I see Jeremy Hunt thinks we should all be working until we’re 70. Personally, I’m 58 and am planning to either retire or do significantly less and physically easier work from 2025. This is partly because my warehouse lease is up and won’t be renewed and also because 40 years of heavy work have taken their toll on me. I’m bored of it too and there’s no guarantee that the long standing work I’ve had will continue plus I’ll have to reinvest at some point (new van is £30k plus, let alone any equipment). Contracts go out to tender, contacts move on and it all feels like it’s drawing to a close and I feel like I can easily fill my days, especially in the better weather.
How’s it going for those who retired? Did you go early? Did you want to finish or would you have stayed on? Anyone planning on going early?
Retirement?
by 77 Comments
Don’t want to wake up and find it’s all too late
I’m in the middle of it – aged 58 and working my notice. My job was making me miserable and affecting my health, and after fighting it for a year I’ve had to swallow my pride and walk away. So that’s not retirement really, except it is. I don’t want another full-time job at the same level and I wouldn’t get one anyway. Bits and pieces from now on will do me fine. I have worked 37 years without a break longer than 20 days. I mean, fuck sake.
Doing accurate calculations of savings and investments versus how much you actually spend when you’re not working is pretty much impossible. I’d be interested in others’ experience of the latter. My wife will carry on earning, so we’re not going to starve.
More important however is what you do with the yawning chasm full of time that suddenly appears in front of you. I have my play writing and theatre production stuff, but apart from wanting to get some proper exercise and sort out my mental health and the garden, I’ve no plans yet. Bit daunting, to be honest.
I think you’ll find those three are enough, Chiz, retired from teaching 4 years ago, after 40 years , you have to work out pension and budget.
Me too Dave. I’ve been fairly ill and mostly off work since December as we Twitter feed shows. We’ve had a bit of a rethink about the future. Our mortgage is paid off in May and we’ve both got a decent pension. We both don’t want to stop totally but possibly drop a couple of days. Royal Mail and HMRC are quite good about these things.
I’m 57 and like you I’ve had 41 years in work, some of it quite gruelling and don’t want to be working as hard into my 60s. So any advice is welcome.
I was 66 last November and have been taking my state pension since then in addition to my salary. I decided to stay on because the bonuses were extremely high due to Covid but are now set to drop very quickly. I intend to reduce to a 3 day week from July assuming my company will allow me to then retire in March next year. We have discussed with our financial adviser and we will be comfortable. Even more comfortable if we downsize and put money in trust and take extra income from it. In fact more comfortable than working. I won’t have any problems with what to do with my time. My wife will retire the end of next year and we intend to travel.
I pretty much retired 4 years ago at the age of 52 – I was basically given the opportunity to take a retrenchment package (2 years salary) as they wanted to cut senior management.
At the time, I said I wanted to take a year off before deciding what to do next. A combination of enjoying life (daily swim, arse about all day) and the pandemic made me decide to continue with the time off and I have not even considered going back to work. I am not saying I will never work and would always consider if something interesting came up – but I am not actively looking for anything.
I am in a nice position that we are financially secure. The kids education is covered and I worked out I have enough liquid funds to last me until my 90s without needing to touch my investments, which continue to pay reasonable dividends (enough to live on). I will never be rich, but the mortgage is paid off and we are more than comfortable. And that’s even living in Singapore, which according to a recent chart I saw, is the most expensive place to retire in the world ! (I have tried to attach below – not sure if it will work).
The main thing though is that I am happy in (early) retirement – I have plenty to do,I have got fit again, I am cooking dinner everyday and so eating more healthily, etc etc.
I know that I am in a privileged position being able to retire early and I am very grateful for that. I was well paid in my job, had good financial planning advice and so as able to put in place the finances to do that. That said, I think I did earn it with the work I put in over the previous years.
60 and wont be retiring till I’m 70 according to my bank manager (I do have two 20 year olds at University).
Had dinner with my oldest friend (also 60) and she is terribly worried by her loss of relevance and inability to push her career (amusingly she regards starting as a fellow of University of Manchester as a bit of a step down…). I don’t have that as I work for myself (mostly sitting down) but I share that worry of not being active and doing things that (hopefully) make a difference.
On the other hand a mutual friend (younger than us) is having to give up work because of ill health.
So much depends on your personal circumstances.
