Busy Mee's Last Leg

LadyGnome

Sorry to hear your Dad isn’t too good. 

Retirement must feel like it’s a real thing now. Have you started to mentally leave work yet?

beanielou

Sorry to read about your dad.

Suffolk_lass

Sorry about your Dad. Hard to know what to say when it is like that. Re your actuarial vs SIPP thing - lots of people at work told me 57 and a half is the optimum time to take it before the NPA for the scheme (which it sounds like you are doing) - we could not have afforded it at that stage so both worked until 60 and ten months - mine was driven by keeping a TP in the best of the last 3 (and little did I know the beneficial impact of indexation on that), Mr SL was driven by both finishing the academic year and going to the last day of the summer hols/end of the month.

Anyway - it is the benefit of having the money early, compared with the smallish reduction and I worked it out to just over 16 years to make up too - then you have the money while you are young and fit enough to enjoy it.

Cornish_mum

Really sorry to hear about your Dad, take care CM

greent

Sorry to hear about your dad x

Busy_Mee

Aww thank you so much guys. It is just so difficult to assess what is happening from 200 miles away. I am hoping Mum will speak to a Dr today. The last time she spoke to them it was bad news (cancer)  but no real plan or prognosis. It felt to me as if was the first stage of the delivery of bad news. Our previous experience is they deliver bad news bit by bit, I guess to give you chance to process over a period of time. Anyway we obviously need to let it unfold.

Suffolklass - I have seen you say before that 57 and a half is the optimum early retirement point but hadn't twigged why. I am retiring at 57 and a half but more by accident than design. It definitely feels better to take the actuarial reduced pension now and have all our funds up front. 

I am on leave today and am loving it. The sun is shining, I went for a walk at 8am this morning and have been to the local market for plants. I am meeting a friend this afternoon for a meal and catch up. If this is what retirement will be like, bring it on  

I only have 9 weeks to work, with only 2 full weeks in June and 2 full weeks in July. It can't come soon enough 

beanielou

The time will just fly fly fly in!

teapot2

Getting close now

savingholmes

Sorry about your dad. The Rest of your plans sound positive

Suffolk_lass

I promise you won't miss work - you are already shifting your mind-set. I found people who had largely ignored me suddenly became really friendly and interested in what I planned to do and such like, while people I was close to have fallen right away. I suspect I am no longer of use to some of them who are very focussed on work and delivery. 

When my Dad had cancer I followed the doctor away from the patient and asked him to set it out for me, so I could manage the messages for my Mum and Sis (and also for me to make sense of what was happening). He was pretty close, and I think he welcomed the opportunity to bring someone else in, as it were.