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Blimey, wished I'd done it at 48 rather than 58. Obviously money's a big deal if you're completely brassic but you don't need a lot and I think material stuff ranks low down the list against family, friends, doing stuff. Plus I'm quite happy with 26''.
watching the thread with more interest as only 125 work days till I retire 🙂
I retired a couple of years ago at 61, and my only regret is that I didn't do it sooner. We get by on a small pension, topped up from savings. Many would think they couldn't live on it but we do just fine. Not really interested in stuff like big tv's, new cars, exotic holidays.
In the past few months we've been away more than we've been at home: 4 trips to various parts of Devon (reli's), 2 trips to Scotland (daughter lives there), 1 trip to Norfolk (where son lives), 2 camping trips with mates (and another next week), then another trip to Devon.
Before I retired I made a list of things I wanted to do: I've already canned some of them (like riding the C2C off-road, walking the south-West coast path), on the basis that I'm too old. Even though I think I'm fitter and healthier than many my age (I ride 20 to 30 miles most days and have done for around 20 years), I no longer have confidence in my ability physically and mentally to do them. When I look in the mirror in the mornings I see some old bloke I don't recognise (although he looks a bit like my dad). I used to ride at Afan fairly regularly but haven't been since retirement. Again, due as much to lack of self belief as anything else.
So, if you possibly can, I would say do it. Consider what you really need, accept that bigger, newer, shinier things don't bring happiness, and do it as soon as you can.
Unless your work brings you immeasurable joy and happiness, obvs 🤔
Lovely post Squirrel. Very thought provoking.
🤮
bullshitcrummond, FFS man give it a ****ing rest.
just stop overthinking it all, and take a leap of faith.
what is the worst that can go wrong, seriously mate, chill.
I take it that you haven't read the link - it's got nothing to do with what I have posted previously and there's lots of biking mentioned as a benefit of retirement, from someone that's taken the leap.
I read it. It seemed well intentioned, but was just a bit too trite, repetitive and basically devoid of any really art or substance.
BUT. I'm fully prepared to admit that may be exasperated (sic) by the fact that I've got manflu (sick) and haven't been out biking for 2 weeks despite the glorious weather.
So basically, sorry.
You posted someone advertising garbage.
Advertising garbage ?
Such as ?
There's more garbage ads on this page...
you posted something pretending not to be about investment.
try to understand this, Some people do NOT want to invest. some people are happy NOT making money.
The content of that page wasn't about investment, it was about him contrasting his activities and state of mind before retiring and after retiring, which I thought people wanted more of in this thread.
He's not selling anything himself - the site carries adverts to offset his hosting costs, as does this one, but it doesn't shove them down your throat, like this one does.
Not sure what you are complaining about.
We are comnplaining about you spamming with advertising for a highly dubious investment scheme.
Understand now?
It's not an investment scheme, it is just a guys blog about his saving for retiring and then retiring.
I think it is you that is not understanding.
Point me to something on his site that is selling this highly dubious investment scheme, to back up your claim.
The FIRE industry seems to be full of people who haven't achieved FI but plan to make money (in order to achieve FI), by selling advice on how to FIRE.
I find that quite amusing. People who have failed at the one thing they want to achieve then thinking they can make money advising others on how to also fail to achieve it.
And no I haven't read that specific link, read enough of them already.
I'm with bullshot on this one. A simple list of the benefits of free time against the frustrations of a 9 to 5 job.
But I never look at adverts.
I find it objectionable because it's full of crap about "life post FIRE" when it could just relate to being retired. Why bring FIRE into it if you're not a part of the whole snake oil selling clique.
thats the point
FIRE is 4 letters whereas retirement is 10...
And also maybe because he has retired early, courtesy of some diligent financial management that he partly details on his website, in order to help other people so that they too might manage to do the same - seems pretty altruistic to me.
thats the point
what's the point? - you still haven't shown me where he is selling a highly dubious investment scheme.
Retiring early was one of the points of this thread, wasn't it? That's the RE.
In order to retire early you need to be financially independant - don't you ? Even if you are partly counting on the government to enable it. That's the FI.
Otherwise it is semi-retirement.
Best route to FIRE is FINDER-
Financially Independent, No Dependants- Early Retirement.
Best route to FIRE
Be born in the 60s/70s, buy a house for peanuts and work for an employer with a Final Salary pension scheme. Tick the early retirement box, get a slightly reduced final salary pension and you're done.
Financially Independent, No Dependants- Early Retirement.
Getting the dependents off the payroll would be the single most efficient means to my retirement. How much for two adult sons? Anyone? Two degrees and counting for one. Possible discount global travel upside from the other 🙂
Am considering the 20% reduction in final salary pension for the five years and ability to do something else at subsidy rates for 10 years.
“Experts” say £10,900 a year needed to retire
I love their idea of 'comfortable'. £34K a year after tax, and effectively 'after' mortgage and pension contributions. So, equivalent to about £70-75K for an earner with a mortgage and pension contributions. What's that, top 5% of earners?
Yep, that sounds pretty bloody 'comfortable' to me!
Be born in the 60s/70s, buy a house for peanuts and work for an employer with a Final Salary pension scheme. Tick the early retirement box, get a slightly reduced final salary pension and you’re done.
And don't have kids.
“Experts” say £10,900 a year needed to retire
Won't get many Rapha tops for "£460 per person for clothing and footwear each year"!!!
Decent pension calculator here
Put in minimum, moderate or comfortable income, your pot as it stand, age now and at retirement
Cross your fingers, close your eyes and press calculate to see how much you should be putting away next month
The FIRE industry seems to be full of people who haven’t achieved FI but plan to make money (in order to achieve FI), by selling advice on how to FIRE.
I find that quite amusing. People who have failed at the one thing they want to achieve then thinking they can make money advising others on how to also fail to achieve it.
And no I haven’t read that specific link, read enough of them already.
So the same business model as life coaches then 😉
I retired at the end of last year at 56 and I have two young kids (12 &7). Great to be able to spend more time with them and do the school runs etc. So the no dependants is not a must.
That BBC article is such ****. "Experts" (who just so happen to work for the trade association of pension advisors and pension companies) predict you need a pension of £33.6k/yr to have a 'comfortable' retirement. Hmm - in whose interest could it possibly be for lots of people to worry about building up huge pots, while someone creams off 0.7%/yr in fees?
It's much worse than that Monevator article discussed above. If you dig around on that site you can actually find how much the author has saved up and when he retired; he's not just making stuff up to sell some investment product.
That BBC article is such ****. “Experts” (who just so happen to work for the trade association of pension advisors and pension companies) predict you need a pension of £33.6k/yr to have a ‘comfortable’ retirement. Hmm – in whose interest could it possibly be for lots of people to worry about building up huge pots, while someone creams off 0.7%/yr in fees?
I had a look round that web site and it all seems very sensible to me, they explain their assumptions for each scenario so you can understand how they got their numbers. There was one broken link to a PDF which didn't seem to work.
I also think it is quite helpful to give target pension numbers as otherwise how do you know how much you need?
I can't really see what is so wrong with lots of peopel building up huge pots? Surely better than lots of people getting to retirement and going 'oh shit, no pension...'?
You don't see the vested interest that pension companies and pension advisors - many of whom charge people large annual fees - have in ensuring people spend more time working and saving, and less time retired?
There's a big difference between making sure people save enough, and trying to scare them into thinking they need a pot big enough to give them an after-tax income of £33.6k to be 'comfortable'. As doris5000 points out above, that amount of after-tax income would put you in the top 16% of earners in the UK: ( https://ifs.org.uk/tools_and_resources/where_do_you_fit_in)
According to [url= https://www.legalandgeneral.com/retirement/retirement-income-calculator/ ]Legal & General[/url], a pension pot of £750,000 would only buy me an annuity of £29k/year if I was age 60 today.
and I have two young kids (12 &7)
You wait... Mine got a LOT more expensive as they got older.
predict you need a pension of £33.6k/yr to have a ‘comfortable’ retirement.
Oh dear - I have around a quarter of that and that is more than my annual salary ever was.
someone talking bolloxs?
spent the morning at playgroup with the grandkids, bloody awesome.
i was unable to do this with my own kids, as i was too busy earning cash......for my pension.
There’s a big difference between making sure people save enough, and trying to scare them into thinking they need a pot big enough to give them an after-tax income of £33.6k to be ‘comfortable’.
there is, but I don't see the problem here. The original article and the website both show exactly what they mean by comfortable - for many the items they show in moderate would not be equivilent to a 'comfortable' lifestyle. I'm perfectly happy to run a 13 year old car, others are not.
there may be a conflict of interest, as there often is in this kinda thing (as otherwise no-one wants to pay for it) - but I don't think the numbers are way off whats reasonable.