I was made redundant in January 2021 at the age of 60. The company gave me a pretty good severance package, which basically means, in conjunction with my pension, I don’t need to work. Given the choice I would’ve stayed on, but cant say I miss the job. The people I worked with yes, but then due to covid we’d been working remotely for the best part of a year anyway, so the social aspect of work had been eroded already.
Worth having a look at your UK state pension – the govt has just pushed back the deadline to July to make additional contributions to get to maximum entitlement. Apparently, it’s a decent investment to put some more cash in if you missed some years.
https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension
Did mine yesterday – looks like I’ll be 32p a week off the top rate – so maybe not worth it for me.
You can also check your NI contributions over the years – surprised I didn’t have more gaps what with all the faffing about I did in my 20s.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/mar/11/uk-state-pensions-deadline-ni-top-ups-national-insurance
Almost 64, I’m sort of semi-retired – made redundant four years ago but thought someone might be interested in my vast global marketing expertise and experience. Gave up hope after about three months half-heartedly looking and brought forward vague plans to open a book and record shop. Now three years into renting space in an antiques centre and it just ticks over nicely – some months better than others but always profitable and even paid tax on it this year. I go in half a day a week – staff at the front desk are there Mon-Sun and take the money. I tidy up, put new stock out and occasionally chat to actual customers, who are generally appreciative of what I’m doing. Also gives me an excuse to get out and about buying more books and records.
I’ve 19 years to go until retirement age and I’m just starting to plan this now. We’ve just paid off the mortgage, so hopefully we’ll have the opportunity to save/invest a bit more over the next few years and see how it goes from there. I love the idea of just being retired during the cricket season/festival season and maybe working through the winter months, but I can’t see my employer (NHS) going for that. Hopefully I’ll have a better idea of funds and things like that in a few years time.
I retired at 52 after a log career with a telecoms company, when the opportunity came up that was financially beneficial. It came at a time when the constant changes in corporate strategy were becoming wearying – this was also when the dot.com bubble began to burst. The first observation after retirement was realising how inconsequential the corporate life was – all the developments that seemed so important inside the corporate life were revealed as superficial at best. I think you need some kind of plan. Mine included the Open University and joining various local societies, but don’t get too worried if they don’t work out. Just enjoy life. My big mistake was agreeing to move to a remote area of Cornwall, as we no longer needed to live in commuter-land. Although some aspects of country life were appealing it soon became evident that I was a city boy at heart. Plus, it rains an awful lot in Cornwall. I guess the lesson is to think carefully before moving house after early retirement. I’ve resettled in Exeter with my 3rd wife – who also happens to be my 1st wife – and am very happy. Good luck!
On question of what to do.
1. Whatever you bleeding well feel like.
2. Everyday doesnt have to be a triumph of productivity
3. Part of retirement is just slowing down.
I retired from university almost 3 years ago. I’m doing plenty of legal and media work and with the pension better off than when at the chalk face, without any of the admin or marking shite that took up 80 of my time. But I could only do it as we’d just cleared the mortgage, and children had left home, so costs were less. Come May, I’ll reduce work and have a relaxed Summer.
First thing to say is that provided you’ve paid off your debts (mortgage, credit cards etc) it still surprises me how little income you need to get by. Just the two of us, of course, but although we do dip into savings now and then (that’s what savings are there for) we have a full and fruitful life, more or less doing what we want to do, when we want to do. We are not in the league of many expats down here who still have houses in the UK and go off for exotic and expensive holidays but there are very few things left we wish we could do if only we had made some wiser financial decisions back in the day.
Secondly, you’ll have no problem filling in your days, there’s always something to do, somebody to see. And as the years go by, as confirmed by Junior above, you slow down. I remember once asking Mum & Dad what they were doing that day. “Oh, very busy, very busy indeed. First it’s the station to book our train tickets to London and then it’s Marks & Sparks for the sale.” At the time I was heading up a Global Sales Team, on and off aeroplanes, barking orders down the phone. How I laughed.
Twenty years later, that’s us that is.
Got to go and chop some wood now and then decide what wine with the spaghetti vongole. Very busy indeed.
Loving some of the stories above – really quite inspirational hearing about the things people do (or don’t do) with their time once that time is entirely theirs to spend as they see fit.
I’m only just 53, but Mrs F turns 57 in September and want to retire at 60. The only trouble is, she enjoys her work (she’d have to, to work the hours she does), and I worry about what she will do with her time. She’s much less likely to sit on her arse and play records all day than I am.
