When Will or Did you Retire?

[PaulSB]

I retired five years ago at 62. Finished on a Friday night. The next day, Saturday, when I was usually very, very busy I was completely unable to do anything until around 4.00pm. It was weird.

On the Monday morning I didn't even think about work. That was it, retired, new life, new adventure. The only time I thought of work in the first few months was when people asked how I fill my time and "you must miss work." No!

I can fully accept people do find it difficult to settle into retirement. I don't understand this but I do realise it's the case for some. I know two people, one my previous boss, who won't retire because they literally have nothing else in their life. They have a hundred reasons but never face the reality My boss looked at me in amazement, "How can you retire? How can you afford it?" He owns five rental properties aside from his business!!!! I'm 10 years younger than him.

My life is full and I have days when I wish I wasn't so busy. Today I've decided to forgo the Sunday Club ride as I've so many other odds and ends which need catching up.

 

[nickyboy]

Lots seemed to have retired at 55. I wonder how many worked in the public sector? Those of us that worked in the private sector would be unlikely to call it a day at 55.

I'm 55 and have no plans to retire at all. I enjoy what I do for a living, it isn't physically demanding (although it is mentally demanding). I can set my own hours. I'll probably ease back at some time but that's way over the horizon. Why stop doing something if you enjoy it, pays well and still gives you time to do other stuff

 

[rogerzilla]

2.5 years' time at 55, give or take a few months. Been there since I was 21 and have been making AVCs. Ex-wife had some of the pension, but not too much (she had more of the equity in the house instead).

I knew a guy who retired in his late 60s, not knowing he was ill, and died of cancer six months later. Stuff that.

 

[cougie uk]

Lots seemed to have retired at 55. I wonder how many worked in the public sector? Those of us that worked in the private sector would be unlikely to call it a day at 55.

Why ?

Seems to me plenty of people don't actually plan for retirement at all. Blindly going on until state pension age. I was lucky that my employer provided pension courses for everyone. Most people didn't bother going - but I was paying attention for decades before I was hitting retirement age. As a result I was able to afford to retire well before normal.

Managing your financial affairs is something seriously overlooked by most people. Get the basics right and with a bit of luck as well you don't need to hang on til 67 or whatever it is now.

I've been free from work for over a year now and still not made much of a dent on my to do list. It's never boring and when the pandemic retreats things will be even better.

If you have no plans for retirement maybe you need to think about it. Don't leave it until after you retire.

 

[dodgy]

Lots seemed to have retired at 55. I wonder how many worked in the public sector? Those of us that worked in the private sector would be unlikely to call it a day at 55.

I retired from private sector at 55.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Today...and this week, is a perfect example, and a rather sad one, of why I dont look forward to retirement. I dont have any real hobbies, cant even cycle much anymore, always was easily motivated at work, I love my core job, its demanding in a good way, satisfying, gets me out etc etc etc.
On holiday this week with no plans (for obvious reasons). So it's just relax with an odd trip out here and there.....and its driving me nuts, it's so....arghhhhh, I need something to do, I actually feel agitated when I get like this, my heart rate goes up, dont sleep well.
Sad innit .

It is a conundrum.

I tried retiring at 48 (wife did the same at 41) and it rapidly came apparent within the first year that it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be for us.

We returned to the fray with some low key business activities which gave us a much better balance in life.

At almost 65 and 58 we just have a couple of things that need unwinding as we try again.

The challenge for us is to stay motivated to get out and do things as we like partying and dossing around the house a little too much although we are both fit and active.

Observations on retirees that we know very general and somewhat sweeping:

First year or three into retirement they pack in a whole heap of holidays and then get bored with them. (Nice in moderation as we've done loads back in the day and the odd one here and there can still be fun.)

They buy that retirement cliche the motorhome and then promptly get bored with the (frankly depressingly small) accomodation space and the melee of the sites on which to park the thing on. They get sold. (Christ alive how does this float anyone's boat?)

They become house slaves - constantly titivating houses that really need no work on them at all. (We have a nice house but essentially it is a roof , albeit nice roof, over our heads and we are not 'cushion plumpers'.)

^^^^ Ditto gardens.

