Early-retirement wannabe

JoeEngland

DairyQueen wrote: »

Take your point and I also think this warrants a separate thread. However, (lack of) public services are very relevant to retirement planning. They affect where you choose to live, what type of home, and how much contingency fund you will need to bridge the gap between the services you may need and those (not) supplied by the state.

For example, ever considered what would happen if you take a fall when you are too immobile or frail to rise to your feet under your own steam and your carers would struggle to lift you? The LA community health team recommends calling an ambulance (wait of around 3 hours). The NHS is not best pleased at this recommendation, especially for those who suffer frequent falls. There is an awful lot of shoving of responsibility between different public sector budgets and the elderly victims fall down the cracks.

Btw, the answer is a lifting device (cost £3000). Chances of receiving such at public expense = zero so you had better be in a position to fund one yourself.

I have read many articles that suggest spending in later retirement significantly reduces and we should plan accordingly. Total BS. My (admittedly) anecdotal experience is that the opposite is true. Anyone with income/savings beyond subsistence level receives little/nowt from the state regardless of need. Family, community and neighbours are rarely able to meet the needs-gap abdicated by the public purse.

Having been up-close to the experiences of family, friends and community we have allocated more capital and pension income to later life needs in addition to care home fees. The worst case scenario is to outlive your funds when you are most vulnerable. This has been the outcome for many people we know. In each case it has been the elderly (age 85+) survivor of a couple, or a single person, who suffers this fate.

This is one of those subjects on which we all anticipate that we will be on the positive side of the bell curve . Reality check: chances are that if you live to 85+, and you are single at that age, this will be your fate unless you plan contingency before you retire.

Denial isn't too helpful.

Sorry to rain on your parade OMG but this is an important area of retirement planning.

Oh, and Triumph. congrats. Enjoy. Have fun. :beer:

I think it depends on what risks people want to take. Planning for living till 100 and spending tens or hundreds of thousands on a care home could mean not retiring until well into your 60s. This would mean lost years of being able to better enjoy life when you were a bit younger and fitter, and then the worst case scenario might never happen.

TBH the thought of working FT or PT well into my 60s, even if I physically could, makes falling off a tall building look possibly enticing in comparison.

crv1963

To be back on theme, I got confirmation today that what I hope will be my last FT Post starts a week Monday! Aim of new job to make one final big push to top up Mrs CRV pension, pay off remaining debt and get the mortgage down to a point that we have enough to finish it without taking the majority of my TFLS!


Oh and finally got Mrs CRV sufficiently interested to spend time going over some figures- she usually just wants the bottom line, how much will be have as income in retirement and when!


Might make an interesting case study at some point- two people, same qualification, different career choices, massively different pension outcomes! Reading elsewhere of people thinking of opting out of Public Sector Pension because the grass is greener doing something else might make them think twice!

gadgetmind

People thinking about opting out of DB pensions have generally made the mistake of believing union lies.

DairyQueen

JoeEngland wrote: »

I think it depends on what risks people want to take. Planning for living till 100 and spending tens or hundreds of thousands on a care home could mean not retiring until well into your 60s. This would mean lost years of being able to better enjoy life when you were a bit younger and fitter, and then the worst case scenario might never happen.

TBH the thought of working FT or PT well into my 60s, even if I physically could, makes falling off a tall building look possibly enticing in comparison.

Problem is that you don't need to live to 100. 85 will be sufficient for the survivor of an average couple to feel the pinch. That's my experience. No problem with you retiring asap as long as you accept that if you/spouse live to 85+ the chances are very high that you will require care/domestic support that you will need to pay for, or suffer the consequences of public funding that doesn't come close to meeting need.

Denial of a scary reality doesn't make this less of a reality.

I'm selfishly glad that Mr DQ is likely to outlive me (I have reduced life expectancy) but we are still planning such that he has sufficient means to meet his care needs. His life expectancy is currently 88+ and he wants the option to live independently as long as possible. For him a few extra years of work are worth that peace of mind.

Each to his own.

That's the last of my doom-mongering (I'm spoiling Triumph's retirement countdown )

Bimbly

DairyQueen wrote: »

No problem with you retiring asap as long as you accept that if you/spouse live to 85+ the chances are very high that you will require care/domestic support that you will need to pay for, or suffer the consequences of public funding that doesn't come close to meeting need.)

