How much to live on

helensbiggestfan

Yes it was the Bard who we gave us the 7 stages of man.  Very apt.  

However, I refuse to slide into "slipper'd pantaloons". 😂.  I prefer dressing with style and panache.  And I am trying to avoid "childish treble" by doing breathing exercise and maintaining good posture. Will it be enough to fend off the dreaded "second childhood".  Only time will tell. I have inherited good genes from my long lived parents so keeping my fingers crossed.  

It was Joan Collins who introduced me to the concept of life as a three act play, roughly divided into 30 years per act.  

The first 30 years for learning and growth, experimentation, making mistakes, and getting started in our careers, sometimes meeting our life partners, the second 30 years for consolidation and building on the foundation of the first 30 years. That might include marriage and having children, achieving success in our chosen profession.   The Third Act can be seen as the culmination of all that had gone before, drawing all the threads together for the denouement - just like in a good storyline or plot.  

Her contention was that the Third Act is often the best bit. We get to reap the rewards and benefits of all that hard work and the investment in our lives.  We have made all the mistakes and hopefully acquired some wisdom, we may have survived disappointments in love, economic hardship and all the hard work necessary to achieve our ambitions and goals.  

My life has roughly followed that pattern so far so I'm hopeful for a good Third Act.  I am not rich but I have enough. I still have lots of plans, schemes and dreams.  There's still fun on offer, interesting  people to meet, adventures to be had.  

Brambling....don't let other people rattle you with their questions.  Some people just don't get it.  I do think a lot of people are actually quite scared of retirement.  They just can't envisage a life without paid work because for many they have had their nose to the grindstone for so long they have stopped thinking about the bigger picture.  They have allowed themselves to become true "wage slaves" and no longer have any imagination or vision of what life can be.  They have had the life force crushed out from them. It's sad but some people have become so enslaved by capitalism that they just can't see the wood for the trees.  

barnstar2077

I plan to retire at 55, a couple of people have already said to me "But what are you going to do all day?!"  lol, as if without work I will be unable to think of anything else to do! :  )

helensbiggestfan

I often think about that scene in Shawshank Redemption when "Red" the character played by Morgan Freeman says "Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying". I know which I choose.  

Life is so short.  My husband died at 57 and didn't make it to retirement.  My advice to anyone is don't get too hung up on the numbers.  Know when enough is enough.  Take that leap of faith.  

Albermarle

Brambling....don't let other people rattle you with their questions.  Some people just don't get it.  I do think a lot of people are actually quite scared of retirement.  They just can't envisage a life without paid work because for many they have had their nose to the grindstone for so long they have stopped thinking about the bigger picture.  They have allowed themselves to become true "wage slaves" and no longer have any imagination or vision of what life can be.  They have had the life force crushed out from them. It's sad but some people have become so enslaved by capitalism that they just can't see the wood for the trees.  

There is a tendency on the various MSE forums that touch on retirement subjects, to classify people in two distinct categories.
Either a free spirit who only works to build up enough money to retire as early as possible, and then enjoy a fruitful and active early retirement, or a wage slave/workaholic who will only retire when almost forced to do so( as described above).

In reality some people actually enjoy their jobs so much, they have no real motivation to retire. Often they are people with jobs with some kind of vocation, although some people with rather mundane jobs do still enjoy working.

Personally I did not love or hate my job. Some parts were good, some not . For sure I never felt my 'nose was to the grindstone' . Probably because I had a good employer/boss and plenty of independence.

Everybody is different, and everybody's situation is different.

Organgrinder

I tend to think that retirement planning is a strange beast. We aim for a figure......let's say £30k a year.....the state provides £11.5k of this from April. 

Some plan their retirement around the £30k figure and will not retire until they hit it......and then find at SPA they get an uplift.

Some plan their retirement around the £18.5k figure knowing the state pension makes up the difference.

I definitely fall into the latter and my whole strategy is designed to see me through 6 years until SPA. Hopefully in a position to enjoy it!!

blue.peter

There are some problems that it's nice to have. It's beginning to dawn on me that I've got one of them coming my way later this year.

I took early retirement (following redundancy) in October 2015, when I was 56. For the last eight years, I've been living comfortably. Initially, I gradually spent my redundancy settlement, then drew my small DC pension in May 2016 alongside spending the remaining redundancy money. Finally (in February 2017) I drew my large DB pension. So I know from long experience that those pensions are more than sufficient for my needs. I can do all I want, and don't feel that I'm skimping on anything.

In November, I'll be 66. That's my State Pension Age. From early December, I'll have an additional £750 or so a month (after tax) coming in.

So there's the problem: I'll have more income than I need. Of course there are good and sensible things to do with that money. I need to think about them, and make some decisions.

I'm now wondering if I erred too far on the safe side when I did my sums. It was a conscious choice to ignore the state pension in my planning, simply because it was a long way off at the time. But maybe I could have done things a bit differently and retired earlier. Of course, if I'd done that, I wouldn't have had the very generous redundancy money to tide me over for the first year or so. But I am wondering if I could have planned better. After all, retirement had been my primary long-term ambition ever since I started work.

My DB scheme offers what it calls a "levelling option". If I'd chosen this, I could have had a higher initial pension which then reduced by roughly the amount of the state pension at 65. There's a bit of mismatching (not least the year between 65 and 66), but the theory is that it gives a more or less level income throughout retirement. I had originally planned to take this route, but got talked out of it by a former colleague. Maybe I was wrong to take his advice.

Even with the state pension, I still won't be anywhere near to higher rate tax territory. Some people just don't need massive incomes to live a lifestyle that they consider comfortable.

blue.peter

I didn't see @Organgrinder 's post (timed at 4:55) until after I'd published mine of 5:02. We must have been typing at the same time. It's pure coincidence that we've had similar thoughts, albeit from slightly different perspectives, at the same time.

helensbiggestfan

Very true.  There's no one size fits all.  It's horses for courses.  

Although I have been officially retired for over 10 years now I still like to "dabble" and have a couple of sideline business which I enjoy and which help keep the coffers filled.  😁. 

Savvy_Sue

I'm not sure we gave retirement a lot of thought: we've settled for a while on calling DH 'semi-retired', and I go on to explain that he's as busy as ever, just not getting paid for a lot of what he does (trustee for various charities plus some consultancy / part-time roles). That's after he was 'let go' from a job he loved. He has some good final salary pensions from his career before he moved into working for charities, and we have a very helpful adviser who has helped us shuffle them around to fill the gap between him giving up work and state pensions. 

Meanwhile I carried on working past SPA, was only ever going to do an 'extra' year, then had an interesting conversation at work where I was told I could either carry on until my planned retirement, which I had talked about but not formally given notice of, OR they'd make me redundant before that. "You'll need to think about that", they said, and I thought "not for very long I won't ..."

Now, those people who ask "what are you going to do?" - makes you wonder how many retired people they know? None of the ones I run into seem to know how they found time to go to work! And nor do I. Maybe those who don't know what to do with themselves just aren't out and about. 

I did have a very nice balance: something to occupy me for half of most days. Then 'stuff' happened, and I find myself occupied for all of one day, every other week, and a fair amount of voluntary admin, and I will be glad when that commitment can be reduced. But it's manageable for now. 

[Deleted User]

@blue.peter am I able to ask what your retirement income will be including the state pension? As always I'm curious and a figures man lol. May be useful for others too. If I remember correctly you are single too? Apologies if I remember incorrectly.