How old will you be when you can retire?

Conrad

Tancred wrote: »

Looking at the questionnaire I can see that there are some incredibly rich (or simply stupidly optimistic) people here. 10.9% of those who answered as of today said they will retire between 50 and 55 - that's even before the minimum retirement age - WOW! And only 7.05% will retire after age 70. This really shows how unbelievably unrealistic people are when considering their retirement planning.

I find plenty of people here have retired young.


Had an example the other day - he owned a sweet shop, slowly bought other properties, now retired very young and living abroad.


Don't believe the press, they base their naïve retirement surveys on those conducted by pension firms that do not ask people whether they have other assets such as property.


Most business people I've dealt with do not have a pension, so what? We're people that sail our own canoes, we do not even consider relying on a company to provide us a retirement, that's just an alien concept.

gadgetmind

Tancred wrote: »

10.9% of those who answered as of today said they will retire between 50 and 55 - that's even before the minimum retirement age - WOW!

I saw a chart someone showing how many years you'd have to work before retiring based on how much of your income you saved. I'm saving over 50% of my annual income, which means I'm saving a fair bit and forcing myself to live on a smaller sum than I could spend if I chose to.

This is the simple trade-off that allows earlier retirement.

CLAPTON

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Yes, you do tend to struggle at times....



So you've changed from "spending on" to "spending by". OK. I can buy the fact that the amount spent by any age group will go up if that age group increases in size. Fine.



Indeed. More children means more consumption by children. Nothing wrong with that.



Again. No problem with that. Us oldies continue to consume. Quite a bit of gin & tonic in my case....

Mind you... there's a little trap, there. Imagine if all the 'extra' new pensioners have only £6K to "consume" every year, then when all the working people are "consuming" £25K, this syndrome would be damped down a bit wouldn't it?



Hunky Dory! Quite right. We've established us oldies consume, and the more there are, the more we will consume!



Ah! Here you're losing me. All that "may" business. "Depending on circumstances".... Not explaining what you mean very well are you? Let me help.

Yes. With all these massive numbers of oldies about, we all understand that the taxpayer needs to beef up how much it throws at state pensions, and perhaps extra health and care. No doubt about that. And we are all 100% all square in agreeing that state pension, and health, are paid directly out of taxation, and taxation falls quite a bit on the working man.

A round of sympathy for the working man.

Thank goodness we have tax revenue from Corporation profits. Thank goodness we have taxation from some wealthy pensioners. Thank goodness we have loads of tax from stamp duty now houses are selling.......

But I thought with the passage of time, all us boomers are supposed to be as rich as croesus? Isn't it therefore wonderful if we are moving from a situation in which new oldies are bringing with them nice nest eggs which they can use to consume and pay more tax, and help to keep the hard-pressed working man in his job?

What's the alternative? Us oldies should not have saved for our retirement so the taxpayer has to spend more than state pension on us? Or are you suggesting our consumption is wrong? We should hold onto it and pass it to our children?

I am thinking of buying a new car early in the new year. I have the cash to pay for it. Every bone in my body says you are arguing that there is a problem with me consuming that particular item. If you like, I can hold fire. Leave the money under the mattress. Catch the bus (Bus Pass!). Wear a few jumpers and try to live on my (and Mrs LM's) state pension of around £14K between us?

Today's working man is not in the best of financial health, I agree. Rather more state pensions to pay. But if I, and quite a few others, have arrived on Planet Oldie with a nice big pile of cash [not supplied by today's working man] I can now throw that pile into consuming, so that at least today's working man has a job!

Why do you continue to have a problem with this?

I have made no value judgement about the rights or wrongs of who gets to consume what and am making no political points at all:

my aim is to understand the consequences of the demographic change and how this will show up both in terms of consumption of goods and services and how they will show financially in terms of tax and profits etc.


It seems totally sensible to note that pensioners will consume more of GDP than formally if there are proportionately more of them : why are people surprised and horrified.


