CALP! Where to Live in Early Retirement?

Our tribe has a financial freedom plan in the CPH (Contender Plan for Happiness). It is one thing to be financially free but what are we going to do with it? We have developed our own CALP (Contender Awesome Life Plan). So our CPH consists of the CFFP (Contender Financial Freedom Planner) and CALP :)

This post is how we have chosen (with a scorecard posted below) where we want to live considering education for the kids, community, food, climate etc. Read on to find out why the French Countryside (but not too far from the amenities of a city) are right for us at this point in time.

Our goals early in life were like any other young couple, have fun travel and socialise. We were discussing some longer term plans but we too busy in the NOW having FUN. We were testing the water you could say. Would we like to get married have kids etc. Work was fulfilling but what were our long term aims and how are we going to get there?

At the time 7 years ago we were in no position to make more radical decisions about our careers but after 4 years of saving we started to see options. With the arrival of our first child my wife had a year off on maternity leave. During this time the advantages for our child were clear. My wife had time to recover and enjoy quality time with our daughter.

Management books had made way for baby books and as a Dad I had started reading up on work life balance. We needed a blueprint for the next few years. Was career a key driver for us or something different? We decided we needed some balance like anything in life. We needed a new definition for what is a career and what is achievement in life.



We started to think deeply about some of the following topics. I will elaborate on a few related to our little tribe below.

1. Health
2. Work
3. Where to Live
4. Education for the children
5. Family and Friends
6. Financial stability
7. Hobbies
8. Time as a family 
9. Spiritual

Contender Tribe - Where to Plant some Roots?

With the ability to work internationally where to live has been a difficult choice for us. We currently live in London. We have everything on our doorstep... or do we. In order for us to understand where we wanted the family to live in the short and medium term we drew up our own checklist and scored each option. Click here for an open office example (see checklist section).

Above is not a full representation on all of the factors that made our decision. I have omitted some of our silly quirks:) One major consideration for us is that we are not old, we have a young family to think about and do not consider it retirement!!!!

Key points for us are for the family not to be isolated - we want to be part of our new community. we want the children to have all the joys of too many friends and birthday parties to go to. The community needs to be close (ish) to a city so we can find some stimulating work and things to do and see. We would like the community to have a large group of young international families as diversity is important to us. Great sport facilities are a given.

Hiking in the Pyrenees

Being Part of the Community

We like to consider our selves as part of the community in our neighborhood in London.  Currently we are socializing within our community and volunteering for some local events. With the new free time we would like to do more and be at the heart of our community. My wife has said she would consider running for town Mayor. We can give our time to schools or be involved in restoring parts of the town for example. It will be nice to directly impact our community instead of a corporate enterprise. 

Educating the Kids

This is a tricky subject. The consumerist side in the UK is get you child the "best education" in the "best private school" - this costs mega bucks. I on the other hand went to a state school in the South Wales Coal Mining Valleys and yet still managed to get the "Red Brick" degree in Engineering. My wife had access to the best schooling in Paris and London which opened more doors for her. From our perspective it is hard work and parental support and guidance.

This is enabling us to be financially free - ideally we would like to kids to clearly understand the benefit of hard work and what you can do with the fruits of your labour.

I have stopped working to be their full time carer make sure they get a good start in life. We are doing our best to shield them from what we consider invasive parts of our society (TV and consumerism to start with). We want them to experience some of the simple joys in life. We spend quality time reading to them but do not pile pressure on them to attend all of the latest baby / toddler / infant skill building activities. We want them to be inquisitive, imaginative, innovative, solve problems on their own, be playful and happy and sometime getting out of their way is the best approach.

We expect them to do well in school. We feel if they are content and looked after they will excel (with a bit of prompting  from us and not too many distractions). We will also make sure they get to see different places and experience different cultures. Finally encourage them to find out things for them self whilst keeping them challenged.

Challenging ourselves

Have you seen the movie "A Wonderful Life" - grasp it by the throat and make the most of it to reap the rewards. From our perspective "have a go" is a very important phrase. We know there are risks in everything that we do but if we don't try we won't know. So a few new challenges for THE.FUTURE:

1. Move country
2. THE.CONTENDER learns the lingo
3. Self sufficiency (overly optimistic so lets call it "almost self sufficiency")
4. Mrs C does some work she loves by contract or freelance
5. C learns a few new skills to start C's own business
6. Make sure we are there for the kids and set them up for the future
7. Make sure we have some fun along the way and a few laughs at ourselves

CALP! (Contender Awesome Life Plan)

THE.CONTENDER

COMING UP IN THE NEXT POST - WHO AM I AND WHAT DO I NEED?

Welcome New CONTENDERReaders! Take a look around. Start at the first article, browse the all posts or just go for a Random Post

Keep in Touch:  RSS Feed, follow THE.CONTENDER on Twitter or subscribe to posts by email: