If in retirement what do you wish you’d known before taking retirement

SarahB16

I'm anywhere from 11 to 18 years away from retirement and at 49 am already considering my retirement.  Not that I don’t enjoy my job but I don’t wish to look back at the age of 60 or 67 and think I wish I’d known that when I was say 50. 

I work full time and am satisfied with my pension provision but there are also other non-financial aspects to consider regarding how to spend your time when retired.  I volunteer in my local community and also have many friends that live nearby and as I get older I think having friends that live near to me will become more important because as I get older it may be harder to travel longer distances.     

I would love to hear from people who are in retirement or are approaching retirement but are actively doing something now to improve their retirement.  This may be something financial but ideally I’m looking for non-financial responses.  If anybody could kindly share their advice perhaps how they enjoy spending their time and what they wish they had done differently with hindsight or perhaps just share their tips for having an enjoyable retirement. 

Simes122

Plan for a date by which you’ll have met your financial needs for retirement but don’t set that as your retirement date necessarily.  Since I’ve had enough cash to retire, I find work less stressful because I’m no longer working for that goal, but because I want to, and have the option to pack it in if I did find I wasn’t enjoying it.

Older you will thank you for putting more away now for your retirement - it’s been literally my last 5 years that have had most impact in my retirement savings.  I wish younger me had had the foresight earlier to really appreciate that deferring salary for retirement income should have always been part of my thinking.  But it really is the last few years that will make your finances retirement fit.  Maximise tax relief, salary sacrifice, and save.  It obvious if you retire early you’ll need to bridge till state pension age, and if you have 10 years to bridge, every 10k saved is another £1k a year during that period.  Or as I like to think, another holiday paid for, which motivates me as we like to travel.

squirrelpie

The non-financial side is very difficult to generalise about. It really depends on your own circumstances and interests. Some people take lots of holidays (or go travelling a lot anyway), some people sit at home and garden, some people carry on working, some people volunteer at various things etc etc.

Dansmam

That I could put £150 into vanguard 100 equities on 16 June and have 156.25 today 29 July. It's a little experiment I'm running to try to understand why we don't bother to invest in the people who actually bother to go to work.
Yes, no coincidence it's the amount the government handed out to win my vote. Because the energy companies are coining it in and not sharing it with me or anyone else who's contributing to their profits. Besides their investors. Which may or may not include me currently but will never include anyone without £150 to spare. I've got it in an accruals account and I can keep you posted.
I just heard Liz Truss described as anti establishment. Hah ha hah slow handicap.

Dansmam

Join a trades union and always always support your colleagues when they need your help. Never allow lifestyle creep to creep over your expenditure, downsize early, hand over deposits to your kids as soon as you can, and join the workplace pension as soon as you can and put everything you can spare into it. 

marlot

It's easy to think of retirement as 'running away from work'.

Instead, think ahead and plan what you want to 'run to in retirement'.

The best thing I did was drop to 4 days a week, and spend the fifth day starting something that I continued into retirement.   As it was associated with a charity, I even managed to persuade my employer to give me a few extra paid days too.

marlot

I also tracked my monthly spend for 3-4 years before retirement.  I then cut out my commuting costs, and added my additional spend in retirement.  It's given me a very accurate baseline for my spend since retirement.

zagubov

As I've mentioned before, statistically the happiest retirees are those that are still working (part-time).
And of those, the happiest are the ones in familiar work.
I retired early. Then went back to my old job four days a week but will drop to three.
Four days can start to feel like it's full-time (I eventually learned). It needs to be three days at the most.
They always tell you don't take Mondays off as you'll miss the bank holidays. That's nonsense; every Monday becomes a bank holiday.

Lifematters

squirrelpie said:

The non-financial side is very difficult to generalise about. It really depends on your own circumstances and interests. Some people take lots of holidays (or go travelling a lot anyway), some people sit at home and garden, some people carry on working, some people volunteer at various things etc etc.

But what about  you? Like OP I prefer to hear peoples own experience / advise based on what they do if their willing to share of course. 

cheerfulcat

I’m 60 now. Most of my friends and acquaintances are of a similar age or older, and they are starting to die. My top non-financial tip? Make friends with some people younger than you.

pensionpawn

If you are married, plan retirement as a couple. That only dawned on me in my early 40's. Make sure that you have sufficiently large pots to both be able to draw down (at least) your personal allowances until you croak it. If you then access your funds via UFPLS that will be a joint retirement income of £33k5 tax free. In order to achieve this make sure that the larger earner contributes to the lower earners pot over the years. I dumped a significant portion of my TFLS into my wife's pension to help the balancing process. Make sure that you'll both qualify for full SP as that will take the load off your personal pension(s) in your later years. Full SPs will also lessen the need for larger pots, giving you the option to (semi?) retire earlier. Your retirement income only has to cover your needs at retirement, which should be significantly less that during your accumulation phase e.g. kids growing up and leaving home (my water bill plumeted!) Take steps to reduce your outgoings in retirement e.g. install solar panels to reduce energy bills. Note that you can continue to pay £2880 (£3600) into your pensions (until 75) after you quit work. As a couple this will gain you £1440 of free money pa. With the exception of care / illnes your outgoings will be less as you get older, which could influence how large you believe your pots need to be. I'm no expert having learnt significantly from this forum and a long standing friend. Remember, tomorrow isn't promised. Don't plan for the future at the expense of the present, and enjoy your retirement planning as soon as you can. None of us are getting any younger.