Early-retirement wannabe

115K

Marine_life wrote: »

You really could not make this up.

Three days (thats three days) before my 50th birthday my company announces that they will no longer allow pension right to fully vest at age 50 and have now increased the qualifying limit to 20 years in the role. I am 13 years in the role.

Whats the impact?

Well it puts a big hole in my potential retirement pension, something of the order of €10,000 per year in net cash terms (i.e. after tax). That's a fairly big hole.

Of course I should have known this was coming - its a very generous pension scheme and non-contributory so it really is free money. If I want to put myself back in exatly the same position cash wise I would probably need to work for an additional year.

Anyway that's not going to detract from the eight week holiday coming up - I suspect it will not change our plans at all - but of course it does not make things any easier.

Damn

:eek: What awful luck.:(

seven-day-weekend

atush wrote: »

My vacation home in FL came fully furnished too. Saved me loads as I didn't have to buy much at first (3 TVs, tv stand and a chest of drawers) and I have slowly replaced a lot of things (such as linens, masterbed furniture, BBQ, patio furniture).

My stuff was too old to sell, so I gave it to charity shops. I didn't have stuff to move there from the UK apart for a few knic nacks pillows etc.

We sold our Spanish house fully furnished. This was mainly for two reasons: a) we already had a houseful of furniture in England and b) we returned to the UK before the sale had completed, so left it set up as a holiday home in case it fell through.

The new owners got absolutely everything, even down to bottles of wine in the wine rack, towels in the bathroom and a breadmaker Only one tv though.

All they had to do was come in, sit down, open said bottle of wine, chill out and enjoy.

However, it is not unusual in Spain for property to come fully furnished.

Marine_life

So here we are .....I made it.

Last week was my 50th birthday and tomorrow will be my last day in the office before a two month vacation.

We will be using that vacation both to have fun and think about next steps. Its hard to believe that the day has finally arrived but it has come around incredibly quickly.

We also had some very good news in that it now appears that the announced worsening of pension conditions will only apply to new contracts :T. This leaves my retirement fund intact and means that as of my 50th birthday I've now accrued full rights under the scheme. As of today that means an annual income of around €45,000. Combined with an old fozen pension from the UK means we have core income from age 62 of around €60,000.

So all that remains is to consider whether we have enough savings to last us from now until then - 12 years. I think we do but that's up for discussion with Mrs ML.

slowlyfading

As a lurker on this thread, popping up to say congratulations marine_life! What an exciting time ahead of you

AlwaysLearnin

Congratulations, and belated Happy Birthday.

Enjoy!

mothernerd

Take the money and run - before they change the rules again.

gallygirl

mothernerd wrote: »

Take the money and run - before they change the rules again.

My thoughts entirely .

Have a great trip :beer:.

Karmacat

Marine Life, I'm really pleased for you! Another one voting for "take the money and run"

kidmugsy

mothernerd wrote: »

Take the money and run - before they change the rules again.

Exactly: seize the day.

nicknameless

AlwaysLearnin wrote: »

Congratulations, and belated Happy Birthday.

Enjoy!

Here, here.

Very jealous. Not of the slightly greater age, but definitely of the situation.

All the best for your cojitations and future whatever it looks like.