You don’t see the vested interest that pension companies and pension advisors – many of whom charge people large annual fees – have in ensuring people spend more time working and saving, and less time retired?
A vested interest isn't necessarily a bad thing. We have a big problem with financial illiteracy in the UK and anything which helps people better understand and plan for retirement is a good thing (IMHO).
As for pension companies making money providing a service - name a product or service provider who doesn't charge for their wares....
People are still free to make their own decisions about much money they need to retire. Having some nice and clear worked examples as a baseline will make that process even easier.
Yes but when the numbers given are obvious nonsense then its best ignored and goes nowhere towards helping people be financially literate
that £33000 PA income in retirement to be "comfortable" is out of the reach of the vast majority of the population
me and the good lady are doing very well on 20k between us. we had 60k between us when working. so how much money were we wasting ffs.
Serious question, do people really spend...
£460 per person for clothing and footwear each year
Its not a huge ammount, but a lot of my clothes last several years, I'd expect at least 5 years out of a pair of boxer shorts...so 460 per year per, per person seems a bit exessive, no?
Yes but when the numbers given are obvious nonsense then its best ignored and goes nowhere towards helping people be financially literate
Define nonsense, it clearly breaks down how they came to that figure.
You may disagree with their definition of 'comfortable' but that doesn't make it nonsense.
The UK has £6.1 trillion in pension savings as of March 2018 (ONS figures), so there is a lot of pension wealth out there, just not very evenly allocated. EDIT: And I suspect that figure ignores 'unfinanced' DB pensions eg Civil servants etc which just come out of HM Treasury when they become due.
so 460 per year per, per person seems a bit exessive, no?
£875 per household according to ONS stats for 2018
Serious question, do people really spend…
I have to confess I've spent more than that with Rapha this month just updating my winter riding wardrobe...
I find those pension calculators misleading. They often get you to type in how much you want in retirement then tell you how much you need to save to get that, failing to take into account any state pension you may get so it looks like you need to invest way more to achieve your goal. They also tend to show that your fund will give you x based on pretty low annuity rates with no mention of other option (draw down etc) so again you think you need to invest more.
The great con...
What's the state pension currently, about 6k per year? Whatever it is, it's not going to rise in real terms.
What’s the state pension currently, about 6k per year?
£7,155.2 (£137.60 per week) at the moment.
Rising at higher of
Average earnings
Prices, as measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI)
2.5 per cent
until they change the rules eg this year they'll probably ignore earnings as it's an anomolous figure due to CV-19.
It’s all designed to keep us all working for far too long.
Run rabbit run,
Dig that hole,
forget the sun,
and when at last,
the work is done,
don’t sit down,
It’s time to dig another one,
long you’ll live and far you’ll fly
but only if you ride the tide,
And balanced on the biggest wave,
You race towards an early grave
I have to confess I’ve spent more than that with Rapha this month just updating my winter riding wardrobe…
In good humour, I'd suspect you are not the demographic we are talking about.
It partly depends on whether you like good stuff. But also what you do.
I always see numbers like that, and figure I don't spend anywhere near. But then I remember that I had to buy a decent waterproof for walking that cost £100. And then my wife bought me a jumper which should be counted against my account really. Oh, and my slippers were worn out and needed replacing... It always comes out to more than I think!
Define nonsense, it clearly breaks down how they came to that figure.
When they say to be comfortable in retirement you need above the average wage and the figure they quote is totally beyond possibility for the vast majority of the people of this country - then its nonsense
total pie in the sky stupidity nonsense
What they mean is if you want to continue your upper middle class lifestyle
The UK average salary is something like £31k, isn't it?
That's before tax, so £24720 after tax.
Remove travelling costs, etc.
So they are saying that you need the UK average salary to retire comfortably, for a single person.
So they are saying that you need the UK average salary to retire comfortably, for a single person.
But the average UK salary is often also paying National Insurance, a mortgage, pension contributions, and costs associated with raising children.