In my planning, that's what the house is for. Equity release is poor value for early retirement (also problematic if I want to move) and so not worth doing until 70s at earliest. By which time all the pensions are paying out and I should be ok for cash. Much better to have the house there, that should I need to pay for care, I can release the equity to do so. Even if that's only home help, a cleaner and a gardener.

That means I don't have to worry about keeping aside money for care that I might not need. But, should I need it, I have it.

NB: no children, so no inheritance issues

JoeEngland

DairyQueen wrote: »

Problem is that you don't need to live to 100. 85 will be sufficient for the survivor of an average couple to feel the pinch. That's my experience. No problem with you retiring asap as long as you accept that if you/spouse live to 85+ the chances are very high that you will require care/domestic support that you will need to pay for, or suffer the consequences of public funding that doesn't come close to meeting need.

Denial of a scary reality doesn't make this less of a reality.

I'm selfishly glad that Mr DQ is likely to outlive me (I have reduced life expectancy) but we are still planning such that he has sufficient means to meet his care needs. His life expectancy is currently 88+ and he wants the option to live independently as long as possible. For him a few extra years of work are worth that peace of mind.

Each to his own.

That's the last of my doom-mongering (I'm spoiling Triumph's retirement countdown )

That was my point, that it's each to his own depending on what risks you want to take. The only reality about the future is that we don't know exactly what it will be for us, we can only use averages (life expectancy, how many need care etc) to know what kind of things we might want to plan for. The other reality is that you could try to work well into your 60s to increase your financial means for things like a care home only to die, or suffer from health issues which make your retirement much less enjoyable than if you'd given up work earlier.

Today I read a scary statistic for people born recently. It claimed that 50% of those born in 2017 are expected to live to 100. If this is true then new generations will need to plan more for living to very old age.

atush

Triumph13 wrote: »

We can't go to crazy as we'll still have kids at home for another 6 years, so we'll be concentrating on:

• getting fit
• working through the 'we'll do that when we retire' list of jobs around the house and garden
• catching up on our huge reading backlog
• devoting a lot more time to cooking
• generally kicking back and having fun

I'll be consulting one day a week, term time only, for a few months to ease the handover at work, but that will probably end next summer when we take the kids away for 6 weeks (Brexit permitting!)

Sounds a good list to start.

I'd add more time aborad on holiday (ie 2 months or more instead of 2 weeks etc)

westv

atush wrote: »

Sounds a good list to start.

I'd add more time aborad on holiday (ie 2 months or more instead of 2 weeks etc)

Don't forget that, if you are away for an extended period, you need to make your house insurers aware. I think it's something like 30+ continous days.

OldMusicGuy

DairyQueen wrote: »

Sorry to rain on your parade OMG but this is an important area of retirement planning.

Happy to discuss the impact on retirement planning but not the future of public services. And yes, we have planned for all of the above. That's why we are downsizing next year to live in a town in walking distance of facilities, not a rural idyll. The house will be set up for a retired couple in the 60 to 80 plus age range, so easy to open drawers and kitchen units for example (as my wife suffers increasingly from arthritis in her hands). The en suite in the main bedroom will have a walk in shower rather than a bath. We are even looking at bungalows!

I've said many times that downsizing is an important part of our retirement planning both financially and from a quality of life perspective. So many people leave it too late. For example, I just heard of some of our relatives who are trapped in a house that's too big for them because they left it too late to downsize. The wife now has dementia and a move would be too stressful and upsetting for her, but the husband in his late 80s is struggling to cope with caring for her and also managing the house.

We will not be relying on public services as the only source of healthcare and later life care. We will happily use them if they are there but also plan to have funds available to fund our own needs if we have to. We also joined Benenden which I think is a good "add on" to the NHS without paying the cost of full private health insurance. Our retirement plan envisages us having enough left when we are our 90s to fund at least 5 years in a good care home.

So you're not raining on my parade but several posts were definitely raining on this thread....;)

gfplux

OldMusicGuy wrote: »

Could we please get this thread back on topic? It's a very useful one for many people and it's got nothing to do with the future of public services.

Fully agree. AlanP should start a new thread on how to pay for public services and infrastructure.