Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

SingleSue

Pyxis wrote: »

Why did that boss want to change how you were speaking? Seems a bit presumptuous of him.

His name wasn't Higgins, was it?

Oh wouldn't it be luvverly if it were?

I was in a customer facing role. Must admit the customers thought it all very funny when I started to sound like I had a plum in my mouth (I was working in an amusement arcade for crying out loud!)

To give that old boss his dues though, my new posh voice helped me to get a start into the industry where I did so well, so although it didn't really benefit him, it certainly benefited me.

PasturesNew

Pyxis wrote: »

Or honour

She offered her honour
He honoured her offer
And all night long
It was on 'er and off 'er.



Tone lowered. Carry on.

LydiaJ

GDB2222 wrote: »

30 minutes in a taxi, chatting with the Jamaican driver, and I subconsciously started talking just like him. That singsong accent has a hypnotic effect.

I start to get aspects of Yorkshire when I spend any time with my in-laws.

michaels

F are quite happy for me to view my pension now but SW think that after 6pm on a Sunday no one should be looking at their pension details. Not convenient when needing to print out a statement

Masomnia

That's annoying. Internet banking is supposed to make these things easier! If it was 2 am or something I would understand if it was for maintenance.

I'm trying to consolidate my pensions together and it's a bit of a pain

LydiaJ

michaels wrote: »

F are quite happy for me to view my pension now but SW think that after 6pm on a Sunday no one should be looking at their pension details. Not convenient when needing to print out a statement

Am I correct in guessing that F and SW are pension providers?

I find the pension question quite confusing, partly because my pension arrangements are so atypical, and so are my income arrangements now. The bit I find most difficult is getting some kind of feel for how much income I would need in retirement in order not to find retiring too financially painful. So I have some question for any retired NP who would be willing to answer them:

1) How does your pension income compare with your income before you retired? (I'm not asking you to disclose your actual income, natch, but some kind of "My income from my pension is about x% of what my salary was" would be very helpful.)
2) Does this feel like enough?
3) Did stopping working (or anything else that occurred around that time) create significant decreases in your expenses (eg no longer needing to pay expensive train fares to work, paying off mortgage before retiring etc)?

zagubov

One problem I'd face if I retired is that I have massive life insurance through work that would be expensive to replicate. Important when there's a mortgage to be paid off, and you're the main wage-earner.

vivatifosi

I don't think my circumstances are comparable Lydia as no kids to support, or conversely to support us.

Background... I have always worked and always paid into a pension. Once the mortgage is paid off in two years, we will be significantly better off. When we retire, our household income is forecast to be what it is now net of mortgage payments. The challenge will be not to get used to that extra money and find ways to save it, or use it for long awaited house improvements.

For me, the big unknown is how much we will need for social and health care, given that the system is in crisis. We hope to have money put aside for this too, but it's hard to know how much.

I am planning to retire at 65 and have a few years additional savings to make up for the lack of state pension. DH Is due to retire a bit younger than me, but because I am the older, it will be roughly the same time.

Like zag, I have life insurance, but will not keep this once retired.

michaels

There are some useful threads on the pensions board, one about the number and another looking for and failing to find people who feel they retired too early and ahould have worked longer to secure a higher income.

I fell for those with pension funds rather than defined benefit schemes there are too many unknown unknowns, I know how much I hope to contribute but I have no idea what those contributions will be worth when I hope to retire nor how much income I could sensibly draw from them (assuming annuities still feel like poor value at that time) then I would really like to retire before the kids all finish uni - assuming they all go to uni but have no idea what that will cost in 10 years time. Then I don't know if houses prices will mean that downsizing is an option to bring more capital nor whether or when I might get any inheritence and finally know one knows if the state pension can continue in its current apparently unsustainable form.

I probably have the best handle on how little it is possible to live on.

chris_m

LydiaJ wrote: »

So I have some question for any retired NP who would be willing to answer them:
1) How does your pension income compare with your income before you retired? (I'm not asking you to disclose your actual income, natch, but some kind of "My income from my pension is about x% of what my salary was" would be very helpful.)

My pension gross is approximately 1/3 of my previous salary gross.
However, taking into account that I no longer pay income tax (the pension is "just" below the basic rate threshold) nor NI, nor the voluntary stoppages for the Sharesave schemes into which I was saving, my take home is roughly 50% of my previous take home pay.

2) Does this feel like enough?

In my case, yes.
I'm single with no kids so I don't need to feed or provide for more than just me. My needs are simple. e.g., I don't want foreign holidays - unless one counts Scotland as foreign - nor the latest "must have" fancy gadgets.
I have fairly significant savings & investments from which I can draw down if necessary - and if I don't draw down I can boost my income by around 50% with interest and share dividends, still without any tax liability because they either stay below the tax-free savings threshold or are in ISAs. I'll just have to be canny about it when/if I dispose of any of my shares from the Sharesave schemes to keep them tax-free, because they were worth too much to put in an ISA so could be liable to Capital Gains Tax if I dispose of too many in any tax year(s)

3) Did stopping working (or anything else that occurred around that time) create significant decreases in your expenses (eg no longer needing to pay expensive train fares to work, paying off mortgage before retiring etc)?

Not in my case - I'd paid off the mortgage before retiring and in my last role I was working from home, so no travelling.
However, moving to a new house with a garden (never had one of those before) there has been additional expenditure for the things I wanted/needed to do to those which, had I not moved, wouldn't have been spent.

The important thing, for me at least, was careful and detailed planning which enabled me to retire early with confidence.

In 2009, they rejigged our pension scheme to make it sustainable and gave us so much information (so that we could make an informed ballot decision as to which option should be approved) that I could make a good estimate of how much I could get, and when.

I had a spreadsheet which I'd used as a simple forecasting tool (i.e. can I afford that this month or should I wait a couple of months, LOL) so I bunged the pension figures in and extended it as far as my 85th birthday. I then ran a shedload of "what if" scenarios and came out with a potential retirement age of around 54/55 - first time I'd even considered the possibility of going early.

Once that realisation sowed the seed of the idea, I set out to make it work. I gradually expanded the spreadsheet to cover absolutely everything - savings, investments, anticipated large expenditures (eg replacement cars every 6 years, even if I don't actually do that), nominal inflation increments on both income and expenditure, etc. so that it gives me what I'm pretty sure is a reasonably good long-term forecast. I did actually forecast to increase my spending compared to when I was working, by around 25%, to allow for extra spending when enjoying my life of riley

I opened bank accounts left right and centre to pick up as much interest as I can and, now the interest rates are little more than a pittance, I'm dripfeeding from those into my stocks/shares ISA and buying dividend-paying stocks instead.

All in all, I think I'll be pretty comfortable for as long as I need, even if there is a reasonable amount of unforeseen expenditure. Ignoring gains from dividends and assuming similar inflation & interest rates (which I've conservatively built in as higher and lower respectively than at present as a safeguard) my forecast indicates that I could actually increase my "worth" by up to 50% by the time I'm 85 - not that I plan on doing that, as they say, there's no pockets in shrouds

As it turned out, I received an inheritance which enabled me to go at 52 instead - because it allowed me to hang onto most of my shares to use for dividend income instead of selling them to fund the house purchase and it meant that I didn't have to hang on till 55 to boost the pension, because I'd have been taking the max lump sum.

I'm actually very grateful to my now ex-company for rejigging the pension scheme - although it reduced the benefits from what they otherwise would have been, doing so made me aware of the possibilities. Without that, I would probably have carried on spending most of what I took home and retired at 60 with little to count on other than the pension.

Rather a long ramble, but I hope it helps you with consolidating your thoughts.