I feel like retiring at 60 - 65 is too old

mgdavid

Chris, look after yourself and enjoy the good things in moderation and there's no reason why you shouldn't be fit and healthy well into your 70s. As an example I'm 71 next month and still enjoy my passion which is building, maintaining and racing my own race cars. I recently passed the medical for an international race licence with no problem. I drive a motorhome and tow the racecar all over mainland Europe several times a year. BUT I've never joined a gym or done any form of artificial physical exercise, because I consider that to be the fastest way to age and wear out your body. (as the cousins say, YMMV)

jamesd

Why not go for 10 years? I started investing 60%+ of my income in my mid 40s and retired at 55. How fast is one of the key trade-offs for you to pick.

"I walk down my high street and I see people who look about 60 year old walking with frames, or straight up dying from cancer or some other illness... Like my mother did."

There are two things that can do major damage by mid 50s:

1. smoking
2. drinking to excess

Avoid those and you should avoid a badly damaged body in middle age.

You  seem to enjoy exercise and that has a protective effect. Excessive eating takes longer to do long-lasting harm than the other two but not being obese at 50 also helps.

Get those four smoking, drinking, exercise and obesity things right and you have a good chance of being an active 90 year old instead of dead at 50.

fred246

I remember looking at lots of WASPI stuff. There were tales of ill health, divorce and hardship but the overwhelming impression I got from these women was they were just saying "I am 60 I have had enough of work". I am not sure why they thought it would be different for a man. Retiring very early is difficult. you need to earn a lot and spend little. I think a lot of people could retire at 60 to 67 just by saving a relatively small amount throughout their working lives. When state pension is in sight you don't need that much to bridge the gap. I worked hard to retire early. Before I left I spoke to a lot of people in their 20s and 30s. I was giving them advice about how to retire early. They were telling me I was from a different generation. They would never retire so they seemed to be working less. Accept retirement isn't going to happen and enjoy life more today.

cobson

It must be about time to wheel this one out again:
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/

jackieblack

I work with a WASPI, I’ve worked with her nearly 20 years. The last 5 years have been awful. Her performance/capability has declined noticeably.  It’s been ‘tolerated’ because we know she’s retiring soon, but we’ve been on a countdown for a while... We need to implement some new systems but she just wouldn’t cope.
She still thinks she’s doing her job as well as she ever did, really she *should* have retired at 60.

ETA - I do know this isn’t true for everyone in their 60s

prowla

I'm 60 and I haven't even figured out what I want to do when I grow up, let alone retire!

Actually, I've no plans to retire; I find my work stimulating and get paid well for doing it.

JamoLew

if you are only 31 and think the retirement age (when you reach it) will be 67 - you may be in for a shock

crv1963

CreditCardChris said:

I'm sorry if this comes across as insensitive to our older community members but I'm 31 and absolutely hate the thought of retiring at 60+. .
I just feel like working for 47 years to have 10 - 15 years of freedom (real freedom not couch retirement) just isn't a decent trade off.

Then I suggest you do something about it! As others have said there are lots of sites suggesting how to reach early retirement. There are also lots of older people who remain fit and active, some carry on working. Whatever you decide to do try to also remember to live for the moment as well as your goal, don't become a slave to your goal.

Anonymous101

I'll admit I have concerns too, although I wouldn't have quite phrased them the way you did!   
As others have said do something about it!

Health and fitness side of it is fairly well understood. The "Feel better, live more" podcast is a great general well-being source of information. The three pillars of eating well, exercising (doesn't have to be punishing) and sleeping well. Will take you a long way.

Retiring early isn't quite so well understood or accepted but there are lots of resources available if you want to retire well before your 60's - A more common way to think about it is Financial Independence whereby you have enough investments to secure yourself for the rest of your life and no longer have to work for money. I'm hoping to be in this position in my mid 40's. Others have already given the links I'd immediately suggest - The Escape Artist and Mr Money Moustache but there are hundreds more.

Stubod

..I can sympathies with the OP. I left school as soon as I could not having a clue what I wanted to do for a job and finished full time working at 59 still not knowing what I wanted to do for a job.

Ideally I wanted to retire after leaving school but that's wasn't really practical!

The thought working another 7 years (to SP age) would have really freaked me out.

At least you have plenty of time to plan and there is loads of good advice on this forum to help you with this. I guess the main key is to ensure you always earn more than you need and invest / pension the rest. Initially we put as much as we could into paying off the mortgage which we did early (admittedly house prices were a bit more realistic then but equally interest rates were a lot higher). We then tried to save one salary mainly in savings accounts (rates were better). If I had more / better information at the time we would have probably put more into pensions and investments.

Would also recommend doing (and maintaining), some form of regular exercise, ideally something you enjoy, a bit of jogging, cycling, and I definitely wished I had started "stretching" exercises sooner!

Enjoy your life, money in later life certainly helps but it does not buy you any more time or health!