We’ve been mortgage free for over a decade as, after years of working for startups, I’d been made redundant twice in as many years so we focused on paying off the debt before the third time (which hasn’t happened – touch wood – yet). She earns twice as much as me, but I make enough to cover the bills, and I’m thinking of dropping to three or four days a week when she retires. As long as we don’t eat into our savings until we get our pensions, I reckon we’ll be alright.
I’m 56 later this year and quite frankly I can’t wait to retire, or at least work less. I work in a college and parental expectations have gone through the roof making the job stressful and no longer enjoyable. I have seen a couple of close friends go through some serious health problems recently and it has dawned on me that life really is too short.
Luckily the mortgage is paid off, we have some healthy savings and inheritances in the bank, and Mrs L has no intention of retiring yet as she has only just turned 50 and loves her job and the social contact/status it provides. She’s very lucky in that she wanted to do the job from the age of 15 and has loved every minute. However this is a bit of an issue in that she can’t really see why others don’t feel the same way and we definitely need to sit down and discuss this properly!
I don’t think we’d need much to live on…holidays for us usually involve our camper van and we don’t have extravagant tastes. I’d be quite happy working part time, maybe in the same role, there is a possibility the college might consider it, or in a job with less responsibility for more hours, but with one kid still at university (which we have saved and budgeted for) I think I need to wait until he graduates before making any sort of move. So it’s another two years really.
It seems as though lots of people feel the same as me and it’s encouraging that many of you mention slowing down. After a nasty period of catch up at the end of lock down, I’ve not been working as much as pre pandemic and it’s quite nice really, not having to rush around like I used to plus I’m definitely physically slower. I’m fortunate that if there’s nothing going on, I don’t have to go in.
Finished full time seven years ago, had a ‘gap year’ then took a part-time job (approximately four hours a week) to boost my work pension.
When I finished that during lockdown I was contacted by the work pension for the part-time job if I took a £2 monthly reduction from £9 to £7 they would give me £700 lump sum. It was an even better bonus as I didn’t know I was paying into a pension.
I’ve been to four concerts already this month, three matinee ones which are great, back home at a reasonable time, feet up. Heading to the gym and the sauna now, London next week.
Enjoy retirement.
Retirement’s great. I’m only semi-retired-sort-of-ish. I live Chrisf’s same life (daily swim, arse about all day.) I’m not into the whole “travel the world” malarky. Easier just to live somewhere brilliant and watch the rest on YouTube. Same goes for gigs and stuff. Peace and quiet and nature and sea are where the real fun is. (Always have been, but I was once too young to notice.)
Rather than wondering how to fill my time, I often wonder how on earth people with proper jobs manage to squeeze in all life’s other requirements.
Does everyone get a pension in the Uk?
I think there has to be some sort of age requirement.
I’ve pressed the chuckle button @gary
As long as your National Insurance is paid up, which it will be if you’ve been employed long term. There’s nothing like super unless you have a proper grown-up pension fund.
No assets test?
No, it’s a basic right which the Tories haven’t got round to abolishing yet. The pisser as far as I’m concerned is that if you’re an expat (which I officially am as of last year) it never goes up in line with inflation.
But, presumably, nor does it go down for those who move to say Thailand with a much cheaper cost of living.
I’m in France and my UK State Pension goes up in line with inflation. I remember reading somewhere that this does not apply to expats living in Australia?
You get a hardship allowance presumably.
The UK has reciprocal agreements on benefits (including pensions) with some other countries but not all. Some of these agreements are pretty comprehensive but some are rather limited. There is a page on the uk.gov website that gives details. I posted a link to it on a previous AW thread.
There are currently a few countries without agreements (among them, Australia) who would like to negotiate agreements but the current UK govt. are just not interested.
Wherever you live in the world, you are entitled to your UK pension if you qualify, but where there is no agreement between countries, or the agreement specifically excludes pensions, the amount payable is frozen at whatever the rate was on either the date you became eligible or the date you left the UK, whichever one is later.
Yes, that’s right. Nothing to be done about it. Fortunately the govt haven’t got round to scrapping the reciprocal UK/OZ NHS agreement. This means I qualify for Medicare, so the bills are considerably smaller, and sometimes free.
Given that I left the UK when I was 26 and haven’t paid any NI since then, I presume that I will am entitled to absolutely zero UK pension.
