Motivation and Inspiration pre-retirement

Dizee123

I maintained motivation by planning how my life would look like in retirement and starting a timer that counted down the days.  My job had a lot of annularity to it, i.e. various things would always happen at certain times of the financial year.   So in my final year, it motivated me to get through these by thinking, thank goodness I will never have to do that again (especially forecasting and reconciling end of year finances - always the most stressful event of the year!).  

As someone who had inherited projects from retirees that suffered an 'I can't be bothered to do this properly attitude', I decided that my handover's would be as good as I could possibly make them, even though we were all mainly working from home at the tail end of Covid.  That was just a personal pride thing and not wishing a colleague to have to inherit a mess to sort out, as well as respect for my customers to allow continuity.  This also helped motivate me.  Not sure how well that worked, but I didn't get any panicked phone calls so must have been OK

I also thought about all the people who I had worked with over the years and made a list of those I wanted to have a 1:1 goodbye with in my final 3 months.  This was intended to be lunch/coffee or an after work drink.  The realities of Covid working made this more of a lunchtime Zoom chat, but I enjoyed this method of reminiscing and saying goodbye rather than a formal retirement do (which I couldn't have because of Covid).   

MayDogsandCoffee

I am in my last year - have the tick box for each month, For a few years I have been saving and therefore living on approx half of my salary so I do know that I can leave early.  We work on several projects at one time, end dates are staggered so I will not be staying until all my projects are completed.  Due to lots of changes, which seem to come every other month my motivation is on the floor.  My 'one more year' could become 'sod it I am off' at any point now.

AlanP_2

LateStarter said:

Thanks for the feedback so far; a lot of it seems to be "retire at 60 instead!", but I honestly don't think I can do that - I don't want to spend the first 10 years of my retirement worrying if I have enough money.

@albemarle - I'll consider putting my figures on the pensions board, thank you - my previous forays over there tended to not be helpful to my mental health, as I ended up feeling my pot was inadequate. I've had a couple years post-mortgage of throwing a lot more into the pension, so yeah, maybe it's time to get some opinions..

If some of the other threads on the Pensions Board are an issue don't look at them.


Post your info / queries and get comment, opinion and hopefully improved insight from a variety of sources and experiences.

I do look at many of the posts on there as the occasional gem of information or alternative viewpoint helps to shape my thinking. I don't care whether the poster has a £50k pension pot or a multimillion pound one as I am not living their life, I am living my own. 


Whilst not attributable to MSE a real world case to illustrate my point are some friends of ours.

We were chatting about retirement plans and they said they needed to do another couple of years at work to have enough to retire. They hadn't mentioned SP despite both being over 60. I asked why and a light bulb moment occured as they hadn't even factored those in to their plans.

Retirements followed 3 months later.

LateStarter

I sat down with the OH this weekend and had the talk about retirement again, trying to firm up our expectations when we're both out of work. I've come away convinced I need to work for at least 2 more years, so I guess I just have to get my head down and do the best I can. It's funny the things you realise in these conversations, like she'd be much better off with me dead  I, on the other hand, would struggle if she passed first, as her pensions have limited survivor benefits.  Sigh.

Albermarle

LateStarter said:

I sat down with the OH this weekend and had the talk about retirement again, trying to firm up our expectations when we're both out of work. I've come away convinced I need to work for at least 2 more years, so I guess I just have to get my head down and do the best I can. It's funny the things you realise in these conversations, like she'd be much better off with me dead  I, on the other hand, would struggle if she passed first, as her pensions have limited survivor benefits.  Sigh.

One way around this issue is to take out life insurance on your OH.

Indout96

If I put our income / pension pot in to a "can I retire now" calculator it would not stop laughing for a week.
However it said that about going part time 4 1/2 years ago @ almost 59 and I still did, now work 2 days a week drawing from two small pension pots and a small DB one and the figures I worked out have been perfect, in fact we are still saving every month and are having 7 holidays abroad this year (same as last year) and one in UK 

Only you know what your expenses will be, just look at the pensions you "need" for a decent retirement on the retirement calculators, we never earnt that when working so certainly don't need that now. I can only think they are based on people living / earning down south.

I am counting down until state pension which will be around £250 less than my two day wage but we save more than that each month into S&S ISAs unfortunately going part time has de-motivated me really as you never see any part of the job through but it is what it is and Tuesday being the new Friday feels good.

LateStarter

For the people who say they spend a lot less than they thought, and yet have multiple holidays abroad  a year - HOW? Honestly genuinely, not being sarcastic. We're 2 people, with 10 year old cars, who spend a bit on food and drink (but certainly not Michelin dining), and our annual spend is over 40k. 

Indout96

LateStarter said:

For the people who say they spend a lot less than they thought, and yet have multiple holidays abroad  a year - HOW? Honestly genuinely, not being sarcastic. We're 2 people, with 10 year old cars, who spend a bit on food and drink (but certainly not Michelin dining), and our annual spend is over 40k. 

