Early Retirement.

One tip. You will not pay as much as you think when you retire. I found I payed less tax, NO national insurance, less for petrol, beer etc. When I was working I went out 6 nights a week, sometimes at 9 o’clock, just because I needed to reward myself for working all day. Now I stay in a lot as I am knackered by golfing, gardening, exercising during the day. I used to have a sit down job. I have lost weight since I retired! The best benefit though is waking up, looking at the clock, turning over and snuggling up for an hour-ish, especially in the winter. (y)
 
Boro in Devon said:
I retired at 55 in the middle of the pandemic. Had to access my pension to support myself and then my business went bust. Moved back to be closer to family and live on my own. I know my pension will support me for the next 15 years after that, who knows.
So my options are, live a short life of excess and debauchery or look for a part time job.
I find that the idea of a job creates some structure to the day and also provides some different company to chat to. I do have a lot of hobbies to keep me busy but I lack some motivation.
Anyway, off to the pub now, wont be back till late.
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Dont forget state pension will kick in at 67.
 
I’m at a bit of a crossroads . Just turned 50 and have been told I’m being replaced due to management restructure . They want to keep me and will still be in a senior role and same pay or I can leave and they will give me a settlement . Could just about have a reasonable life if I accept I’ll be eating into my savings also . The settlement also alllows me to take the offer upto 2 years later if I’m not happy or they are not. Feels like another 2 years is sensible but it’s been so stressful , I feel I could just walk away
 
SOTN0362 said:
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sambaDTR said:
One tip. You will not pay as much as you think when you retire. I found I payed less tax, NO national insurance, less for petrol, beer etc. When I was working I went out 6 nights a week, sometimes at 9 o’clock, just because I needed to reward myself for working all day. Now I stay in a lot as I am knackered by golfing, gardening, exercising during the day. I used to have a sit down job. I have lost weight since I retired! The best benefit though is waking up, looking at the clock, turning over and snuggling up for an hour-ish, especially in the winter. (y)
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You forgot free prescriptions (yes, I know it’s free at 60 anyhoo)
 
Life is short. I would say if you can afford it then do it. A guy retired the same day as me after nearly 50 years of service, he was about 65. Six months later he died, such a waste. We'd all been telling him to get out for years.
As mentioned above you can't predict how your health will be, if you work in a stressful environment it could actually be beneficial to get out.
Same as a previous poster we hardly fill the car up now and actually got rid of one. I appreciate that not everyone can afford to leave but check your figures especially if there's an offer on the table. If you can't leave yet pile the maximum you can into your pension for your remaining time.
 
The_Tiler said:
You guys must have really good private pensions to retire before 60. Im almost mortgage free but will have to keep on working for a few years after to build up a nice nest egg.
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My dad always said to me to make sure I paid into a private pension when I was in my 20s. Its probably the only decent advice I took from him! My god , I've so much to thank him for- I'm sure he'll be looking down and saying "told ya".
 
Johnnyweetabix said:
I’m at a bit of a crossroads . Just turned 50 and have been told I’m being replaced due to management restructure . They want to keep me and will still be in a senior role and same pay or I can leave and they will give me a settlement . Could just about have a reasonable life if I accept I’ll be eating into my savings also . The settlement also alllows me to take the offer upto 2 years later if I’m not happy or they are not. Feels like another 2 years is sensible but it’s been so stressful , I feel I could just walk away
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Try to see if they will give you early retirement as well as redundancy and get your figures anyway.

I took voluntary redundancy and was given early retirement as well 8 years ago, got state pension on top now ,paid off my mortgage and I’m comfortable
 
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Interesting thread!

I want to retire at 60 so I have 13 year to go which seems an awful long time in a job I like less with each passing day. At times I feel a bit trapped by the decent pension I get which is based largely on career average earnings as they pulled the final salary scheme about 15 years ago. I contribute 6.5% and the employer 26% so it makes looking elsewhere so much more difficult.
 
Aiming to retire from the main job at 57 on the dot (45 now) but having to slam lots of my earnings into the pension to manage that - so that cuts down on day to day spending, and I'll have to downsize as current mortgage ends at 63. Started a little travel business on the side which is going well and I'm hoping will keep me interested and bring a little extra in post retirement - but still feels a long way away! Had a little spring in the step a few weeks ago when I thought that I'd found a loophole to allow retirement at 55, but turns out that's not the case sadly!
 