But the average UK salary is often also paying National Insurance,
don't rule out that by the time you get your pension so are you!
a mortgage
yes that is potentially a big difference - perhaps more so with over stretched modern borrowers than previous generations of pensioners
, pension contributions,
are the average numbers before or after deduction of pension? e.g. my pension is salary sacrifice to gov have no idea what my contracted salary is to work out their average.
and costs associated with raising children.
well only those with children of that age. the average is worked out on all earners - so will include those who decide not to have a family, those who have yet to have a family and those whose family are already grown up as well as those who are funding childcare etc.
When they say to be comfortable in retirement you need above the average wage and the figure they quote is totally beyond possibility for the vast majority of the people of this country – then its nonsense
total pie in the sky stupidity nonsense
What they mean is if you want to continue your upper middle class lifestyle
TJ I think you've taken the word "Comfortable" rather too literally (ie. to mean than < this = uncomfortable). Comfortably well off has long been a euphemism for smuggly well off... You'll notice there isn't a category above it.
Whilst you might say it's beyond the realms of possibility for the vast majority of people - you worked alongside many people who will retire on pensions of that scale and some who would be horrified to survive on so little!
I find those pension calculators misleading. They often get you to type in how much you want in retirement then tell you how much you need to save to get that, failing to take into account any state pension you may get so it looks like you need to invest way more to achieve your goal. They also tend to show that your fund will give you x based on pretty low annuity rates with no mention of other option (draw down etc) so again you think you need to invest more.
Imagine being the financial advisor who told people that when they turn 67 they would get £7k pa from the government so only invest enough for £3k to hit your target when the govt decide to move the pension age to 70, or abolish it completely... Detailed discussions with a financial advisor will include it but also the caveats that it might not exist by the time you get there, and of course if you want to retire early you need the funds...
Does anyone know if the number they quote as your "predicted annual pension" is presumed to be after tax or before?
you worked alongside many people who will retire on pensions of that scale
Nope - hardly anyone person I have worked alongside will retire on anything like that. a medical consultant who did a full 40 years might get close. No nurse will get anything near that.
the biggest NHS pension you can get is half salary. How many NHS workers earn over £66000 pa?
Edit - thats wrong - pre 96 nhs pension holders can get to 45 / 80 of final salery. Now the most you can get is 45 / 60 of career average
I think thats right but the point still stands - NHS workers like me and those I worked with will get nowhere near that.
Comfortably well off has long been a euphemism for smuggly well off… You’ll notice there isn’t a category above it.
The old joke -
A banker gets hit by a bus in London. As the paramedics put him onto a stretcher and prepare to lift him into the ambulance, they say, "Are you comfortable?". The banker replies, "I make a good living"....
I think thats right but the point still stands – NHS workers like me and those I worked with will get nowhere near that.
While that may be the value of the NHS pension, surely it's personal choice whether to contribute in addition to another scheme out of your income?
My company matches contribution to 4%, doesn't mean I choose to blindly only contribute 4%. I look at my finances, my current commitments, my current lifestyle aspirations and my aspirations for retirement. I then make a decision of the opportunity cost on what to contribute which is a compromise.
How many NHS workers earn over £66000 pa?
I've no idea of the numbers, but most doctors, most management tier and probably most of the not insignificant IT department probably fall into that boat
In fact from the NHS website (band 8c and above)..
Examples of roles at band 8c - head of human resources, consultant clinical scientist (molecular genetics/cytogenetics) and consultant paramedic
Examples of roles at band 8d include consultant psychologist (8c-8d), estates manager, chief nurse and chief finance manager.
Examples of roles at band 9 include podiatric consultant (surgery), chief finance manager and director of estates and facilities.
London weighting is 20% so that'd bring in band 8b as well
I’ve no idea of the numbers, but most doctors, most management tier and probably most of the not insignificant IT department probably fall into that boat
Wrong
Most doctors earn far less than that. YOu do not get to those sort of sums until you are one of the seniors FY1. FY2, are the most common doctors - they earn around half that. Staff grades get close. consultants get a basic a chunk more than that
Medical staff are not on those payscales they have their own payscales
the other posts you mention are very few and rare. Most management is band 8a
I bet its less than 5% of the NHS gets over £66000 pa.
https://nursingnotes.co.uk/agenda-for-change-nhs-pay-bands/scotland/
So, how much a month are we all working towards needing? I would say once mortgage gone, gas/leccy/water/council tax/mobile/tv/broadband/modest car/insurances that is £800 per month for a couple. £1,200 to £1,500 for a reasonable life? 2k, I dont know, no wonder people are confused. Totally understand everyone has a different definition to reasonable.