Its not a sarcastic question really as 10 years ago we would have looked at our situation and thought exactly the same  but it comes down to no debt and priorities basically and without stating the obvious living up north, our 3 bed bungalow down south would be 4 times the price.

Our total income after tax is 37.2k / year so £3100 /month, total household bills including food come in at £850 for a 4 week month and we have sinking funds for car / Birthday / Xmas presents 

Holidays this year we have been to :  
March - Madrid 5 days
May -  Tuscay (Luca) 7 days
June - Dresden 4 days
July - Vienna 5 days
August - Dancing holiday in St Annes 3 days 
Sept - Istanbul & Antalya 7 days
Oct - Marrakesh - 3 days
Dec - Wroclaw - 3 days
These are all 3/4 star hotels, mainly traveling via low cost Airlines or whoever is cheapest. Quite often we set off from Yorkshire at midnight to be at Stanstead / Luton for 4.00am for a 6.00am flight although this year Manchester seems to have been cheaper than previously so saves traveling time.

This all came in at a total of £11,500 including spending whilst there.

We don't eat out ever (unless on holiday) we don't have takeaways (maybe once every 3 months) I drink occasionally wife never. We go out dancing 3 nights a week at a cost of around £5 each plus petrol and we walk a lot (6/7 miles a day normally)

Nebulous2

LateStarter said:

For the people who say they spend a lot less than they thought, and yet have multiple holidays abroad  a year - HOW? Honestly genuinely, not being sarcastic. We're 2 people, with 10 year old cars, who spend a bit on food and drink (but certainly not Michelin dining), and our annual spend is over 40k. 

This is the 64 million dollar question. If you haven't looked at it then the how much to live on thread is worth a browse to see the variety of answers to how much people need.  

Much of it depends on your expectations. Growing up I had an elderly relative who didn't work, as was the case with most married women in those days. Her husband was willing, but had a lot of health problems, including 'nerves,' so money was scarce. She thought she had found untold riches when they got the state pension. She had never had carpets, nor household appliances such as a fridge, a washing machine and a hoover until that point. 

We've people on here who still happily live on the state pension, or its equivalent. If you head for some of the other forums its also possible to find people who consider much more than that a tight squeeze. 

One factor which often plays out is that many people on this forum, unlike much of the rest of the country, have prioritised saving for an early retirement. That may mean a frugal lifestyle, sometimes a very frugal lifestyle. By the time they get to the early retirement, the pattern is entrenched, and the biggest problem some of them have is loosening off a bit and actually spending some of their lucre. 

I'm somewhere in between. I wouldn't like to have to live on the state pension. Have a moderate DB pension while waiting for the state pension to arrive. It's not fantastic, but I look at how much capital it would take to buy an equivalent annuity, and realise that me and many public sector retirees are much better off than we realise. 

We like holidays, and have several a year, but I like big chunks. Generally regard 10 days abroad as a minimum. Have some responsibilities at home, but can go away for up to 5 weeks at a push, probably just once a year. In addition we can have a few 3/4/5/6 day breaks at home. Biggest year of holidays was last year, where we had 3 foreign holidays, two of them long haul, and spent 9 weeks abroad. 

We have probably spent less than expected since I retired. I had a nest egg to fund the gap between stopping and SPA age. We still have most of it, which wasn't the plan when I stopped, but we've become fond of that cushion. We fancied spending all winter abroad, and summers here, but that isn't possible due to personal circumstances, but it wasn't difficult to let that idea go. Once SP kicks in I'm confident we will have more money coming in than we need. 

What I'm convinced of is that for many people, not just us, their ambitions shrink post-retirement. Travel loses its appeal, people become worried about coping with the unknown and opt out ahead of their capacity diminishing. I've driven in Europe a lot and feel confident doing so. Last year waiting for the ferry I was struck by how anxious people in the queue were. Worries about headlights, being caught carrying forbidden food, whether they had the right speed stickers on the back of their caravan etc. I said to one man who asked if I was worried, not at all I've done this before. So have I he said I've done two big European tours previously, but I was never this anxious before.  

 

BrilliantButScary

LateStarter said:

For the people who say they spend a lot less than they thought, and yet have multiple holidays abroad  a year - HOW? Honestly genuinely, not being sarcastic. We're 2 people, with 10 year old cars, who spend a bit on food and drink (but certainly not Michelin dining), and our annual spend is over 40k. 

Are you happy with what you spend now? Do you know what your money is being spent on? Have you done a SOA (Statement of Affairs)?

You can often find that if you 'dread going to work' you may feel you need to 'treat yourself' more, than if you were happily retired.

During your discussion about your expectations in retirement, have you discussed what you will no longer have to spend money on, for example commuting costs, work clothes, professional fees etc

Will you both retire at the same time? I continued working after my husband retired and we both benefitted from him being at home.

Just a few things to consider