Do you seriously think I'm just sitting rocking back and forward in the corner of a dark room, holding my knees wishing I was retired?
) which will boost our income. At that point we will still have a chunk outstanding on our mortgage as we borrowed extra a few years ago for work on our house but I could clear that from my pension lump sum and still have a decent amount left and an annual pension of around £22k. By then our son will be through school and we will still be supporting him but he might not be too far off from the working world or whatever he wants to do. I’ve got a separate AVC plan which has around £5k in which I haven’t been paying into and I have an appointment booked with a pension advisor via my employer to get the best advice on that, which will probably be to start to pay into it (I’m been pretty disorganised on all this to date).
One of the things the govt would probably like to reduce in the budget , along with tax relief , whether they do or not we will see
There's a lot of truth in that. I've been paying into a private pension for the past 35 yesrs and it's still not enough to retire on. Well it is but I'd have to cut down a lot on holidays and hobbies compared to what I do now. I think the biggest problem for tradies is when you go a couple of weeks or even months without work, then it's hard to take savings to pay into a pension when you don't know where your next wage is coming from. A lot of the old pension schemes ran by companies for those on paye were dire. I recently found a receipt for a company pension scheme I was in about 45 years ago. The amount in the scheme was £16, I still get updates every year on what this investment is worth now and it's a massive £26, that's total not a monthly or yearly amount.
I’ve documented my experience of approaching retirement and retiring on this thread a couple of times so won’t repeat but the amount of negative people / comments i experienced vastly outnumbered the positive ones.
This is exactly my view and exactly what I did. I was made redundant and took my much reduced pension early at 59. I had no other income so a reduced pension sees me until 67. I’m now 62.
Great, hope things work out as you plan.Just discovered this brilliant thread and am reading back as much as I can as there is so much great information and advice.
I’m in my mid 50’s, still enjoy my job and had never thought at all about retirement but after some recent health issues and surgery (nothing life threatening) and seeing what has happened with some of the lads I grew up with, who have had serious health issues, also know loads of people who have worked at the same place as me and within a year or two of retiring have died, it’s completely changed my perspective and i’ve started to plan ahead and have ran some pension projections over the last couple of days.
I’m now thinking that I would like to retire in my early 60’s so around 5 or 6 years time, my wife is a bit younger than me and will still be working (which she is delighted about
I definitely want to retire while I am in good health and can still enjoy life, I won’t ever have a problem filling my time, I will take up golf again, start to do some walking/hiking, read more, travel more not tied to school holiday times and catch up with mates who have already retired and the occasional time in the odd pub which I haven’t really done for years. Now I’ve started to really think about it I’m quite excited about it all.
This thread has been a great source of information and inspiration.
Dead right mate . Couldn't agree more . I have less time now to do the things I want to. Its a great time of life . Motorhome to use , guitars to play , grandson to watch playing football and of course SAFC . Get retired if you can .
Agree it’s way too expensive , 90% of people would agree triple lock needs to go , just increase state pension by inflation each year and no more
It’s life mate there no right or wrong answer.
There are quite a few people around who think that anything that is not what they want or do with their life is wrong. They see things in other people's lives they can't have, have never thought of having or don't want and instead of just acknowledging the different life choices have a bit of a go. Some just point the odd meaningless but slightly snarky comments, others start huge threads about it. It is probably insecurity on their part, perhaps with some jealously. After all, I bet there are very few people on here who would not quit work if they won the lottery. If you accept that, then for all of us it is not so much work vs no work, it just comes down to your price to quit work in order to be able to support the lifestyle you want. In the absence of a lottery win, it is what sacrifices you are willing to make now and still be able to enjoy life, while planning for the future and enjoying that too.
Exactly what a fella i work with said