Let's try and get back on track and away from senseless NHS pay bickering.
I had the morning off, walked the dog, had a run, a haircut and a spot of brunch before work.
Looking forward to doing something like that more often .
I'm about to take another step away from the rat race. I'm already on a 4 day week and wanted to drop to 3 next year but don't think I can do my current job in that time. So I've proposed that I quit my current post and drop to 3 days a week in a new role (which I'm currently defining so I'll make sure I keep the good bits and drop the hassle) and remain available to hand over my knowledge and experience to my successor. Boss is supportive of the plan and the new position will be on a fixed term contract so it's a definite bridge to retirement.
Let’s try and get back on track and away from senseless NHS pay bickering.
Fair enough - I just get so fed up with people with no idea of the financial reality of most of the population and needed to correct the total misunderstanding of NHS pay rates
"I’d expect at least 5 years out of a pair of boxer shorts"
1,826 days use is pretty good going for a pair of boxer shorts.
1,826 days use is pretty good going for a pair of boxer shorts.
Remember you can wear them back to front and inside out, so that's only 456 days on each bit of fabric.
Andy4D makes a good point above on assumed returns and the calculators not mentioning draw down as an option.
One of the most useful things I've read in pension planning is an article on drawdowns and guardrails. The logic seems pretty sound and there are a number of different well tested examples given. I keep meaning to knock up the rules in a couple of excel macros but haven't got round to it yet.
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/retirement/dynamic-spending-rules/
Remember you can wear them back to front and inside out, so that’s only 456 days on each bit of fabric.
or 3,652 days use out of a pair of boxers for the OP if he's not already doing that 🙂
So, how much a month are we all working towards needing?
I think it depends on when you retire. You could be aiming for 10 years in retirement or 30 - for the former you'll likely not have a hugely active lifestyle, and can make do without any big costs (car, kitchen, bathroom, roof, etc, are all unlikely to need doing in a 10 year timespan). 30 years is different, you probably need to buy at least a couple of cars, have the bathroom/kitchen redone, maybe some other expensive house stuff - maybe its only £2-3k a year to cover all of that (?) but it add a chunk to the overall.
In addition, the earlier you retire the more likely you are to want an active lifestyle, with more travelling, going out, etc etc.
I think we'll aim for £3-4k a month for the household at retirement (hopefully mid-50s), I don't mind if that doesn't track inflation though as 20 years later I'll probably be doing a lot less.
me and the good lady are doing very well on 20k between us. we had 60k between us when working. so how much money were we wasting ffs.
I looked at our (mine and Mrs F's, not mine and yours, that would be weird) outgoings a while back, one state pension would cover all household bills, food, and run one car and a couple of motorbikes, leaving the other state pension to spend on other things.
When you remove outgoings like mortgage, pension, savings, loans etc then you don't need a great deal to cover the basics.
so true mate. and if you time is spent riding your bike and playing with grandkids, you spend very little.
it is all about what you want to do in retirement.
it is all about what you want to do in retirement.
And the lifestyle you want
From now until I am 67 I will have under £10 000 pa income ( but a chunk of capital)
I will just have to cut my cloth accordingly to live on that sum and eat into my capital for expensive trips.
Personally I am totally happy to retire now on that small income. But I do not need an extravagant lifestyle
30 years is different, you probably need to ... have the bathroom/kitchen redone
One of the advantages of going to university- lived in some really bad places so a slightly tatty house is a luxury in comparison!
What’s the state pension currently, about 6k per year?
£7,155.2 (£137.60 per week) at the moment.
Current state pension if you’re fully paid up is £179.80 a week before tax, or £9.3k odd a year. Or at least that’s what DWP say I’ll be getting. Not something I ever thought I’d get as I’ve always planned on the basis that it would be abolished or means tested before I was eligible. Even after tax that should keep me in boxer shorts.
Nope – hardly anyone person I have worked alongside will retire on anything like that. a medical consultant who did a full 40 years might get close. No nurse will get anything near that.
the biggest NHS pension you can get is half salary. How many NHS workers earn over £66000 pa?
