Bold leap into retirement

pterri

barnstar2077 said:

Smudgeismydog said:

Morning @pterri,

how is your head?

Some jokes write themselves! :  )

I’ve had worse, in a greasy spoon getting some cholesterol in me. I ought to log in and show may face but I’m logged out attitude wise. Lots of congrats and ‘how did you manage that?’ Discipline and a frankly good luck. I had a good financial crisis, luck with house purchases, luck with mortgages, good pension but also a target to work too. 

MeteredOut

pterri said:

pterri said:

Hours away from the end…

…and I left my credit card behind the till so will need to head back in to collect it tommorow 

Never mind how your head is, how is your credit card balance!!!

michaels

MeteredOut said:

pterri said:

pterri said:

Hours away from the end…

…and I left my credit card behind the till so will need to head back in to collect it tommorow 

Never mind how your head is, how is your credit card balance!!!

Yes - perhaps I need to work 'one more year' to cover the bar bill at my leaving drinks?!

Moonwolf

For those of us who have retired in the last couple of weeks, isn’t the weather fantastic. ☀️🕶️

Ideal for finding things to do with one’s newly available free time.

arthur_fowler

3 weeks to go.  🙂

Sarahspangles

Moonwolf said:

For those of us who have retired in the last couple of weeks, isn’t the weather fantastic. ☀️🕶️

Ideal for finding things to do with one’s newly available free time.

Day 5 here and we’ve sampled one cafe terrace and one beer garden. Might do further research later.

Moonwolf

Sarahspangles said:

Moonwolf said:

For those of us who have retired in the last couple of weeks, isn’t the weather fantastic. ☀️🕶️

Ideal for finding things to do with one’s newly available free time.

Day 5 here and we’ve sampled one cafe terrace and one beer garden. Might do further research later.

We are off to Scarborough next week, planned ages ago but the weather has fallen nicely. I’ve tidied the garden and I’ve been out wildlife watching along with trying to find my gym routine and testing visiting my uncle on a weekday rather than the weekend.

nicknameless

Not logged on for a while.  Firstly, want to say congratulations to @Sarahspangles and @pterri and others who have made the escape since I last logged on.

Just calculated I have 47 working days to go.  Game on.  Retire at 53 can you believe?  I can't!

jimi_man

Been watching this thread for a while. Some great stories.

I retired from my main career (police) start of 2017 and since then have been using that time to take a pension and work elsewhere and save the rest in a SIPP and other things. Finished work on the 31st January this year (aged 59) from a zero hours contract which had come to an end. Sat and considered things for Feb and March about what to do but have decided not to work again and join the economically inactive!

Wife gave up two years earlier so we are now both fully retired. 

We have four public sector pensions - police and Civil Service (me) and NHS and LGPS (Mrs Jimi) totalling around £39.5K for me and £7.5k for Mrs Jimi). We both have SIPP's to drawdown from but we only need around £6k a year to make our income to £4k net a month, and have SIPP cash to fund that for a couple of years - which is just as well after Trump's shenanigans.

Ideally we'd both like to empty our SIPPs before SPA as hers will be tax free (20% from SPA) and mine will only be at 20% (40% at SPA), however we'll see. I'm not super keen to consolidate any losses if I don't have to. Both full State Pensions at 67 should give us around £70k gross - £5k a month net, which I have to say is far far more than we need. Currently spending  around £2k or so a month. 

I have to say that getting up in the morning without any thoughts of work is just tremendous and it's probably the best feeling in the world. Looking at the figures I could probably have stopped earlier but I got into the OMY syndrome. 

pterri

Moonwolf said:

For those of us who have retired in the last couple of weeks, isn’t the weather fantastic. ☀️🕶️

Ideal for finding things to do with one’s newly available free time.

No alarm this morning, still got up at 07:00 but but had some tea and listened to the birds sing