Cullenbohannon said:
Interesting thread!

I want to retire at 60 so I have 13 year to go which seems an awful long time in a job I like less with each passing day. At times I feel a bit trapped by the decent pension I get which is based largely on career average earnings as they pulled the final salary scheme about 15 years ago. I contribute 6.5% and the employer 26% so it makes looking elsewhere so much more difficult.
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Without knowing your figures, or wanting to, I suspect you’ve got a decent pot based on those contributions and the length of time you appear to have been there.
Can you cut back on what you think you might beed in retirement?
 
Have also been reading about a concept called 'healthy retirement' which is based on the fact you can and will spend more in your healthy years (travel, golf etc) than in later life - so you don't necessarily need the private pension to last at the same level for your whole life. The state pension also kicks in late 60s for me. Makes perfect sense.
 
Aet290204 said:
I’ve got zero chance

I’m mortgaged up to my blooming eyeballs until my 70th birthday.
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If you can afford it, it's worth looking at an overpayment calculator to see how even small overpayments made each month can snowball over the life of a mortgage to cut your overall payment down massively and shave off some years.
 
Merlin said:
How can someone on minimum wage afford to pay into a pension - they’re probably struggling to even get by let alone save for the future. Good luck to all who can but there are millions stuck in the poverty trap who have no hope of ever retiring early
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True but that doesn’t mean those that can put into a pension and plan for retirement shouldn’t do it.
 
GingerTravel said:
Have also been reading about a concept called 'healthy retirement' which is based on the fact you can and will spend more in your healthy years (travel, golf etc) than in later life - so you don't necessarily need the private pension to last at the same level for your whole life. The state pension also kicks in late 60s for me. Makes perfect sense.
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yup 100% that's how i have planned and budgeted for my retirement spend more in the earlier years while I have the energy to do stuff and can enjoy it but I am assuming as I get older I will need to spend less as I take things a little easier or too knackered to do anything lol
 
The UK Demographic is awful and getting worse.
Fewer and fewer people working and paying tax to pay for more and more pensioners.
 
Wouldn’t be a problem at all if billionaires and big corporations paid the tax that they should - the rest of get screwed into the floor with tax while these types are allowed to get away with paying pennies relative to what they make
zzzzz said:
The UK Demographic is awful and getting worse.
Fewer and fewer people working and paying tax to pay for more and more pensioners.
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Merlin said:
Wouldn’t be a problem at all if billionaires and big corporations paid the tax that they should - the rest of get screwed into the floor with tax while these types are allowed to get away with paying pennies relative to what they make
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Oh 110%. Rich people don't pay taxes.
And what Google/Faceboook/Apple etc etc etc get away with is just disgusting.
 
How much do you need to retire ?
Obviously it depends on what you do with life but assuming you still want to travel regularly and don't want to cut down on nights out, spoiling Grandkids at Xmas, driving a nice car you would still need a net pension of a few grand a month.
If you can do that at 55 people have been doing better pension planning than I have :(
 
Merlin said:
How can someone on minimum wage afford to pay into a pension - they’re probably struggling to even get by let alone save for the future. Good luck to all who can but there are millions stuck in the poverty trap who have no hope of ever retiring early
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They can't afford not to. If they don't put something aside while working then when they get to retirement they will be left with just the state pension.

On minimum wage of £11.44 from April a 37.5 hr week job will pay £22,369. Without pension that would give a take-home pay of £19,625. With pension it would be £18,980 but you'd have £1,290 in a pension. That £1,290 only costs you £645. 50 years of no pension would give you £32k which I assume would be spent and not saved so would give no return but contributing to a pension and assuming a modest 4% growth above inflation would give you a pension pot of £206k. A £206k pension pot can get you a tax free lump sum of £50k and a yearly income of £10k.

If you take the £645 and invest it independently and not in a pension (with the same growth) you will have £103k. The pension is the better option.

Pensions are not a scam and the earlier you start the better.
 
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