How old will you be when you can retire?

Tancred

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Don't disagree but things like ill health, accidents and acrimonious divorces often take no prisoners.

Leccy bills and bust fridges pale into insignificance.,

Indeed. When I was 21 in 1988 and just out of university I was sure I would be retiring at 55 on around half my final salary. That was my plan. Final salary pensions were offered almost everywhere and the state pension was 65 for men and 60 for women. 25 years on everything has collapsed in flames: job problems and redundancies, periods of unemployment, changes in pension schemes and legislation, saving for a house deposit, putting large funds towards buying and furnishing a house, etc.

Life's a b**ch and then you die - this is the bottom line.

No doubt there are plenty of people here who have remained with the same employer since 21, married early with a stable partner and bought a house just at the right time (i.e. 1994-95) with parental help. Unfortunately we are not all in that boat.

Goldiegirl

Being able to live without working in your fifties and going on holidays and cruises fits a lot of peoples' definition of 'rich'.

Maybe - but my definition of rich is not having to count the pennies at all.


We will have to be pretty frugal on a day to day basis to live within our pension income.


We do have savings, which we have spent our whole lives working to build up - I had about £20K that I inherited from my parents, but we've had no other inheritance.


We have no children, so we feel free to spend our saving on the holidays that we are looking forward too - but we won't be running round the globe in luxury - we'll be going on cruises in modest cabins, not huge suites !


I feel incredibly lucky to be able to contemplate stopping work within the next two years ..... but far from rich financially

Tancred

Goldiegirl wrote: »

Maybe - but my definition of rich is not having to count the pennies at all.


We will have to be pretty frugal on a day to day basis to live within our pension income.


We do have savings, which we have spent our whole lives working to build up - I had about £20K that I inherited from my parents, but we've had no other inheritance.


We have no children, so we feel free to spend our saving on the holidays that we are looking forward too - but we won't be running round the globe in luxury - we'll be going on cruises in modest cabins, not huge suites !


I feel incredibly lucky to be able to contemplate stopping work within the next two years ..... but far from rich financially

Cruises are quite cheap these days. Last year I went on one for the first time and paid £600 per person for an outside cabin for a 6 day trip in the North Sea. I found the whole experience quite boring - the best thing was the food, but there are other and cheaper ways of putting on weight. Besides, I hate the sea.

Goldiegirl

Tancred wrote: »

Cruises are quite cheap these days. Last year I went on one for the first time and paid £600 per person for an outside cabin for a 6 day trip in the North Sea. I found the whole experience quite boring - the best thing was the food, but there are other and cheaper ways of putting on weight. Besides, I hate the sea.

Going on cruises isn't the preserve of the rich anymore


A six day trip in the North Sea sounds boring for me, and I like ships and the sea! What ports did you call at?

New_and_Improved_Me

Tancred wrote: »

No hatred....just confusion. I thought we were discussing pensions, not property speculation.

Were we!!!!

I thought this discussion was about retiring.

How you retire is upto the individual circumstances of the person in question..

In my case, I have never invested in a pension, Infact I turned down the option when I was offered one from my last permanent job.

I am following in the footsteps of my farther, and investing in property and other investments to fund my retirement.

I want the ‘Option’ to stop working at 50.

That is the key word ‘Option’.

I may not wish to stop working, because I do enjoy my work, (or I may not be able to) But I am planning now.

If my plan goes t*ts up, then there very little I can do right now, I can’t see the future. All I can do is plan, for a future where I have an ‘option’ to be able to choose to retire.

New_and_Improved_Me

milenoss wrote: »

Hi there,

Its possible i make 10 grand a month by trading my account so you target is realistically possible to achieve.

Drop me an email at [EMAIL="milenkhanal@gmail.com"]milenkhanal@gmail.com[/EMAIL]

Regards,

Milen

******* S P A M **********

No thanks, Ill do it my way.

Been there with trading, its not what im good at and lost quite a bit of cash a while back.

Im no fool who thinks there is 'Easy' money.

Yes i agree trading you can make money, but you have to know what your doing. its not me.

PS. I can make 10K a month working, and there is no risk involved just long LONG hours

wotsthat

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Don't disagree but things like ill health, accidents and acrimonious divorces often take no prisoners.

Leccy bills and bust fridges pale into insignificance.,

Sometimes it's better to sweat the 'insignificant' stuff. The choices I make today influence whether I'm going to be 'heating or eating' in retirement.

Yes, despite my best intentions, these plans might be derailed by death, disease or pestilence but it's important to keep some perspective and separate poor life choices from pure bad luck.

Better life choices might just improve people's 'luck'. No-one is forced to eat an unhealthy diet, drink too much alcohol, avoid exercise etc. In finance, as in health, people want to hear good things about their bad choices.

Loughton_Monkey

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Don't disagree but things like ill health, accidents and acrimonious divorces often take no prisoners..

I'm the first to agree that sh*t happens. But I believe that has very little to do with retirement planning.

In other words, you simply plan - perhaps as I have outlined - using reasonable or cautious asssumptions. You don't plan for major sh*t happening. If you don't have a plan, you can't tell if you are adrift, and certainly cannot, therefore, make corrections/adjustments.

OK, if that acrimonious divorce happens, then deal with it. Clearly it's going to have an impact financially. So you just take your plan back to the drawing board, in the light of what you now know, and work out the optimum plan from now on.

Now you can calculate the cost. Swear profusely about it to all and sundry. Get drunk. Bore all your friends to death.....

But you still need a retirement plan. How much do I want to spend in retirement? Does this stack up with what I am spending now and will spend further down the line? Then at what age can I retire?

lisyloo

I'm hoping to retire around 62. This strikes a sensible balance for me between silly money and not wanting to work too long.
I'm trying to strike a sensible balance between enjoying myself now and making sensible plans which currently result in about 20% contribution from me and 5% from employer.
Also I think owning a home (mortgage free) and having no debts are quite important too.

I haven't got everything tied up in a pension because there are cons (age limits, drawdown restrictions, inceom tax regime at the time, whatever other rules the gubmint decides), but it make sense to make use of higher rate tax relief.

However I think a lot depends on what happens at the time.
If I find myself redundancy at 58 or 60 that might equal early retirement, conversely I might find a second career that I can carry on into semi-retirement.
I might find myself incapacitated by health or receive a windfall in the form of an inheritance.
It good to have plans but I don't place too much hope on any exact age because there are so many variables.

Loughton_Monkey

lisyloo wrote: »

......

However I think a lot depends on what happens at the time.
If I find myself redundancy at 58 or 60 that might equal early retirement, conversely I might find a second career that I can carry on into semi-retirement.

I might find myself incapacitated by health or receive a windfall in the form of an inheritance.

It good to have plans but I don't place too much hope on any exact age because there are so many variables.

All of that's fine. But I still strongly recommend a 'plan' - or in other words a model. After all, it may inform you that you can afford to retire happily at 58.....?

The thing is that the 'final years' can make a reasonable difference. Retire 2 years earlier than envisaged, and you have 2 years less income, and 2 years more to support yourself. That's 4 years difference. Double Whammy!

It's also a time when you calculate (with hindsight) that just a single 1% extra in the retirement fund throught the last 40 years - invested properly - would have been a whole year's salary now.....