Regret retiring too early with not enough money?

mozza78

I'm 38 and got made redundant in November and a large part of me is now seriously considering giving up work for good. Certainly if I was single I would. I have really enjoyed the last 3 months of freedom.. very little stress.. time to read, time to exercise, did a bit of volunteer work.. none of which cost very much. My girlfriend has quit her job and we are off travelling for the next year but given the countries we are travelling to we hopefully wont dip into our savings very much and should mostly be covered by our rental income of BTLs we have back in UK. If I were still single I could just hike for 6 months of the year spending next to nothing but the gf wants to start a family so the plan is to come back to reality and find work some work in 2018. Now I have had a taster of retired life though I may find going back to work very difficult indeed.

bugslet

justme111 wrote: »

Pensions - yes but life expectancy increased and investing can be done easier and cheaper with more flexibility. Remember high charges , no access at 55 like now, bankrupt pensions and annuities?
Degrees - yes but my impression it was far more difficult to get into uni in the first place and/or more expensive - did student loans exist generation before? I come across people from working families who did not go to uni a few decades ago because "it was not the thing that working people could afford"
Mortgages - there are plenty of people who argue it was not easier before.
I would add that technology progress made life easier in general.
I honestly do not have preconceived idea on when it is easier overall , just genuinely curious and the explanations above do not convince me it is more difficult now. Sounds like different challenges rather than blanket easier/more difficult division.
May be the difference in how different people see it depends on their socioeconomical status when they were 20 as they remember it and their offsprings' status as they perceive it ?

Pretty much my thought, some things easier, some things harder.

Where I live, 15 miles from Liverpool, Chester and Warrington and 35 miles from Manchester, you can get a nice terrace for 80k, 70 if you want to a project. Neither a bad nor a good area, though people have a perception. There are decent jobs all around here. The South east though - I genuinely have no idea how anyone manages.

Degrees, as just scraping into the boomer category ( born June '64), IIRC 12-13% of my contempories were going to uni. I got offers, but couldn't afford to go. I suspect if we were around the 10% mark for people going to uni, then the courses would still be heavily subsidised. I'd be really grumpy about financing some of the more 'interesting' courses on offer, that require poor A level passes to get on the course.

Pensions, maybe the difference is if you had a middle class or working class upbringing. I was in my early - mid-20s before I realised that some people got a pension from where they worked, unless they were with the council. None of our general circle of neighbours and acquaintenances worked somewhere that had any pension provision.

bugslet

k6chris wrote: »

Moving away from the issue of helping children once you are retired and seemingly unable to find anyone who finacially regrest retiring early, has anyone felt guilty (or been made to feel guilty) about retiring early? Equally has any regret been derived from 'missing work'? That little voice on my shoulder is still saying "you'll regret it" but for the life of me I don't know why?

Thanks

Conditioning:p.

I'm fairly sure I could retire tomorrow, but a couple more years would be better and the only guilt I will feel is that I will be letting down a very loyal workforce - that is probably the biggest thing stopping me from going right now.

I'll not feel guilty about finishing work, though I tend to have a side income from a hobby - is that work or not?

jerrysimon

In my experience staff that retire are soon forgotten as new people and management come in.

Counting down to 24/3/17 now. Will leave at 56.5 years old. Just found my apprenticeship indentures and noted I started work as an apprentice in one of our Royal Navy Dockyards (Rosyth) aged16, in Aug 1977. Lucky to have had a non contributtory pension from day one. I found an old payslip from the late 80s and noted I paid £19 WPS only. That has risen to over £200/month now.

We do meet up staff who have retired/left most years. Of those who have retired none of them have ever said they regreted it.


Jerry

Triumph13

justme111 wrote: »

I honestly do not have preconceived idea on when it is easier overall , just genuinely curious and the explanations above do not convince me it is more difficult now. Sounds like different challenges rather than blanket easier/more difficult division.
May be the difference in how different people see it depends on their socioeconomical status when they were 20 as they remember it and their offsprings' status as they perceive it ?

Probably a lot of truth in that, and I'm almost certainly guilty of generalising from my specific case. I personally feel incredibly lucky in that I seem to have been carried on a conveyor belt from the council estate where I grew up, via grammar school and Oxbridge to a point where I have a lovely place to live and enough money to retire at 50 if I so chose.
I still think there is a genuine issue in terms of the number of years of income that now need to be somehow amassed as capital to fund a DC pension and a paid-for house, but maybe a better way to think of my own situation is that I have been unbelievably lucky and my kids may not be as lucky. A few extra years work from me now, to provide an insurance policy against them having difficulties later, just seems the 'right' thing to do. I would also worry about regretting it in the future if I didn't.

jamesperrett

jerrysimon wrote: »

In my experience staff that retire are soon forgotten as new people and management come in.

The founder of our department retired about 4 years ago. Since then we've had a large influx of new staff who have no idea who he was.

chiefie

jamesperrett wrote: »

The founder of our department retired about 4 years ago. Since then we've had a large influx of new staff who have no idea who he was.

Don't know about anybody else but I couldn't give a hoot if I'm not remembered at work, as long as the pension dept keep up the payments 😊. I do remember some great bosses and some wonderful colleagues and laughs. As time goes by the pains tend to get forgotten quickly. I also remember some great teachers who left their mark on me (sometimes with the cane !), to be remembered for so long must be rewarding for those who teach.

bigadaj

Triumph13 wrote: »

Probably a lot of truth in that, and I'm almost certainly guilty of generalising from my specific case. I personally feel incredibly lucky in that I seem to have been carried on a conveyor belt from the council estate where I grew up, via grammar school and Oxbridge to a point where I have a lovely place to live and enough money to retire at 50 if I so chose.
I still think there is a genuine issue in terms of the number of years of income that now need to be somehow amassed as capital to fund a DC pension and a paid-for house, but maybe a better way to think of my own situation is that I have been unbelievably lucky and my kids may not be as lucky. A few extra years work from me now, to provide an insurance policy against them having difficulties later, just seems the 'right' thing to do. I would also worry about regretting it in the future if I didn't.

I think that what people of baby boomer and generation x vintage think of as normal is actually a real anomaly.

Social mobility massively increased between the sixties and the nineties, we are probably just reverting back to the old norms whereby your social position was determined by birth.

I certainly get the impression that many of my contemporaries an be no compunction about passing their accrued privilege onto their offspring, whether deserved or not.

Main concern is the potential waste of talent from a national perspective.

atush

Linton wrote: »

In the 1960s only about 7% of people were able to get higher education. The majority left school at 15 with no qualifications and went straight into work. Sure, the 7% did very well with maintenance grants and no tuition fees, but they were a small privileged minority. You should base any comparison between conditions then and now on the 93%.

He went int he 70s not 60s, and I think the % was higher.

And he wasnt from the privileged private school, but took the 11+ and went to the local grammar.

First in his family to go on to higher education.

westv

I'm sure I read somewhere that around 40% of 18 year olds now go on to higher education.