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Retirement

Kane said:
I will hit 50 next month and get (apparently?) free pensions advice from the gov. As it stands (been looking into this myself a bit recently) I can take a 25% draw down at 55, which should give me approx £30k and then combined with the state pension, when I do hang up my boots maybe around £18k a year if I plan to live to 100. A bit more if I adjust my life expectancy to 68 :)

Thank god my ex-wife had the inspirational moment of creating a financial divorce as well as a marital one. Might buy a Harley and just ride off into the sunset.
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Since you'll be 55 after April 2028, you'll need to be 57. Although depending on your scheme there might be some transitional arrangements & could get it somewhere in between 55-57
 

Kane said:
I will hit 50 next month and get (apparently?) free pensions advice from the gov. As it stands (been looking into this myself a bit recently) I can take a 25% draw down at 55, which should give me approx £30k and then combined with the state pension, when I do hang up my boots maybe around £18k a year if I plan to live to 100. A bit more if I adjust my life expectancy to 68 :)

Thank god my ex-wife had the inspirational moment of creating a financial divorce as well as a marital one. Might buy a Harley and just ride off into the sunset.
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The tax free age is being raised to 57 soon but you may be in the transition window. Not sure if the exact dates.
 
DaveH said:
I'm envious.

Where I was working earlier this year, has had financial troubles for a few years. They are on their second restructure in 3 years and had previously had a few rounds of generous voluntary redundancy. They had previously said "this is the last time we are offering this" and all had been quiet for a year. I found another job and resigned. 3 weeks later another redundancy round was announced and apparently anyone who applied got it. Anyone working their notice was not permitted to apply.

I'd have got about 14 months of wages tax free which would have brought forward potential retirement by a couple of years. All about the timing and I got unlucky.
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I thought only the first £30k of redundancy money was tax/NI free?
 
DaveH said:
I’d get too bored dossing. I often watch a film in two halves because I get restless. If I could become a house husband, it would be the inside house work day to day stuff for half a day a week, and likely out doing all sorts in the garden, making stuff in the shed. And when it is too cold for that, decorating or if cleaning doing the big jobs like we really need to empty out a lot of the kitchen cupboards and give them a good cleanout.
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That’s the first month out of the way , then what ?
 
DaveH said:
Requesting the money back is an interesting one, because you can argue that it was what had been advertised.

Back when digital cameras were coming down to consumer pricing, Kodak made a mistake on their website. A 3.1 megapixel camera (posh for the time), docking station, memory card and some printer paper all for £100. I think it was usually £400 and they had a £100 reduction. Someone made a mistake. Quite a lot of people signed up (Becs tipped me off), Kodak said no, some started legal action as we had a contract of sale. Eventually Kodak caved and I got a camera.

I think following that one the law was changed to say the online agreed price had to stay, even if it was a mistake. It feels like a pension payout should be the same. If someone is given a certain amount and told they had earned that amount then I don't think you should be able to recall it and for future payments the pension company has to give reasonable notice of the change of payments, say 6-12 months.

People plan their lives on this. If the pension company makes that mistake then they own the responsibility for that mistake. If they can demand repayment and apply penalties, that means the responsibility for their mistake lies with the customer. That is wrong.

Pensions are complicated. I like to think I'm intelligent, good with maths and quite like a spreadsheet. It took me a lot of study and experimentation to fully understand my pension. In the process, I found the pension companies own modelling tool was wrong, where it calculated pension earned on a weekly basis and rounded down at each step. The cumulative effect was a few thousand out over a 15 year period. If they can't get it right, and the documentation is complicated, what hope does the average customer have?
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There's been a few like that over the years, was it hoover offering trips to florida ended up having to cough up after a big legal battle. Then Pepsi offering a fighter jet which very nearly came off had it not been for a change of judge who favoured big corporations.
 
Gillythedilf said:
That’s the first month out of the way , then what ?
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I'd easily find plenty of productive ways to fill my time. I love wood work and do have a desire to replace some of the living room furniture with home made stuff. That will take a while. A friend of mine has been building all his own kitchen cabinets and they look amazing. I also have plenty of tech related projects I work on.

Shame that Uni course fees are really high now. Retired people doing degrees used to be common but fees killed that market. If I won the lottery now, I would not continue working but would seriously consider doing an astrophysics degree. Being retired early, I'd probably study something like that in my own way if I could not access the structured course. The qualification at the end doesn't really matter to me anyway.
 
42 said:
Since you'll be 55 after April 2028, you'll need to be 57. Although depending on your scheme there might be some transitional arrangements & could get it somewhere in between 55-57
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Darlo1973 said:
The tax free age is being raised to 57 soon but you may be in the transition window. Not sure if the exact dates.
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Thanks both, I'm not putting any faith in any of the sums I've been projected. I'll be the sole inheritor of 2 houses and maybe a 50/50 on a third but thats a deal that needs worked out. I'm also apparently bequeathed in my godmother's will (she's a millionaire) Could be a quid, could be something else. Who knows?
 