Actually, I I ever did decide to repatriate back to the UK (which is possible if the kids were to stay there after University), I really don’t have a clue where I stand with regards to finances / pensions / etc etc
@ChrisF You can find out on UK government website via your NI number. I only ever worked 5 full years in the UK and was surprised to find out I had 11 years worth of contributions which I can increase to about 23 years worth voluntarily by the current retirement age. Plan to add 3 years worth this year and 4 next year (the maximum), then contribute a year’s worth each year until I retire
Thanks.
I tried to check out and first need to confirm my ID. Initial stages in getting the Gov ID account all okay but hit a snag on confirming my ID. I’m given two ways to do this…
i) by my passport and a second ID (UK photo driving license which I don’t have – mine is paper) or via a phone contract etc (again I don’t have)
ii) by comparing my passport photo with a photo taken by the Gov UK app – which for some reason fails during the process.
I shall try again tomorrow…….
I managed to do it through still having a UK credit card I think. Now have an app on my phone which will give me a code for access whenever I like. Was getting the funds together to make contribution this month but now it seems there could be a bit more time. They give bank details where you can transfer from overseas account
Wow glad I just checked my contribution status. Can contribute to make up for missing 11 years by the 2023 deadline (ca. 800 per year) otherwise I lose the chance. So can someone lend me 9 grand! 😉
(Checks back pocket…)
I’m like @SteveT above, just one year older, and I’m probably going to work on until I’m 70, as the job’s often interesting, the salary is pretty decent and the employer’s pension contributions are equally good. Once I roll my various small pots together I’m hoping I’ll have enough to keep calm and muddle on until I croak. My better half has already retired on a teacher’s pension, which helps. With the house paid for and no sprogs of our own, we have a reasonable dollop of asset equity we might exploit if necessary. Sorry, grand neices and nephew. As Junes says above; I’ll have no trouble filling my time. You can expect a lot more reviews of classic albums to appear when retirement finally happens. You have been warned.
I started to receive my state pension and a small work pension last year but apart from that nothing has changed. I still live the same way that I have become accustomed to over the last twenty odd years. I still paint and hope for the occasional sale so I can’t really say I’ve retired despite being officially a pensioner.
I can’t really offer any practical advice I can only offer up the observation that it is in the nature of life to change and while we all find change unsettling day to day life continues it just continues differently. You will adjust and probably far faster than you may well think when you start down the new path.
Today is my first Monday of not working Mondays, making my working week now 2 1/2 days. Of course, this is since I retired “officially” 6 years ago, as I then took on a 3 1/2 day salaried role much nearer home than the partnership I was happy to divest myself of back then. If truth be told, can’t wait to pack it in altogether: projected for a years time. NHS is such a shitshow now and my hearts not in it any more. I had to take my work pension early, a decade ago, to shore up some disastrous financial decisions an ex-wife left me with. And my state pension kicked in last week. Mortgage gets paid off in December and that’s the trigger to stop.
I write for pleasure, which is just as well, as nobody gets much/any from writing about music these days, unless they are Pat Carty, and I am not in his league. But it gets me loads of cds and tickets: Cambridge and Glastonbury confirmed so far. Keeps me from getting under the currents feet.
I retired a few years early back in 2018. I just turned 67 a few weeks ago.
The plan was to travel a bit, as my wife is a few years older than me. The pandemic put that on hold, but things are improving and we’re just back from a week in Tuscany.
I had considered doing some voluntary work – as I had worked with the charity Victim Support in my job I did consider joining them. However the application process put me off (I understand the need to ensure that the wrong people don’t get involved, but I thought it was too much for a voluntary role).
My time is pretty full. I joined our local University Of The Third Age (U3A) branch and have got involved with lots of stuff. Initially too much and I have dropped some of the activities.
From talking to friends in other areas it is a bit of a lottery, and some U3A branches appear to be fairly moribund, but our local one only started up about seven years ago and so it is pretty active. There are over a thousand members and around eighty interest groups.
I convene two groups – Americana and Backgammon.
The former is a monthly meeting. It has evolved into a music appreciation group. I have over forty members. We have a monthly theme and people pick songs that fit that theme and I compile a presentation. We meet in the upstairs room of a pub and people talk about the song before it’s played – what they like about it, the artist, a personal connection etc.