Edit – thats wrong – pre 96 nhs pension holders can get to 45 / 80 of final salery. Now the most you can get is 45 / 60 of career average
I think thats right but the point still stands – NHS workers like me and those I worked with will get nowhere near that.
TJ - I wasn't looking to start an "NHS pensions are great war" - but you've ignored state pension in your calculations. So your NHS colleagues either need an individual final salary of ~£42K (on 45/80) or a career average of ~£32k (on 45/60) without having any additional private pension. But the article also gave the numbers for a couple to be comfortable - which would require each person in the couple to earn £21-28k (depending on the scheme) working max years. That's actually possible for even a couple of grade 3s who work for 45 years at current rates. Its certainly feasible for ward sisters, pharmacists, registrars, etc - these are not the pensions of CEO's or fat-cat bankers.
My aim was not to suggest that NHS staff had gold plated pensions or were in any way well paid - but rather to highlight that it's not that exceptional to be able to get pensions that would meet the "comfortable" level if that is your priority, you stick it working as long as you possibly can etc, and milk it either with a late career set of promotions on final salary or getting up the ladder as quick as possible on career average.
Plus don't forget that the NHS pension is index linked - you would need an appreciable defined-contribution pot to be able to afford an equivalent index-linked annuity.
And if you don't buy such an annuity you then have to ride the risks of investing in the stock market and fighting the effects of inflation on your own.
As this page points out ( https://www.legalandmedical.co.uk/is-the-nhs-pension-scheme-good-value-for-money/) :
"To gain the security of the NHSPS you would be taking so little risk your fund values would struggle to keep up with inflation."
and
"We truly believe it would take either some extreme investment choices or high contributions to match the equivalent NHS pension. Not only is the NHS pension scheme still good value for money, importantly, a major part of your retirement planning is taken care of for you."
THey estimate that to get the equivalent of the 14.5% NHS contribution someone would have to be contributing 40.7% into a personal pension.
Poly - and what yo have ignored is the reality it really is exceptional to reach those levels
Most NHS employees never get anywhere near the theoretical max amounts because of career breaks - female dominated workforce, childcare. part time working
Its almost impossible to get the full 45 years ( I am still not certain 45 years is possible anyway but cannot be arsed to check)
Leave school at 18. take 4 years to train as a nurse - you would then have to work full time all year every year until 67 to get the 45 years
doctors it would be 69 or 70 because of the longer training
But most of us become physically and mentally unable to work that long. there is no way I could have gone on another 7 years
A huge amount of NHS staff work part time 0- indeed full time contracts are rare nowadays
so while in theory you can reach the levels ( still for a small minority of staff) in practice its rare indeed
I was objecting to the claim that many of my colleagues will reach those levels - it will in reality be very few if any
TJ - without knowing the individual circumstances of all your actual colleagues I can't of course prove that many of them will - but it might be more than you think! Certainly, they have the potential if they decide to work full time and keep going as long as possible - you are quite right that women will be disproportionately less likely to have accrued full pensions - and the NHS does have more women than men - but the numbers are much closer to even amongst the higher earners. [45/80ths was certainly the rule in the old scheme, I'm not sure if its 45/60ths, but I also thought the newest scheme was 54ths]. Interestingly a career average scheme is potentially fairer on those who do one job for many years than those who climb the greasy pole to end up spending the last 3 years on the maximum possible salary just to get the best pension.
The point of the article referred to (or at least the story behind the article) is to help people make informed choices about how much they need to retire with the lifestyle they want. Then they can decide if working part-time and its impact on your pension is worth it for the lifestyle benefit today versus the pain in the future; or if enduring working for another 5 years is worth it for the longer-term benefit of a more comfortable pension. I personally think it's really helpful to see those numbers not just for an individual but for a couple (I don't think I've seen anyone show them as a couple before - certainly my "IFA"* has never bothered to ask about my wife's circumstances).
What I can say with confidence is I know a number of NHS employees who certainly have the potential to get to those levels of pension. Pharmacists, Radiographers, Doctors, Senior nursing staff, managers etc. Given I believe you can "buy" extra years of pension not all of them will necessarily be working to 67 to maximise their benefits. Equally, some may have chosen private pensions, or have bought or inherited rental properties or holiday homes they've decided to invest in to get "pension" type income, etc - are those the norm - probably not - but people with individual £33K+ pensions, or household pension incomes of £40k+ are not purely the realms of bankers, CEOs and MPs - when you include state pension (especially two state pensions). IF "ordinary" workers want to get to those sort of pensions and act early enough they can get to those sort of pensions.**
*he's provided by my employer
** to be clear - I'm not being smug and sitting on a big pension. I wish at 19/20 I had listened to advice from a family friend that said to start saving for a pension , and I also wish I had understood final salary pensions and how special they were before I left a government job at 21/22! Some better decisions in my 20/30's would have made it far easier to consider early retirement in my 50s , but like most young people it all seemed so far off.