Pantomime Mackem said:
Develop the skills and network the shit out of it, basically. Do research on organisations who can offer training, some do it for free. Research recruitment consultants who do a lot of this kind of work, they are often v happy to talk to you as it’s in their interests to know who’s out there. Think about being a charity trustee - has to be unpaid by law (so consider the opportunity cost) but great way to get some board level experience you can then cite in your CV
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Thanks. Have some executive board experience but not as a NED. One for 5+ years time I think.
 
DaveH said:
I'm envious.

Where I was working earlier this year, has had financial troubles for a few years. They are on their second restructure in 3 years and had previously had a few rounds of generous voluntary redundancy. They had previously said "this is the last time we are offering this" and all had been quiet for a year. I found another job and resigned. 3 weeks later another redundancy round was announced and apparently anyone who applied got it. Anyone working their notice was not permitted to apply.

I'd have got about 14 months of wages tax free which would have brought forward potential retirement by a couple of years. All about the timing and I got unlucky.
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One door closes another opens 👍
always found if you work hard you get your rewards In the end.
I got made redundant twice in my early years was gutted as had the mortgage and loans too pay, but ended up been best thing that ever happen for me work wise.
 
Matt Hopkins said:
How old are you?

On a slightly worrying note, for some people, it seems there are now quite a few cases of DB pensions being overpaid and people being chased to pay the money back. It's scandalous that actuaries/companies work out your amount, you take it in good faith as it's almost impossible to know if it's correct, then a few years later you get a demand for repayment. It's not as if it's important they get it right :rolleyes: seems the company who look after a number of big pensions in this area are one of the biggest culprits.
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Yeah. Seen some recent press on that. It’s quite worrying. Scheme administrators are shocking to deal with in the main.
Fletch said:
is that not where the person was paid more pension then the amount they received on their letter/package , from the off, and kept quiet about it (as many would)
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That was one instance.
 
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ChrisK said:
One door closes another opens 👍
always found if you work hard you get your rewards In the end.
I got made redundant twice in my early years was gutted as had the mortgage and loans too pay, but ended up been best thing that ever happen for me work wise.
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Well played.

My move did get me a significant pay rise, and I'm loving working from home most of the time, so no complaints. Just slightly different timing and I might have had the pay rise, change in duties, working from home and a spare 14 months of wages. It was nothing I was expecting anyway so no real loss I suppose. I've got a couple of formet colleagues who did get the redundancy and then have found work straight away so have been redundant on a Friday, new job on a Monday and clearing a chunk of their mortgage.
 
DaveH said:
A 9 day fortnight in a year or two is my next aim. Taking a Wednesday feels like a good idea to break up the week but Monday or Friday gives long weekends.
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Did this on a Monday in a previous job. Means you can fully enjoy the Sunday.
 
Really want to either retire, do temp work for max flexibility or minimum part time when 60. Pensions is the only financial product I don't understand.
We both in an average salary pension scheme and lucky enough to be able to manage on pretty much one of our wages.
. government potentially upping the retirement age means I've been reluctant to increase/top up pension (apparently there's 3 ways to do this in my scheme) but I'm also aware I'm 20% ahead before I start with tax free element). I really need to spend time exploring whether this or stocks and shares/ bonds is best for me. Pensions are just so complicated but I want to finish work and travel this world as soon as possible....life is short.
 
Interesting thinking through what I would do with my time after what Gilly said. I know he was one the windup with the "all done in a month" comment, but got me thinking. Fair enough things might change before I retire, but looking at a monthly basis..... Out cycling once a week (5), gardening once per week (5), a day doing my project stuff per week (5) a day out walking every couple of weeks (2.5), half a day a week doing woodwork projects (2.5). That is 20 days a month covered already with just a sample of some of the things I do now and that is without considering going away a lot more, not accounting for days mostly lost because I've been up all night doing astronomy, or any of the new stuff I'd love the time to do.
 
DaveH said:
Interesting thinking through what I would do with my time after what Gilly said. I know he was one the windup with the "all done in a month" comment, but got me thinking. Fair enough things might change before I retire, but looking at a monthly basis..... Out cycling once a week (5), gardening once per week (5), a day doing my project stuff per week (5) a day out walking every couple of weeks (2.5), half a day a week doing woodwork projects (2.5). That is 20 days a month covered already with just a sample of some of the things I do now and that is without considering going away a lot more, not accounting for days mostly lost because I've been up all night doing astronomy, or any of the new stuff I'd love the time to do.
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Eat, drink and be merry.
 
DaveH said:
Interesting thinking through what I would do with my time after what Gilly said. I know he was one the windup with the "all done in a month" comment, but got me thinking. Fair enough things might change before I retire, but looking at a monthly basis..... Out cycling once a week (5), gardening once per week (5), a day doing my project stuff per week (5) a day out walking every couple of weeks (2.5), half a day a week doing woodwork projects (2.5). That is 20 days a month covered already with just a sample of some of the things I do now and that is without considering going away a lot more, not accounting for days mostly lost because I've been up all night doing astronomy, or any of the new stuff I'd love the time to do.
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Don't overthink what you are going to do with your time. Good thing about being retired that if you get up and fancy doing fk all that day, you can
 
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