There is also a parallel quarterly series, where people talk about subjects beyond music – John Ford, Frank Lloyd Wright etc.
I also run a Backgammon group. We have fortnightly sessions in a pub and I also run more occasional sessions teaching beginners/less experienced players.
I’m in a Creative Writing group, a Crime Fiction Group and Ukulele group. I dropped out of Photography and Current Affairs discussion groups.
The largest part of my time is taken up with pétanque (boules) which I play at least three times a week. This began as a U3A group but since then it’s split away and we’ve formed a pétanque club and it operates separately. It’s a highly addictive sport. One of the members is arranging a trip to France to play over there. We also play teams from other London areas.
Back to the U3A – there are loads of activities – racquet sports (my wife plays badminton, tennis and table tennis), walking groups of different lengths, craft groups, foreign language groups, singing groups, wine appreciation, beer appreciation (I’m in that too), theatre . The main limitation is many groups can’t cope with more members because they meet in members’ houses and there are obvious physical constraints.
After close to five years since retiring I have yet to resort to watching morning TV, which is a positive and hope that is something I manage to stay away from for a long time.
So glad you enjoy the U3A. My mum was the chairwoman of it for a few years. It’s such a valuable tool for pensioners or retirees and I plan to join when the time comes.
This is a great TED talk about the psychological impact of retirement, rather than the financial, which doesn’t get spoken about hardly as much:
You should look out for Sherston’s ‘Boules Week’. It’s a little Cotswold village a few miles from Foxy Towers – they close the main street for the event, it’s been going for decades, and apparently it’s a mental few days.
https://www.facebook.com/SherstonBoulesFestival/
https://www.wiltsglosstandard.co.uk/news/16359035.44-fantastic-photos-sherston-boules/
https://www.sherstonboules.org/?fbclid=IwAR2S-ec_km3oZxhD_VSlfjuZwRzk85D21cARxbY4n7yKtuNSxH133eDwx5I
Time was, you might spot a minor Royal in the Rattlebones having a crafty spliff and maybe a shag out the back of the pub. These days it’s more likely to be discussions about tractors, which farmer’s wife is the hottest, and whether or not the Boules Week is a PITA or summat to be proud of.
Thanks Foxy, I am going to pass this information on to the club.
Who knows, you might see me down there come mid-July.
We went to see an IFA only last week because a combination of lockdown and not enjoying what I do anymore has lead me to consider pushing the button. The news was good, I could retire now if I chose. I keep thinking that the job isn’t that bad and they do keep paying me, but then I get the days when I just can’t bear it. So the day of reckoning is getting very close.
Props to @Morrison for giving me the impetus to top up my NI contributions. Seems I have Seven under-funded years! I didn’t realise I was such a lazy bastard 🙂
Coming up 61 and got a full time job and a side hustle business that tops up my needs for a decent car, gig going and a few other luxuries.
I am not at all a workaholic but hate the thought of having to retire, I love that Friday evening feeling ( I work 13 hour two job days on Tue & Fri)
I also need time/space to myself for my wellbeing and getting out of the house to work provides me with that ,otherwise I’d be stuck here with the FPO and going slightly mad with every day the same. If I had shitloads of dosh this would obviously change that picture, but that’s not the case bar a lottery win.
Even when my company give me the elbow for being over the age, I have the side hustle (Office Cleaning) gig that will bring in some extra funds and provide the out of house, on my own release and help that mental wellbeing.
Lockdown was very difficult for me and highlighted the fact that I don’t want to retire a minute sooner than I am forced to.
61 is the new 41 as far as I am concerned !
I’m 61 and took early retirement 2 years ago. My father retired at 65 and was dead at 73, so the decision was a no-brainier for me. I’m scraping by on a modest occupational pension with 6 years to wait until the state pension kicks in, but I’ve no regrets. Filling time can sometimes be a problem and I often need to remind myself that nothing needs to be taken at full speed any more, so take it easy and enjoy the silence.
Amen to that. My dad retired at 65 and died at 69. On that trajectory I have 4 years, though the cancer which took him is probably treatable now. Carpe fucking Diem.
Interesting how people latch onto singular examples – X died soon after retiring therefore early retirement hastens death. I expect there are many examples of longevity amongst early retirees.
Yep. My dad retired at 55 and he turned 94 a few weeks ago. He has probably outlived the pension fund actuary.
