The when thread

enthusiasticsaver

Our plans are for me to retire in February 2020 when I am 60 although I only work part time, three days a week anyway and for my OH to go in October 2018 when he is 60. He works long hours though and we may look into him going a year early ie 2017.


I still enjoy my job and it is flexible enough for me to fit in childminding our little granddaughter and working from home at least one of the three days in the week. As it is part time though my pension is not as good as OH's so I have a lot of investments and savings as well as a share in a 2nd property and my LGPS.


My OH on the other hand has lots of travelling, very little flexibility and a system called "weekend working" which was brought in last year and means very experienced medical engineers like my OH are all now taking early retirement in droves meaning the pressure on those being left behind is increasing. One badly thought out management decision considering it takes 6 years to fully train an engineer to do the sort of job my OH does!! He has been overpaying into his pension though since mid 20s so he has a very good occupational pension. It would be reduced however if he went earlier than 2018 so we may look into not drawing on it immediately but using my income and investments until then.


Financially we should be fine even if we went this year and the temptation is to say well having extra is always useful but we will balance the decision when to go against the financial implications of going earlier than our benchmarks set 20 years ago of 60. The most important thing to us is that we will only carry on working while we still enjoy our jobs. As that is not the case with OH I can see some big decisions being made this year. We both have plenty of hobbies though and a granddaughter local so not worried about filling our time. A lot of our friends are also now retiring so lots of walking groups, lunch and theatre outings and book clubs on the cards

Teeonethousand

Planning on end of March a few months short of 61.

Have about 85K to spend so should be good for 3 years ish before needing to access pension pot of about 400K and/or possibly the house that is twice as big as we now need. Everything paid off and paid up so really just looking to chill out for 6 months and have some fun. After that my ideal is to do some work over winter and some fun over summer.

Hopefully it will all work out

Pinner_Ram

Nearly there; just 5 working days to go!

Nual

Since my last post work have upped the voluntary redundancy offer. I am feeling blessed! There are a few part time jobs in the offing to help me ease into no job, 1/2 of what I earn now pro rata so 1/4 of current salary but that is fine, I have enough without earning.

I am really looking forward to retiring 80% of the time , definitely dont want to go on working in this organisation any more, it is toxic. But it rankles that I am not in control of my leaving date.

I am so grateful to this site, it has helped me understand my financial position and how to make the best choices about money and pensions. I wouldn't have dared make the decisions I have without having the knowledge i have gained here.

17 working days to go !

uk1

I was in the fortunate position of retiring when I was 50 some time ago. I had left a large corporation with benefits and a fat salary to start my own business, which everyone advised me would fail. It was in broadly speaking business consultancy. We were fortunate, but when I'd got to 50 it just seemed appropriate to stop. What changed our lives was never saying no to a client, but instead requesting so much cash that they wouldn't want us. Some however did, and for that reason we did well. One invoice in fact bought a second home on the beach.

Financially we are fortunate enough to be fine for the rest of our lives, but people that envy might ponder how boring so much leisure time so early can be if you don't enjoy mixing much. We travel a lot. I had made my hobby optimising travel schemes and we have extraordinary holidays at affordable amounts. We travel at least a couple of times a year long haul in first and stay in suites in great hotels. I'd say we do this mostly for what people spend on a decent package holiday.

We are very fortunate, but with our good fortune often brings the envy of others, Very few people we meet do we have much in common. We do not and have never had an ounce of competitiveness in us but people we seem to meet seem to be so competitive it is often hard to meet people we want to befriend.

Anyway that is a potted summary.



Jeff

tigerspill

uk1 wrote: »

Financially we are fortunate enough to be fine for the rest of our lives, but people that envy might ponder how boring so much leisure time so early can be if you don't enjoy mixing much. We travel a lot. I had made my hobby optimising travel schemes and we have extraordinary holidays at affordable amounts. We travel at least a couple of times a year long haul in first and stay in suites in great hotels. I'd say we do this mostly for what people spend on a decent package holiday.


Jeff

Hi,
Would you be prepared to expand of how you go about getting nice holidays at great value and where you travel to?

uk1

tigerspill wrote: »

Hi,
Would you be prepared to expand of how you go about getting nice holidays at great value and where you travel to?

It is much tougher to get started now, but the best resource are some of the Frequent Flyer forums where you will get all the basic information. The key thing is to start now for great benefits in a few years from now and to remember the best asset you have in retirement is flexibility when you travel. I don't mind if I can't get redemption availability the exact date and I'm happy to be flexible.

I specialise in just two relationships British Airways where I have just under two million miles and Intercontinental hotels where I get great upgrades for extended stays. If you go the BA route get to grips with the Amex BA card which gives you a free partner flight once a year .... and if your spending habits justify it ... one each for a husband and wife. Also look at the SPG card which can be churned for up to 30,000 or so BA miles every year or so. BA miles are only great value when you use them First long haul. So start saving!

There are some great resources but you must see it as a long game not one that will give you much in the next year or so.

Good luck,

Jeff

tigerspill

uk1 wrote: »

It is much tougher to get started now, but the best resource are some of the Frequent Flyer forums where you will get all the basic information. The key thing is to start now for great benefits in a few years from now and to remember the best asset you have in retirement is flexibility when you travel. I don't mind if I can't get redemption availability the exact date and I'm happy to be flexible.

I specialise in just two relationships British Airways where I have just under two million miles and Intercontinental hotels where I get great upgrades for extended stays. If you go the BA route get to grips with the Amex BA card which gives you a free partner flight once a year .... and if your spending habits justify it ... one each for a husband and wife. Also look at the SPG card which can be churned for up to 30,000 or so BA miles every year or so. BA miles are only great value when you use them First long haul. So start saving!

There are some great resources but you must see it as a long game not one that will give you much in the next year or so.

Good luck,

Jeff

Thank you.

Happier_Me

I am 40 and aiming for 55. Why? I don't particularly enjoy working anymore! I don't intend to be miserable for the next 14 years though so I have made a job move recently that I hope I will enjoy.

I am trying to combine a demanding career with a family (have been for the last 10 years with little success) and it is very clear that quality time is now my most precious commodity. So whilst I work on establishing some semblance of work/life balance, I am also very much committed to retiring as early as possible and my husband is on board too.

So we need £150k in today's money to fund retirement during the ages 55-60. We have this in equity in our property now (we plan on downsizing). With an estimated pension pot of £200k and a final salary pension of approx £18k per annum at 60 we should be able to manage until any state pension kicks in. There are plans to build a large ISA pot between now and 55 also (contributing between 30-50% of our household net pay) although we would like to gift some of this to the kids if we can. But the ISA will give us some flexibility when it comes to downsizing or possible redundancy/job changes in the future.

uk1

tigerspill wrote: »

Thank you.

Another way of thinking about these schemes if you are not yet into retirement is as though it is a further retirement pot that you are building up during work years in order to travel in style and in a manner you might not otherwise enjoy once you retire. And in a way it increases your pension because you are reducing your travel outgoings.

Jeff