couple having a combined pension pot of £1.25m.
Jon, who had a variety of different jobs but most recently with Amazon Logistics, said: “Jo came up with the logic that if we lived to roughly the same age as my parents, and we spent at roughly the same rate, we could afford to live without working, and not run out of money.
“Over the next year we worked through the numbers, and also paid for a financial review with a local advisor to validate our assumptions. The plan was slightly changed by Covid, which delayed our actual decision but we ‘hit the button’ about 3 years ago.”
Shorts
Jo is older than Jon and so although rules say you cannot draw out of a private pension before the age of 55, they draw £40,000 annually from her plan – plus they are taking money from their ISAs, of which they have £150,000 saved each, whilst Jon has income from renting out his annex.