There was an old adage in medicine, very old given the current rats jumping ship necessity, that retire at 6o for a year, at 65 for a decade, but if you keep on working, you’ll live forever. ( I know a GP, still working at 86, who subscribes to the latter. He knows he won’t, but fully hopes to die on the job. Hopefully not mid consultation……… “How long have I got, Doc? Doc? DOC??? Dooooooooc!!!)
Well my dad died of big C and my brother has it so it’s not latching, it’s higher probability!
I took early retirement at 55 (5 years ago) after 38 working for a global beverage company. Do I miss it? Nope, but I miss some of the people. I have kept in touch with those that mattered to me. I fully echo Junior’s post above – its nice to do what you want, if and when you want to. I’m lucky that my wife and several friends retired around the same time so there’s always someone to bore / talk to. I am lucky enough to have a decent pension, but to be honest I don’t spend as much as I thought I was going to.
Would I recommend it – absolutely.
I am 57 still working and had my kids relatively late so have a 12 and 14 year old going through school. I will get my full state pension when I am 67 as my NI contributions are already fully paid.
I have a SIPP but would be enlightened to know what size of pension pot is deemed as suitable to retire on. I would love to retire at 62.
Is £250k good enough at 62?
I also have a 7 year final salary scheme from a previous job to add to that,
My FA says take 3% from your savings and it should regenerate through growth, so do the numbers. Is that enough per month?
What are these ‘savings’ of which you speak? 🤔
Yeah exactly
Not extensive but I have a morbid fear of being skint so I’ve always put a bit away!
The changes on the budget today i.e. I can get my 25% tax free lump sum and then still add £10k a year as a contribution versus £4k has lead me to consider paying of my remaining mortgage via the lump sum.
I still plan to be working for another 5 years but being mortgage free really appeals.
I was 65 two weeks ago and left work a few weeks earlier. So I’ve pressed the button. I defied the odds by getting a full time job in the first lockdown at age 62 but it went from great fun in an interesting software startup to deadly dull process hell after we were bought by a mega American company who removed everything which worked and replaced it with typical bloated sclerotic processes. Bleagh. I’d always intended to retire no later than 65 but I could have easily stated on longer, but you don’t get any younger and I just decided to get on with life while everything works properly.
So far I love it, and I’ve mainly been catching up on crap I didn’t get round to whilst working – admin, filing, bank statements etc but that’s almost clear now. I walk for an hour a day, do my stretches religiously, play the guitar whilst catching up on old French movies and when it’s not so bloody cold it’ll be out with the motorbike and a spot of touring. The reading backlog is winking at me, and I’m dusting off the piano which I have neglected for years. I have a list of other projects as long as your arm, but the main joy is not feeling like I have to do any of it. The next 6 weeks will also be spent supporting efforts to remove useless Tories from the local council.
The last 15 years I’ve been trying to save, paid off the mortgage and I have various assets plus the state pension so I think we’ll be ok. We’ll downsize the house at some point too. My view is a ripe pension at age 80 is much less use than while we’re still spry enough to enjoy it so I’m not planning to restrict ourselves for budget reasons, though we’re not extravagant anyway TBH.
Mrs. T still works at a job she finds rewarding and is worthwhile, and I think she’ll find it difficult to retire. She says she’s doing another year but we’ll see. I have no difficulty filling a day and it wouldn’t worry me if I didn’t, but she likes to be busy so she’ll need to plan it more carefully and probably phase into it rather then jumping off the cliff as I did. She’s also a bit younger than me so she has a way to go yet. I just wish we weren’t locked into school bloody holidays!
I do still have a disconcertingly strong work ethic. Maybe it’s a generational thing but I’ve had a job since I was 13 with my first paper round, through school/college holidays and it feels odd giving up “paid work” when it was available. I’m sure I’ll get over it.
I’m semi retired as it is at 52. There isn’t a full time job for me here.
We’re in an odd position. If we extend our tour here in Alice for a year (or two), my wife can retire with full benefits and pension and all the other Federal stuff. In which case, she assures me, I can retire with her. We’ve been lucky that while we’re out here, we can live well on my 10 hours a week salary and bank her US salary.
If not, she has to work for 5 years more, I will work as I am able, and then we retire at 58/57 respectively.
What will I do? Well, I’m going to try LSD or weed or both. Then I’ll end up looking at part time or volunteer work. Stick with the rugby and do the whole itinerant life thing that Sharon has lined up.
