Bold leap into retirement

Roger175

arthur_fowler said:

I have a couple of options at the moment. Mrs F will retire in April 2025 to help look after our new granddaughter. 
I will request to reduce to 3 days work per week at that time for 6-12 months or retire completely at the same time age 60.
Reservation about going 'cold turkey' is whether I will be bored and perhaps my brain would be happy with a gradual reduction. My work is quite well paid and not very stressful.

I have retired gradually and it has had it's pros and cons.
I had no choice, I am a self employed professional consultant and once committed to project I really have to see it through. I stopped taking on any new work over a year ago and am now just down to the final few projects which are dragging on.

In one sense it has been useful to still have an income stream, albeit much reduced on what it use to be, but I am finding it increasingly frustrating that I can't just turn off the laptop and put my feet up. I still have to check emails and take phone calls, many of which cause me to have to jump straight onto something. This usually happens just when I have decided to spend the day in the garden or take the dog out.

Although I thought a gradually retirement was going to be just the ticket, I would not want to go through this again. Still I'm nearly there, should be totally finished by Christmas and in fairness I'm now down to about a day a week on average (if only it was average!).

katejo

Roger175 said:

arthur_fowler said:

I have a couple of options at the moment. Mrs F will retire in April 2025 to help look after our new granddaughter. 
I will request to reduce to 3 days work per week at that time for 6-12 months or retire completely at the same time age 60.
Reservation about going 'cold turkey' is whether I will be bored and perhaps my brain would be happy with a gradual reduction. My work is quite well paid and not very stressful.

I have retired gradually and it has had it's pros and cons.
I had no choice, I am a self employed professional consultant and once committed to project I really have to see it through. I stopped taking on any new work over a year ago and am now just down to the final few projects which are dragging on.

In one sense it has been useful to still have an income stream, albeit much reduced on what it use to be, but I am finding it increasingly frustrating that I can't just turn off the laptop and put my feet up. I still have to check emails and take phone calls, many of which cause me to have to jump straight onto something. This usually happens just when I have decided to spend the day in the garden or take the dog out.

Although I thought a gradually retirement was going to be just the ticket, I would not want to go through this again. Still I'm nearly there, should be totally finished by Christmas and in fairness I'm now down to about a day a week on average (if only it was average!).

I definitely want to do it gradually. Have already dropped to 4 days but think I need to drop to 3 before stopping completely. 1 day isn't enough to plan a regular activity (to continue once I have stopped completely). My anxiety is about cutting myself off suddenly from all the people with whom I have worked for many years (and the place/environment too). Some aspects I won't miss but others I will.

cloud_dog

I'm the complete opposite, I am intending simply to stop (by Christmas now).

I am not intending to plan or schedule anything for the following 3 to 4 months, and then I will see how I feel and how much structure / plans etc I want to put in place.

eastcorkram

cloud_dog said:

I'm the complete opposite, I am intending simply to stop (by Christmas now).

I am not intending to plan or schedule anything for the following 3 to 4 months, and then I will see how I feel and how much structure / plans etc I want to put in place.

Same as me. Finish on 20th December. Have zero plans to do anything, other than not go to work. 

ColdIron

eastcorkram said:

cloud_dog said:

I'm the complete opposite, I am intending simply to stop (by Christmas now).

I am not intending to plan or schedule anything for the following 3 to 4 months, and then I will see how I feel and how much structure / plans etc I want to put in place.

Same as me. Finish on 20th December. Have zero plans to do anything, other than not go to work. 

It's a good start, planning is overrated

Roger175

katejo said:

I definitely want to do it gradually. Have already dropped to 4 days but think I need to drop to 3 before stopping completely. 1 day isn't enough to plan a regular activity (to continue once I have stopped completely). My anxiety is about cutting myself off suddenly from all the people with whom I have worked for many years (and the place/environment too). Some aspects I won't miss but others I will.

Yes, if I could have simply dropped by whole days a week, I think that would have been better. Being self employed, I didn't really have that luxury and just have to respond to my clients' needs whenever required. Still, I've only just turned 60, so I shouldn't really complain, it's a nice problem to have

Sarahspangles

I’ve also reduced to four days, but I’m finding it takes three days to recover.

Nebulous2

I retired 3 years ago, and quickly decided I wasn't ready. I took a part-time job in a different role at reduced wages and have really enjoyed it. The opportunity to impart some of what I have learned has felt good. 

I could have reduced hours where I was, but wasn't convinced it would work. My boss went to 3 days, but then was pushed to go to a management meeting on a non-working day, so landed up doing bits of 5 days, rather than 3 discrete days. 

Rich1976

On the subject of reducing hours in the rundown to retirement and as someone who would potentially want to do this in about 8 years or so, how easy are people finding it to have their requests for reduced hours accepted?

My current employer is not one that entertains such requests and 2 colleagues in other teams have had their requests declined this year with Business Needs cited as the reason for the requests being declined. My employer is tight on recruitment anyway and I get someone reducing their hours impacts the rest of their team, but is somewhat concerning  that with the growth of people having to work longer until retirement that employers can just turndown flexible working requests just so deadlines can still be met and the consideration of the employee requesting it isn’t even considered .

katejo

Rich1976 said:

On the subject of reducing hours in the rundown to retirement and as someone who would potentially want to do this in about 8 years or so, how easy are people finding it to have their requests for reduced hours accepted?

My current employer is not one that entertains such requests and 2 colleagues in other teams have had their requests declined this year with Business Needs cited as the reason for the requests being declined. My employer is tight on recruitment anyway and I get someone reducing their hours impacts the rest of their team, but is somewhat concerning  that with the growth of people having to work longer until retirement that employers can just turndown flexible working requests just so deadlines can still be met and the consideration of the employee requesting it isn’t even considered .

I was pleasantly surprised when I raised it during my appraisal last year. I suspect that my previous manager would have said no but my current one (who already works a 4 day week) was happy to discuss it with our relatively new boss. She has since indicated that I can ask to drop further to 3 days a week if I want to. I *think* she doesn't want me to suddenly leave completely. I am in an academic university research library.