Early retirement - is when or how much more important?

michaels wrote: »

So my question is about whether most would change their date forward or back to meet there income goal or whether actually for most it is a 'time' goal and they will retire at the set date even if they are over their planned income or below it.

tl;dr it's not all about the money



Ah, such delightful trust that the best laid plans of mice and men go well. I take it retirement is a little way away, else perhaps you have had a charmed life

There are many who have no choice in the matter, whey will retire at roughly SP. But those like your good self, and my younger self, who are making.have made provision, and fondly believe we are in charge of the moment, well, I am the Ancient Mariner, and I have news for you Wedding-Guests. It won't do any good because my younger self didn't believe it either, but what the hell. At least I remember being told. And asked "what is this stress thing you speak of", ah, bless my youthful confident self

Then in your late 40s or fifties life throws curveballs. For some it is a health scare or the loss of someone near to them that reminds them that life on this mortal coil is not everlasting. For me it was a decent job that went wrong ,and one loses resilience and tolerance with age, perhaps I got more cynical, and we should always remember the sage words of Carl Jung, to wit:

“Thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life. Worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and our ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening and what in the morning was true, at evening will have become a lie.”

Work tends to be one of those things more suited to the morning, when the young adventurer sets his face to the world and looks to see a reflection of his worth in what he does.

For some, not all, over time one's worth may shift to what you are from what you do. Work tends to get in the way of that. I am still a couple of years from the normal retirement age at when I would have retired from my job.

I left for negative reasons, I couldn't stand the pi55y performance management game, the quarterly you're never good enough bullcrap. I was lucky enough to get onto a time limited prestigious project ending 2012, and started in 2009, all the time lobbing money into a shattered stock-market. The GFC was why my job went bad, it was part of the solution too. I had decent existing pension provision, but I was able to accelerate that, retiring some 8 years earlier than planned.

It was only a few years into my retirement that it occurred to me that had this crisis not happened, staying on at work would have still been a terrible wast of my time. Sure, I would have much more money, but I can't take it with me. I am running out of time, 24 hours every day.

So no, as time goes my if you have saved enough money, the time may not come at a point of your choosing. Life may get in the way, and sometimes it is time to seize the day, to let the planning go. It is not enough to load the gun. You have to pull the trigger too.

The converse of this, of course, is One More Year syndrome. The illusion of control is a dangerous thing, because each year you drift out, you are both a year closer to death and are running closer to the risk of ill-health. I saw several people in their 50s at work succumb - some you get to stand by the little mound of earth and wonder is this what it's all about, and one headbanger waited for his second TIA before taking voluntary redundancy - his doctor practically begged him saying the stress of that job is killing you. My health is good now, though I am older than my working self. I am not sure I would have said that in the last could of years of my career.

I will retire when my DB/ CA pension reaches its maximum. Currently Jan 2021, when I'll be aged 61.5. I will of course be willing to be pruned at any time.

I lost my job at 54 and as I worked in IT finding a new one using my skills would have been very difficult.

Thanks to an inheritance I had enough savings to live on until 60 when I had been planning to take my pensions. They would have provided my minimum Number and then the sate pension would have pushed me up to a level where I could afford a holiday or two each year.


However living off my capital did not feel right so I invested in BTL. That is providinga little more than my minimum number. According to HMRC I am working, but since I use letting agents and spend less than a hour on it most weeks my sisters don't think so. I turn 60 this year and my pensions should allow me a fair bit of luxury.



I could probably have (semi-)retired a few years earlier, but needed the push.

Way off retirement here, still 20+ years to go yet, company pensions has a retirement date of 65 but i think that's because it just hasn't changed since they upped the retirement age. I believe one way to get to the "number" is 66% of salary, however i have a total of 18% of salary going in each month and i will still be approx 7-8k short of my 66% target at 68 when I will get state pension on top of my company pension. Still odd considering what i thought was a high % payment going in. When i started i saved a fixed amount fr several years in a private scheme, then when in my 30s i transferred it into company pension scheme and then started to contribute so I've been contributing now for maybe 7 years. Figures don't seem to add up but i guess funds must not be doing too well atm. Will have to keep an eye on it but not sure I can start paying in any more.

Kev

I probably can't spend what I have now, but why should I give up a job that I really enjoy doing? There isn't an option in the poll to express that view. But as it is about early retirement, I understand.

EDIT: I did originally retire when I was 42, 19 years ago, but I started a new career 10 years after that, which I really enjoy. I dropped down to one day a week a couple of years ago, but this year I have moved back up to 2 days a week.