^^^^ They visit garden centres constantly. (Oh ye gods, what awful places.)

They are forever going out to pub lunches. (Ok in small doses.)

They watch daytime TV and love shows like Chase. (Oh dear.)

Golf obsessives indulge their obsession ad-nauseum leaving (mainly) wives fed up. (Sad on a number of levels.)

They become surrogate parents to their grand-children etc. (Definitely not for us we have minimal interest in children with or without our DNA inside them.)

But... each to their own etc.

So, for the second time, we will find it challenging to keep ourselves occupied and whilst neither of us no longer want to work again or be involved, even at a distance, with anything remotely business related, it will be interesting to see how this pans out.

So @gbb - you are not alone!

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Managing your financial affairs is something seriously overlooked by most people. Get the basics right and with a bit of luck as well you don't need to hang on til 67 or whatever it is now.

Indeed, many people we have known over the years just don't seem to have a grip on their finances whatsoever.

 

[Gunk]

I retired from private sector at 55.

I was lucky to be in a position to pack it in at 55, but only because I’d paid heavily into a pension when I had a corporate job and because I sold a business. However as I posted earlier, 55 was far too early for me so after a year of a couple of days week, I’m back full time and although it’s tiring there’s very little pressure, I enjoy it and the money is useful, especially with two kids going on to further education. I’ll pull back to three days a week in three years time when I’m 60.

 

[FrankCrank]

A good friend of mine took early retirement from his UK job aged 50, and settled down over here with his Thai wife, living just a couple of miles from us. He'd been working for the same firm over there for 23 years, and he jokingly said he'd like to be drawing his company pension for at least that many years, just to 'break even'. Sadly, he died from cancer back in Feb this year, aged 62, so only got halfway to his 'breaking even' goal. Not trying to spook anyone with this story, just sharing it.

 

[captain nemo1701]

Sadly, it'll be 70. I have an old school friend who effectively retired in his late 40's due to health reasons.
I'm hoping my ISA nest egg will be about £60k by then, currently looking at 'Bungalow porn' on Zoopla in Scotland. Nice two bedroom job, garden, edge of village location with nice views & dark skies for the stupidly big telescope I hope to buy. Dumfries & Galloway looks appealing, spent some fantastic holiday times there in the 70's.

 

[JtB]

Sadly, it'll be 70. I have an old school friend who effectively retired in his late 40's due to health reasons.
I'm hoping my ISA nest egg will be about £60k by then, currently looking at 'Bungalow porn' on Zoopla in Scotland. Nice two bedroom job, garden, edge of village location with nice views & dark skies for the stupidly big telescope I hope to buy. Dumfries & Galloway looks appealing, spent some fantastic holiday times there in the 70's.

Mrs JtB and I did lots of pre-retirement Zoopla browsing and we toured some lovely places that we browsed. But after much soul searching we realised that we did not want to isolate ourselves from our family and friends when we retired. We have no plans therefore to sell up and move away no matter how green the grass may appear on the other side.

 

[captain nemo1701]

Mrs JtB and I did lots of pre-retirement Zoopla browsing and we toured some lovely places that we browsed. But after much soul searching we realised that we did not want to isolate ourselves from our family and friends when we retired. We have no plans therefore to sell up and move away no matter how green the grass may appear on the other side.

By 70, I'll have been in Bristol for a staggering 47 years. Most of my friends I met in the late 80's when I moved here have...well...moved away or retired (they were on average 10 years older than me). So by 2034, I'm ready for a change of scenery.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

It is worth making sure that you know the details of the retirement rules for your pension scheme as you get over about 50

Some schemes have a wind down period where you can reduce your work times (less das a week or less hours a day) without affecting your pension
Mostly applies to final salary type pensions so getting less important - but if it applies to you then it is useful to know about it when planning

In my case I didn;t know about it but I was forced into a posiiton where I reduced salary in the last few years due to 'circumstances'
I rang up the pension company and discovered that if I retired in the next few months then my pension would be based on my highest salary in the last 5 years - which meant that it would be from when I worked full time in a higher paid job - if I had left in another 6 months my pension would have dropped a lot!!!

 

[midlife]

My pension is based on the best year over the last 3 years.