Got a fantastic voluntary redundancy offer in March 2020, at 63. I’d been thinking about retirement for a few years and, after 43 years with the same employer, I figured I’d earned the generous payoff. Two weeks later, I was isolating.
Retirement came on 3rd April and my wife and I looked to the use cash to bridge the gap to the State Pension date at 66, which we did.
My company pension had been split across three providers over the years, two of which, (the two biggest chunks) were excellent. They were on the front foot and the payment process has been easy. Aviva, however, has been a pain in the arse. I still haven’t had a penny of my pension from them – they revealed that the particular policy wasn’t available as a draw-down and I’d have to transfer it to another product of theirs. They’ve had my agreement paperwork for three weeks and I’ve heard nothing more. My advice would be to get your ducks in a row months before you need to. Some companies move very slowly.
In a way, I was lucky in that I had the enforced period of isolation and lockdown as it gave me time to get used to retirement without much happening around me. Then, the idea for my studio-blog came to me and that has completely absorbed me, for nearly three years now. I’ve got the writing bug, big-time, and may finally put ‘pen to paper’ and tell my own story, as I’m reconciled with my mental health and have a tale to tell.
Gigs, travel and holidays have filled the rest of my time, as well as giving up the grog, fourteen months ago. Life is good.
Love hearing this – you deserve a happy ending mate. More power to your arm.
Seconded. The studio blog is… well, I miss it when there isn’t one. When the hardback is published, I will be in the midnight queue outside Waterstones.
Thank you @fentonsteve. Your support has been wonderful.
@niallb – my apologies if you’ve mentioned this and I’ve missed it: but is it your intent to publish your studio blogs as a book? Another customer here, if so!
@fitterstoke, that’s the plan. 🙏
Thank you, @Bingo-Little. That’s a lovely thing to say.
Excellent.
Interesting point on NI – I ought to pay up for this year as mine doesn’t cut in till next year.
Can’t afford to retire after certain mid career decisions followed by marriage break up Will be 61 in a few weeks, my dad died at 59, hmmm
My mother retired at 63, within months she was diagnosed with a serious illness that she eventually died of. Maybe best to keep working
Approaching 63, still working full time (albeit at home) and feel ready to retire, but nervous about the financial outlook. I’ve long had a figure in mind for the combined value of my pension pots that would make me feel comfortable, and was on course to hit it within the next year or so; but it took a serious hit in the first half of last year with all the economic upheavals, and I’ve been scared to look at it for over six months. All made more difficult by worries about persistent inflation and not knowing the real value of what I have into the future.
I used to feel OK with the thought of working into my 70s but now quite jaded. Reckon that if I had six months of doing nothing I might have the energy to return to part time work, but unsure of the possibillities.
No worries about filling my time; I’ve got creative writing, I’d find a local social activity and do some voluntary work.
I left work in September 2021 the day I had enough Long Service Leave to take me through to 60yo when I could claim my work pension which was November 2022.
In between overseas trips I have spent the time zipping around Melbourne investigating the Op shops (Charity Shops in the U.K) with an eye to one day selling on ebay the things I pick up. You can find some incredible items. I stick to categories I already know about, such as sport and films and music which saves a lot of time and effort.
Just today I visited a place called Bentleigh which has half a dozen shops within walking distance of one another and picked up an autographed copy of Tim Rogers’ (of You Am I) book called “Detours” plus a couple of other rock books plus a brilliant Bowie T-Shirt, a couple of board games including Sherlock Holmes’ version of Cluedo plus multiple DVD’s.
Most DVD’s are, and will probably always be worthless, so I only get specialty ones like horror films, concert films and other music discs, arty films, documentaries and TV boxed sets. All up I spent less than $30 Australian. The Bowie shirt alone should be worth that.
The only downside is I am running out of space at home. Things like weird-arse specialty Monopoly sets take up a LOT of room.
I also play golf and have a few semi-regular lunch dates with some of my former co-workers, about one every two weeks on average. One of them who retired around the same time I did seems very depressed and is sorry he left work. Not me though! If anyone was born to do nothing all day it was me!
I have a few more O/S trips in the offing but each has a different snag so I can’t procede. It is my ambition to play golf on every continent. Only three to go! I have knocked off Australia, Asia and North America (I have awarded myself a pass on Antarctica)
I already have the courses I wish to play picked out. One in Egypt has the pyramids as a backdrop but I am waiting on the GEM (Grand Egyptian Museum) to open. I am not travelling all that way a matter of months before one of the biggest and best museums in the world opens so I have to wait for that to happen before I can even make plans.
