When can we stop working?

It might seem a little early for a 45-year old to be blogging about retirement, however, this 45-year old has a husband who is 12 years older than her.  When there's a big age gap and one spouse is running up to the big 6-0, retirement planning is not easy to manage.

Up until 2015/16, we had a clear plan.

Our existing mortgage was low enough that the next house could be bought in cash, and all income after essential bills had been paid would be put to work until we had built up enough through saving and investing to cover our monthly outgoings. I worked out that 7 or 8 years saving and investing the larger of our two salaries while living off the smaller would do it. Martin would be 61/62 and I would be 49/50 when he retired. I could carry on working if I wanted but - crucially - we would have choice. Or if his job got bad he could go at 60 on the savings we had by then and I would carry on for a few more years to accumulate more savings/investments. 

The first part of the plan went well - we sold our house after renovating it over 11 years and made a substantial profit on it. We had enough to buy something with either no mortgage or a very small one if necessary. Unfortunately, the second part of the plan did not go so well - we were unexpectedly seduced by an expensive smallholding. On the basis of two 45-minute viewings, we took on a large 19-year mortgage and the plan sailed straight out the window. 

So we start again...and this time it is more complicated. We can't retire together now unless we come into a large sum of money unexpectedly that pays off the mortgage - it is too large for that. And large sums of money don't generally appear unexpectedly. Saying that, one idea we discussed was converting our barns. 

The smallholding has Victorian brick barns so once converted we could either live in one property and rent the other out or split the property down the middle and sell off one BUT that's 10 years away. Martin wants to restore the cars he has spent a lifetime rescuing and needs somewhere dry to do that. 

So instead we need to find a way to lay down enough money over the next 10 years so I won't be working full-time throughout Martin's retirement. We have to find that balance between working long enough to build up my pension, both occupational and state, but stop work early enough so Martin is still fit and active enough to enjoy some of the activities we have planned.

Tough one.