For ****'s sake. Please can someone divert this conversation away from talk about investment and the dire state of the NHS and working life in general.
I want people telling us about how they fill their later years with joy and fulfilment. How they wish they'd done it earlier. How little money they actually need.
How they took up whitewater kayaking again in retirement for the first time in 25 years. Because they had much more time available, and could padle when the rain came they quickly got back to the level they were at in their thirties. The fact that they lived in the Lakes rather than Altrincham gave them excellent access on good days.
That the regular trips meant that they could hone their skills and maintain a level of competence that meant that they were no longer the weakest in the team and most likely to die.
About the fact that they no longer had to do loads of short weekend trips to feed the rat, so saved enough money to make a 4 week trip of a lifetime down the grand Canyon feasible. Without thinking they'd die on Lava.
Please someone, tell me about that...
TJ – without knowing the individual circumstances of all your actual colleagues I can’t of course prove that many of them will – but it might be more than you think!
Poly =- I was told many of my colleagues will rench those levels. I know they will not and cannot. I could give details but you like many others vastly over estimate the numbers who can reach those levels
Please stop telling me that what I KNOW is wrong.
I could go on with details but I think this bickering has diverted the thread long enough. Just take MY assurance that the people I worked with from medical consultants to cleaners will not because of part time working and career gaps
The only NHS emplyees that will reach those levels are full time consultants and very senior staff - not ordinary working radiographers, nurses etc. Not even band 7 charge nburses
also I certainly could not buy extra years - I tried
Average NHS pension is £8000 pa IIRC
Looked at buying extra yrs for mrsb's NHS* pension, the sppa wanted £50K. No way were we dumping that into her pension. Yes you can buy extra yrs but the cost can prohibitive
* she works PT band 6
For ****’s sake. Please can someone divert this conversation away from talk about investment and the dire state of the NHS and working life in general.
Couldn't agree more.
I was planning on retiring last month having recently turned 60.
The reason I've put it off until mid Feb is due to not being sure what travel restrictions would be in place, & no confidence in those chancers in Downing street changing things whilst I'm away.I had planned to go back to Nepal this week for 6 weeks trekking...
I'l be finishing mid Feb,travel restrictions or not & I'm looking forward to it.
I currently work 4 on 4 off & I have no problem filling my days,can't see me being bored when I finish.
Two tales from the canal bank last Winter.
1) It's lockdown a nice midwinters day & I go for a walk,I get talking to someone in the canalside beer garden of a pub that's closed due to the lockdown.We keep our distance & have a chat he tells me that he's retired a few months earlier age 62 & despite the lockdown he's loving it & can't wait for eveything to open up so he can enjoy retirement even more.Not regretted it for a minute,however he says that his wife retired 5 years ago & just spends all day watching television,that's no good.I told him I was planning on going in September & a few things that I do,he said go for it,you won't be bored.
2) Lovely late Winter/ early Spring day & I'm down the canal again.It's roughly mid day & this bloke's packing up his fishing gear,we exchange pleasantries & he goes on to tell me that he loves it down here,in fact he's never away from the place.He goes fishing 3 times most weeks & rides his bike along the tow path as far as Appleby Bridge or even Gathurst about 12 miles away.When he tells me this I ask,'Don't you work then'? He says,no mate I retired a couple of years back.Turns out he's 58,retired at 56,he was a shop fitter went into work one day,decded there & then that he'd had enough & finished.He said he was fishing at first light,had a great morning,it had cost him 3 rounds of bread for the breadcrumb bait he was using & 5 miles each way in petrol for his car.I told him I'm finishing soon age 60 & he says I should have gone at 55!
He reckoned the hardest part of the process was actually retiring.
I had a meeting with the financial advisor a few months ago,she did the sums,my outgoings, as expected were less than £1100 a month plus holidays.