Bold leap into retirement

pterri

Well I’ve announced it in a team meeting so no turning back now! My last day in the office is 4th may but I can use my entire year leave entitlement and also get a few extra days ‘pre retirement leave’. With the bank holidays my last paid day is 27th may. 

Feels surreal 

kipsterno1

I was in a position were I could nominate my public holidays. Needless to say I took all the bank holidays that fell after my retirement date the week before.

Smudgeismydog

pterri said:

Well I’ve announced it in a team meeting so no turning back now! My last day in the office is 4th may but I can use my entire year leave entitlement and also get a few extra days ‘pre retirement leave’. With the bank holidays my last paid day is 27th may. 

Feels surreal 

Congrats pterri,
I hope you have a smooth wind-down until 4th May. Do you have anything planned for when you finish?

katejo

kipsterno1 said:

I was in a position were I could nominate my public holidays. Needless to say I took all the bank holidays that fell after my retirement date the week before.

Nominate your bank holidays? What is that exactly? I dropped to working 4 days a week and lost  20% of my bank holiday hour entitlement. They are deducted from my moveable leave. 

pterri

pterri said:

Well I’ve announced it in a team meeting so no turning back now! My last day in the office is 4th may but I can use my entire year leave entitlement and also get a few extra days ‘pre retirement leave’. With the bank holidays my last paid day is 27th may. 

Feels surreal 

Sorry, 4th APRIL is my last day in the office and 27th may when I actually Leave. 

pterri

Smudgeismydog said:

pterri said:

Well I’ve announced it in a team meeting so no turning back now! My last day in the office is 4th may but I can use my entire year leave entitlement and also get a few extra days ‘pre retirement leave’. With the bank holidays my last paid day is 27th may. 

Feels surreal 

Congrats pterri,
I hope you have a smooth wind-down until 4th May. Do you have anything planned for when you finish?

I’ve got a week booked for July as that was going to be my leaving date but I couldn’t wait. Nothing specific but will do something. 

GenX0212

MetaPhysical said:

Some great reading here!  My story folks.

I've told my boss informally that I am going March '26 - so just over one year - although I could go at any time from today if the BS thresholds from work meant it all got too much.  As I said in another thread, the stress of it all, combined with cost cutting and lack of resources is causing me anxiety issues and I could snap at any point and resign. My current salary is about 80k per annum working 4 days per week.  Me and my fiancee are definitely life partners, we've been through so much together.  I have been at work for 41 years and been continuously employed as a Chartered Engineer - Civil Engineer - for all that time.

I'd originally planned for July this year (2025) when I turn 58.  However, we are doing up my fiancee's house before we get married in 2027 and I'd rather pay as many of the expenses of that out of salary/bonuses rather than savings/pension.

Current position: No mortgage on my 550k house and £60k in ISAs.  Selling my house will realise about £400k in cash after fiancee's mortgage (on her 600k house) cleared (I am aware of the sequencing of this wrt to marriage and CGT/SLDT).  We will need about 150k-200k of that for extensions and home improvement to leave a net of about £250k-ish
 
On top of that:
DB pension of £30k per year from March 26 index linked
DC pot of £700k invtesd 3/7 risk factor.  One of the reasons I want to work "another year" (yeah, I know 🙈) is to build this up a bit more and take anything made on top of 650k as TFC.  I should be able to take sustainably 25k per year from 650k at aged 58.5 with a buffer of the TFC in the event of a market downturn.
Fiancee - same age as me - has very minimal pension.
Two full state pensions due at 67 in ten year's time.

I think I could take a private pension of around £55k per year and it be sustainable until state pensions kick in with all that cash on top - that we hope to spend!

Thank you for reading my story.  Any thoughts most welcome.

Our positions are quite similar in terms of age, current earnings, pension pots, State Pensions and desired income and also working a 4 day week! Key difference is you are probably £10k a year better off from your DB income than ourselves are and we are 1 year younger. 

So I'm going to say absolutely your plan will work because I need mine to work as well 

Is your plan to maintain £55k (+inflation) as my own forecast is that we will need less when we get older at SP age.

My current thinking is also to finish next March so will be watching for updates from you with interest!

michaels

pterri said:

pterri said:

Well I’ve announced it in a team meeting so no turning back now! My last day in the office is 4th may but I can use my entire year leave entitlement and also get a few extra days ‘pre retirement leave’. With the bank holidays my last paid day is 27th may. 

Feels surreal 

Sorry, 4th APRIL is my last day in the office and 27th may when I actually Leave. 

Ha ha - And I thought I was doing well finishing on the 11th April and then 4 days (already accrued) leave and 2 bank holidays taking me to the 21st....

kipsterno1

katejo said:

kipsterno1 said:

I was in a position were I could nominate my public holidays. Needless to say I took all the bank holidays that fell after my retirement date the week before.

Nominate your bank holidays? What is that exactly? I dropped to working 4 days a week and lost  20% of my bank holiday hour entitlement. They are deducted from my moveable leave. 

The thought behind it was it would reduce cost as on a PH all staff were paid at double time. The rational was if people choose their own days, such as say their birthday, significant day or religious festival, it would spread out the resourcing demand and allow that person to be off roster on their chosen day.

The reality is anyone retiring early in the year moves all the PH and takes them before finishing.

nicknameless

MallyGirl said:

nicknameless said:

cloud_dog said:

pterri said:

I’ve done it, I’ve handed in my resignation. April tax year end….

I wanted to thank @pterri for posting their own thread on the Pensions Board, to help themselves to confirm their own position and the viability of their options recently.  Well technically thanks is probably due to the the other posters

The post and responses caused me to reconsider the method for how we will be funding our own early / retirement (ISA, SIPPs, DBs).  I had previously decided that I was going to take the main DB at NRA, as I wanted to try to ensure as large a guaranteed source of income as reasonably possible for our later stages of life, but having re-modelled the numbers it has given me cause to re-assess.

I am 53, waiting with baited breath for vol redundancy decision, and have one DB with NRA of 60.

I plan to retire this year, take the DB at 55 (approx. 20% reduction).  All my modelling shows that this increases probability of success calculated via monte carlo, by smoothing sequence of return risk.  Survivor benefits are not actuarially reduced.

@nicknameless did you get VR?
2 of us do our rather niche role and they have just made the other guy redundant. Absolutely gutting as he didn't want to go and I would have done happily - our company doesn't 'do' VR  

That is unfortunate for you - really sorry.  Unbelievably I am still waiting to hear.  Had communication that decisions delayed slightly.  The waiting is absolutely killing me tbh!