Indeed it is true that if you have a large pile of cash and other people don't then you can consume more goods and services that the other people: however if all pensioners had a large pile of cash then that would not be the case.

The main issue that will be faced in the future is not how the GDP will be divided but it's size.

gadgetmind

Tancred wrote: »

Most people cannot afford to be property speculators.

Property isn't speculation because house prices always go up but interest rates never do. Simples!

N1AK

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

I can now throw that pile into consuming, so that at least today's working man has a job!

Why do you continue to have a problem with this?

Because it's a nonsense to believe that pensioners spending more money magically makes the economy better than the money being spent elsewhere. At the basic level, if we spent 10% less on pensions we could cut taxes by £1,000,000,000s so companies could produce more and grow, poverty in working households would fall (rather than rise) etc. Or we could spend it on infrastructure and education and have a stronger economy for decades to come.

If giving more money to pensioners was some short-cut to perpetual wealth then I'd be all in favour of it but it's not.

N1AK

Conrad wrote: »

I have very ordinary clients such as warehouse workers, police officers and a girl who earns well under £20k in a factory that have slowly built a property portfolio from scratch.
Quite a wealthy client of mine was a waiter all his life - I promise! He pretty much retired young thanks to property.

I deal with young people just starting out of their portfolio - one day you will class them as rich and lucky but they are just ordinary folk. First house will be with a small deposit which they go onto to let out after a while and move into a new one, and so on.

I've invested in property, recently, but I really don't see what point your trying to make about the future. I find the argument that we'll see house prices outstrip inflation by 3%pa for another 20+ years entirely unpersuasive.

By all means invest in a rental property or two during your life but the days of building rental empires without considerable initial outlay are dead.

N1AK

CLAPTON wrote: »

It seems totally sensible to note that pensioners will consume more of GDP than formally if there are proportionately more of them : why are people surprised and horrified.

Be careful if you build any more strawmen you won't be able to see out from amongst them.

The issue isn't the 'planned' increase in spending on pensioners it's that we haven't got a plan, something you choose to ignore because I assume it entirely undermines the rest of your points.

We know we're not going to run a 1.8% deficit with 100% GDP debt (both of which would be rising rapidly) so the government's budget 'plan' is a fiction. The real plan is kick the can down the road a few years until someone is forced to take action and see what they choose to cut or tax.

I don't want to see pensions trashed, in fact a large part of the reason why I want action to control them now is because if we don't then, when the budget gets really bad, what will end up happening will be far more severe.

[Deleted User]

I retired 17 years ago at 38.

CLAPTON

N1AK wrote: »

Be careful if you build any more strawmen you won't be able to see out from amongst them.

The issue isn't the 'planned' increase in spending on pensioners it's that we haven't got a plan, something you choose to ignore because I assume it entirely undermines the rest of your points.

We know we're not going to run a 1.8% deficit with 100% GDP debt (both of which would be rising rapidly) so the government's budget 'plan' is a fiction. The real plan is kick the can down the road a few years until someone is forced to take action and see what they choose to cut or tax.

I don't want to see pensions trashed, in fact a large part of the reason why I want action to control them now is because if we don't then, when the budget gets really bad, what will end up happening will be far more severe.

if it's a strawman then it's OBRs and not mine


the issue of 100% of GDP government debt is a different (but related) one to consumption by pensioners

N1AK

CLAPTON wrote: »

if it's a strawman then it's OBRs and not mine

Strange I don't remember the OBR saying this anywhere...

people surprised and horrified.

The OBR hasn't blamed anything on anyone. They have projected government policy and spending over 50 years and it isn't viable. They have shown areas in which government spending has increased GDP.

So you're creating strawmen, attempting to deny it, and refusing to admit that we don't have a viable budget as you previously claimed. Why your arguments aren't being seen as persuasive at this point is truly a mystery.

So again: Do you believe our current government 'plan' of 1.8% deficit and 100% GDP debts is viable?

If you don't then I'd be interested in hearing how you would balance this. If you do, then I'm not much interested in anything you've got to say on the economy