Early retirement, given notice final thoughts and turmoil

Keithy13

Similar situation, a number of years ago now. The company tried hard to make me stay or become a consultant doing the same role. I retired anyway and have never regretted it for a moment. It's amazing how quickly you get out of the habit of work.

Food for thought, if the business thought your role was no longer required, would they hesitate to let you go.

silvercar

OH dropped from 5 to 3 days. He planned it out and told them which areas of business he would drop in order to work 3 days a week. He gave 6 months notice, as per his contract. They had little option to accept as otherwise he would have resigned totally. The work areas he kept were the less hassle ones, where he can make a noticeable difference but keep within his 3 days, had he gone for the other stuff he knew he would be constantly bothered on his off work days. As it happens he does do the odd meeting online on off days, but then takes time back on day 3 of the week.

He says the big difference is having more non working days than working days.

sandsy

I dropped to 3 days a couple of years back. Have Friday to Monday off. Being away from work more than I'm there is a game changer. I believe my work pattern has meant a more considered approach to what is feasible than if I had gone down to 4 days. I enjoy my work now more than I did previously and the worklife balance works really well.

Slinky

Don't forget to check whether you will affect your pension entitlements if you drop down the number of days a week you work.

seacaitch

More time is needed and with health thoughts you never know what’s round the corner.

The idea of consulting or providing expertise is a real point to consider. Do not want to do 5 days work in 4 days and just dread it.

Re: Health, I'm late 50s and have been retired for 25 years. Yes, really. At the start of this year I was involved in an accident requiring very major surgery, and I'm 9 months into a very lengthy "recovery" period, with at least 9-15 months more physio required. It's unclear whether I'm able to fully recover, and if I do there will still be various things I'll never be able to do now which I could previously.

I was very healthy, fit and active. I'm at least glad I spent many years doing the things I enjoyed and wasn't instead facing retirement at say, 60, only to find my grand plans to travel and be super active were now in tatters!

As we age, we'll all eventually succumb to health issues (or drop dead), and we only have limited control over when either our good health years end or the game is up entirely. And each year that passes, our odds worsen…

Unless someone believes their work is the most enjoyable thing they could ever do with their time — and for a small handful of people that really will be the case — my suggestion is always to branch out into "retirement", a.k.a. reinventing yourself in a new life, as soon as you have sufficient financial resources to support whatever your own definition of a good life is.

Re: 4 day week, I think your instinct is absolutely the right one. I'm sure this sounded good to your employer as a spur of the moment suggestion to minimise impact of your departure upon them, but for you it sounds an awful deal unless doing so was what you'd mapped out as the first step of of a phased retirement approach. As a counter-offer to your "I'm retiring" though, it's totally inadequate.

If you and your partner have sufficient resources to fund retirement, then you hold all of the negotiating cards — should you wish to actually negotiate — and it's important not to be lured into agreeing to something in haste that perhaps preys on your willingness to help out your employer/colleagues rather than do what's right for you. Again, if you have sufficient money already, then work is entirely optional and so for you to choose "work" over all the other things you could be doing with your new life the terms should offered you to need to be extremely attractive.

Time is now your most precious resource, not additional money that requires you to sacrifice that precious resource doing something that's not ideal.

Veloflyer

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6685464/early-retirement-given-notice-final-thoughts-and-turmoil

Do you enjoy your job? Do you envisage not leaving this mortal coil for at least 25 odd years or so? Can you wait for retirement? If yes to all 3 - then I'd be staying on for 4 days a week until such a time as the answer to one or more of those questions is no.

WYSPECIAL

If you are interested in doing it ask them who will be covering the other day per week that you currently do.

Pretty hard to employ someone one day per week especially if what you do is niche.

Triumph13

It may help your thoughts to put it into an equation:

Forget about what work want. This is your decision and you should only stay on part time if I < (E + M) where I is the inconvenience of continued work to your planned lifestyle, E is the amount you actually enjoy the continuing work and M is the utility of the extra money you earn.

In my own case, I kept going for a while, even after M went to zero, because E turned out to be greater than I. If E is negative then M needs to be pretty big!

Rich1976

somebody I know works in an office and dropped to 4 days a week earlier this year and apparently they have just as much work as when they worked 5 days. They are only in a small team without sufficient resource for someone to pick up the extra.

Fridays is their day off and when they come back in on Monday, part of the morning is spent catching up on all emails received since finishing at 4pm from Thursday and all of Fridays plus continue with their own job.

They are also expected to change their Friday day off if it clashes with a big deadline.

MrWannabe

Just my thoughts (obviously, I don’t know your workplace), but going to four days does not seem like retirement or even semi-retirement to me. I very much doubt that your employer will recruit someone just to cover the 1 day you are not working & my gut feeling is that you will just end up trying to fit 5 days work into 4 days.

Do you ever take a single days leave in a given week? If so, what happens? Does anyone pick up your work, or is it still there when you return? My personal experience is that taking 1 day off (in a given week) results in nobody picking up my work…the attitude of colleagues seems to be ‘he will be back tomorrow’. It is only when I take a week or two off, that colleagues will pick up my work.

I agree with what has already been said…it sounds like they need you more than you need them. If you feel that 2 or 3 days per week would be more in line with semi-retirement, then no harm in asking. You hold all the cards.