Planning to fully retire or semi retire?

dreaming

I will be "retiring" this August at age of 58 due to redundancy. Do not plan to work full time again but will see how I feel about a part-time job when the time comes. I live alone but have family close by and have a few hobbies I would like to pursue. I think I have the cash sorted so shouldn't "have to" work but it may be a shock to go from a full-time, full-on job to nothing - I enjoy it when I have time off but it may be too much of a culture shock.

ibizafan_2

When my sons were very small, I took a job with a well known pub restaurant chain so that I could just work in the evenings. There were no part time opportunities in my profession at the time, and I didn't want to work full time. Twenty seven years later, I am still working for them, even after going back to work for the County Council many years ago, sometimes doing over 50 hours a week in both jobs! I paid into the second job pension as well, and have just, at the age of 60 taken VR from the County Council and taken the pension (under the 85 year rule) whilst also drawing the pension from the second job while carrying on with that job. I plan to carry on with the restaurant job until the state pension kicks in at 62 years 10 months, health permitting, as it is hard physically. However, I have been toying with the idea of deferring the state pension for a couple of years, so might carry on working part time until the age of 65. I still really enjoy this job, and the best thing about it is that it is very flexible, so that if I want to go away for a month (got some big trips planned!) I can. Someone else will always do my shift, and although I get six weeks paid holiday, I like being able to take as much unpaid leave as I want. I feel as if I have the best of both worlds at this stage of my life.

jamesd

Spirit wrote: »

My health is ropey which informs my decision to go part time, and I think I will retire at 57 when my OH will be 60. ... Going at 57 would mean a failrly sizeable actuarial reduction but that is fine. ... My husband was planning to fully retire at 60 however his pension is relatively small ... Our state pensions kick in when we are 66 although (I want to be wrong on this ) my health will deteriorate and I do not expect to be around by then.

You should also be aware that circumstances like those are ones where it can be beneficial to transfer out of even a public sector defined benefit pension. You should definitely seek IFA advice as retirement approaches.

The potential benefits in this situation are potentially very substantial:

1. Ill health with limited life expectancy may allow larger payments, either with an annuity or a scheme pension.
2. The potential for the spouse to inherit a scheme pension or income drawdown pension pot to provide a higher pension for them than could be provided by the defined benefit pension.
3. The possibility of retiring earlier to have a longer retired life, exploiting the reduced life expectancy to get higher income.

It's usually a bad idea to transfer out of a defined benefit pension but significantly reduced life expectancy is one of the major exceptions where it can be the best approach.

Lois_and_CK

Interesting - thanks for all your replies. I was originally saving for full retirement, but after lots of conversations with CK, we're starting to come round to a phased retirement - build up enough money that we could pay the mortgage off if we wanted to, or keep it invested, then give up full-time work and switch to part time freelancing. We're lucky in that we both have careers that we can easily freelance in with no setup costs, so it would be a simple transition.

atush

It is always best to have options.

it won't cost you anything to be prepared for whatever you decide in the end.

System

Retirement isn't a fixed event nowadays. Different pensions and options cut in at different times, increasingly I think people will plan their lives from 55 onwards using a mixture of pensions and part-time work. You can't now differentiate between "pensioners" and "workers".

Of course ultimately it all depends on the attitude of your employer (s).
If you are a manual labourer in an arduous job you aren't likely to be allowed to work on full time into your seventies.
But if you are a controlling director in a small company you can work or "retire" to any option between 6 days per week or 2 hours per year.

seven-day-weekend

I forgot to say that before we 'dropped out' in our mid-50s, we both went part time. I did three days a week and my husband did 2.5. We both had a day off to ourselves and a day off together . It was good practice for the real thing