Bold leap into retirement

Veloflyer

I read these comments with interest and have noted many folk taking early retirement - myself (probably) included. I often wonder why this is the case. Personally, I have increasingly found work and many of the people involved with it deeply boring, too political and frankly lacking in basic knowledge. I simply ended up doing the job purely for the money - which in my book is simply not enough to keep me there. I readily concede this may just be OFS (Old Fa*t Syndrome), but looking back, possibly with my rose-tinted specs firmly in place, I am fairly sure work was a far more interesting, amenable and stimulating environment, where I seem to recall there were far fewer early retirees.

Perhaps it is simply an age thing, perhaps I am not attuned to the current levels of hair-trigger sensitivities, perhaps I value ability and wisdom too much….not sure, but certainly amongst my peers, there does seem to be an increasing desire to retire early - mainly due to the job being so unbearable rather than anything else.

cfw1994

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81953094#Comment_81953094

Just on the “fewer retirees” when you (we) were younger….remember the “Pensions Freedom Act” was only brought in around 2015, & I suspect that led to an increased interest in pensions….& of course the FIRE movement became more visible to many of us.

I think the older and (maybe 👀) wiser we get, the more we realise there are big advantages to “stepping away” whilst we are young enough to enjoy those “go-go” years 🍻

YellowCarBlueCar

I'm not sure it's the case that early retirement is a growing trend, at least in my experience. When I was starting work in the early 90's there seemed to be a lot of early retirees leaving in their mid fifties.

I remember in my first private-sector job I had a meeting with someone from the pension provider in the first week, and being asked when I planned to retire - and saying at 55.

I'm almost on plan - handing in my notice yesterday @56, and joining the early retirement club in July.

SouthCoastBoy

When I started work the standard retirement age for my employer was 60, I think many organisations had an aged 60 pension age, obviously people could work later if they wish (up to 65 for men), but I imagine many retired in their early 60s.

Roger175

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81954359#Comment_81954359

That's a really interesting point. I also remember filling out various forms in my 20's and stating that I would like to retire at 55. Then it all went ti*s-up and for decades I assumed I would be working until my SP age (67). Only in the last few years did it become evident that I was on target for an early retirement. Eventually started winding down at 58 and retired completely at 61.

katejo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81954359#Comment_81954359

I remember a conversation with my then line manager when I was early 50s. We both said we would stop at 60. He did go then despite a subsequent promotion but I wasn't quite ready at 60 and have stayed to 63 but on reduced hours for the past 2.5 years. Only 3 weeks left now! I meant to include that I would probably have stopped earlier if lockdown and WFH had never happened! Before that I was on site 5 days a week.

Moonwolf

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81953094#Comment_81953094

I worked in IT and to a certain extent I found the pressure to keep up to date was quite tiring.

I fell into it having coded at school and for fun as a teenager. Over the years I got into large databases and did a number of courses and certifications. I knew a lot about data warehouse design and performance tuning. More recently cloud computing and different approaches to accessing data have come in, had to learn python, git and a lot of back end technology used to access data.

Security has become more difficult and the new developers out of college have studied machine learning and AI to a level well beyond me, I was beginning to feel I couldn’t keep up even though I could still see solutions based on experience rather than coursework.

Then there are product managers using JIRA to beat people rather than manage projects. Not “what did you do today” but “Why is our burn rate so poor”

I could afford it to go and things were getting tiresome.

Ironically I am learning French and Spanish as a retirement project so it was never the learning on its own.

daveyjp

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81953094#Comment_81953094

Once you start thinking about retiring and realise it is a possibility it is easy to start looking for reasons why you are doing it and 'blaming' your job is one way of justifying it, why this justification is needed is anyone's guess! You've done your shift, you've earned your retirement so take it when you are comfortable doing so.

Keep the reason to a simple 'I've earned it and I can afford to'!

YellowCarBlueCar

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81954632#Comment_81954632

It's exactly this for me. I'm now in the (incredibly fortunate) position that I can hopefully live with a higher income than I'm used to spending, for the rest of my days. That number of days is decreasing, so why would I choose to spend them living by someone else's rules.

Unlike some I don't have a well-defined idea of what the next few years and decades will look like, but I'll only have myself and my lack of imagination to blame if I can't find some structure and purpose.

I resigned yesterday, and am somewhat fearful of the uncertainty of what comes next. But I'm not going to work forever so may as well embrace what comes next while I'm fit & able.

OK, so in the world of pension freedom and DC pensions there is no guarantee that the money will last. There is a guarantee that remaining days will run out.

Veloflyer

To all the recent comments - thank you. I still maintain that the increasingly unbearable nature of today's workplace is a major factor in folk deciding to retire. I realize pension freedoms, FIRE etc have had an effect, but personally speaking, were my job as interesting, fulfilling and politics free as my earlier career, I am pretty certain myself and others would have stayed on a wee while longer - regardless of whether we could afford to retire early.

I guess as my earlier employment had been more career than job, I perhaps attached more significance to it. Fair to say that at that stage and indeed until @10 years ago, retirement was not even contemplated - though admittedly planning for it was. Since then, things went downhill. Career turned into job, job turned into drudge, and drudge turned into thoughts of retiring earlier than previously imagined.