As for Europe I want to play in Aberdeen as that is where my forebears are from but I am not going back to the UK until the train situation is sorted. I don’t want to get stranded somewhere.
Lastly I have always wanted to visit Tierre Del Fuego. There is a golf course there, it bills itself as the most southerly in the world. The hold up for South America though is airfares there from Australia at the moment are crazily expensive.
Anyway once I have done those things I will start listing items on ebay to sell.
Depending on exactly how “sorted” you want UK trains to be, you might have a long wait.
Mrs F travels from Cambridge to Aberdeen every year or so. Even before the current strikes… well, she always arrived on the same day, but sometimes several hours late.
I retired the same week I reached pension age in 2016. Out of annoyance at how my employers had increased both workload and work-related bureauocracy. I should have hung on a bit longer to get some planning in motion but…
Now receiving Higher-Rate state pension (due to deferring taking it when I became eligible*) plus Savings Pension Credit. I only claimed Pension Credit last October, backdated for a few months because I could. Immediately got hit with a bill to repay some of the Housing Benefit I’d received in previous months plus a small amount of the Council Tax I’d been exempt from paying.
This week I was told my pension and Pension credit would be increasing. I was also told the amount of Housing Benefit I receive would decrease and my Council Tax liability would increase. The DWP giveth and the Borough Council taketh away. I will still be about £60 a month better off, though.
* An option worth checking out if you have sufficient funds at the time you become eligible for a state pension.
Retired in 2017 at 57 as a cop – turns out that if I continued to work, I’d pay 14% of my income as pension contributions and not get a penny more in return. Never intended to stop working and have now come back to work for the same force as a civvy.
I like the idea of all the time in the world but didn’t seem to be able to get it to work for me.
Great to hear so many different stories though – clearly lots of AWers are ‘of a certain age’..
Just turned 60 in Sydney and would like to semi retire but can’t afford it. Not enough in the super fund and still paying off a mortgage because we got on to the property ladder quite late. Worried about having to work to 67 because I’m now finding I simply cannot keep up physically or cognitively with 20 year old work colleagues, not to mention putting in the extra hours of unpaid work that our employer expects. Won’t be destitute if and when I retire, but is there such a thing as retiring into near poverty? Feel like my life will come full circle from when I was signing on back in Liverpool in the 80s – I could survive, but only just.
I negotiated a 3 day week package when I turned 60. As a result my previous role was split into two, an office based planner (me) and a site-based roving compliance checker. I loved the 3 day work-life balance, but the company expanded rapidly through acquisition and after 18 months it became clear that my role needed someone working 5 days a week. I decided to retire but was surprised and pleased when the boss asked me to stick around, pick a few projects that I thought would benefit the company, and do them at my leisure. I picked 3, got one done and the other 2 well underway so I could retire knowing they would get finished. I retired at the end of Feb 2017 a month after my 63rd birthday. This was to allow me and Mrs Black to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary by going to visit her sister in Melbourne. I knew that if I felt desperate to return to work the company would have me back but it dawned on me about 3 weeks into our trip that I hadn’t thought about work for a nanosecond. About 3 weeks after our return I realised I was now considering work as a stage of my life that had passed. And that’s the way it has been in the intervening 6 years. I don’t miss it in the slightest, despite having enjoyed my work for the vast majority of my 41 year career span. I was lucky in that I had a life assurance scheme that matured not long before I retired and I used that to tide me over until state pension arrived after I turned 66. My wife retired 14 months before me and I could see how she was settling into it nicely.
I keep a very tight eye on our finances and the Truss / Kwarteng axis didn’t do me any favours. But the pandemic was a shining example of how lucky we were: our income was unaffected and we spent less than normal as the kind of stuff we used to spend on all got cancelled.
I made a list of things to do if I ever felt bored. So far I haven’t had to resort to any of them.
My Dad retired from HMRC aged 62 and immediately went working as a consultant for a sizeable Accountancy firm. He ceased work at 72. His actual retirement was considerably hampered by declining physical health and he told me & Mrs Black not to make the same mistake. We are both in our 70th year. I remarked to her recently that we are way fitter than our parents were at that age, and that we’ve had a lot more fun.