5 years today
Just thought I would share today with you all, It was five years to the day that I woke up to the first day of my early retirement. I was in a very fortunate position and an industry with decent pensions to be able to leave the rat race at 53. I don't know where the past 5 years has gone but I wouldn't change a thing.
Was I lucky, possibly, but I did work extremely hard to get to where I was. Anyway I don't have the time now to work full time 
A quote from my Director at my retirement party " Now you'll be able to do what you want when you want, but more importantly if you want"
Happy Caravaning folks
Ian.
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6 years and 2 months for me, although I was 58. I only finished so early because I could not face the increased traveling, best move I ever made. As with yourself I don't know where the time has gone. Or how I ever found time to work and do all the other things.😂
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I "Retired" from my main employment in 1999 and have been on a pension since then. But after 6 months I took up a self employed consultancy post with a company, that actually lasted 12 years until 2011. But in 2001 I also became a local Councillor and that proved to be very busy too. By 2015 I realised that doing what amounted to a 42 hr week at 70 years of age was too much, so cut involvement right back. I will not stand again in 2019..
TF
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I've been "retired" two years, aged 61 (I'm a her:)). As SteveL stated, I too had had enough of the travelling and the increasing pressure at work (I seemed to be doing more work and my colleagues doing less). But I've been back 4 times since as the secretary who took my job left, as did the second one (actually she was sacked), and now the third, who really likes the job, has been off on sick leave due to cancer, which was caught really early and is free, but they've put her on chemo, just in case, and she should be back (fingers crossed), in September, so I can retire once again:). I don't mind, only work 2 days a week, which gives me just enough to go away in the caravan one week a month.
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Just passed my 10 year retirement anniversary, no early retirement for me unfortunately, I would have lost far too much pension.
The time has gone really quickly, does not feel like 10 years. Plenty to keep me busy between our house, our childrens' houses, my hobbies, voluntary work, and going away in the caravan.
So very true what your Director said Ian!
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Same here retired 6 years and 6 months ago, got a package I couldn't say no to ( I was going anyway a few months later) OH retired 4 months after me and within 2 days we were off abroad with the caravan.
We haven't stopped travelling and doing jobs round the house/garden since retirement and like others don't know where the time has gone. Best job we have ever had this retirement lark.
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Thirteen years and four months! And still haven't got anywhere near my pension yet! One is a kept person! Like others, I had an offer from work that would have been daft to refuse.
Mind you, I have done a great deal of unpaid caring work in the last four years, like a lot of others! Can't wait to get my work pension.......
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Almost 3 yrs since I gave up self employment. Had a job driving an ambulance response car for 14 months which I absolutely loved and I wouldn't have given it up but for family circumstances- I still miss it today. So since Dec 2nd 2016 I've been idly towing the van here and there doing what I thought I always wanted but if I could go back to the ambulance, I would. I just love being busy!!
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Will be 21 years this month. Got away early on a company, inflation proof pension. Done some consultancy from time to time at excellent rates. Great flexibility and been away 13 times already this year. Would expect another 7/8 before the year end. Dont see where the yoofs the club keeps looking for are going to do what we have done. Its today the club wants income and if they ignore us it may not be here when the next generation or two have the means and time to be members
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Wiw! Sounds like some of you have had a very good deal from your employers!
How many of you were in the public sector? The rest of the populous are paying for that and probably not going to have such good pensions themselves.
The next generation are going to be poorer in retirement than we are.
Being in the private sector, no way could I have afforded to retire early, each month before I was 65 would have lost me 0.5%,so 6% per year, plus obviously a corresponding reduction in my available lump sum.
I do have a final salary pension that I paid into for over 32 years, which I did think was a good pension, but it sounds like most of you early retirers got a far better deal!
With State Pension now, we thought we were doing OK......now not so sure compared to others of my age!
We are SKI-ing to an extent, but also helping the kids out of income as much as we can, plus lump sums for as much as we can at Christmas and birthdays, within IHT allowances, so passing on the help we had from our own parents when we were in our 20s.
We help them pay into their own pension schemes so they can have more in retirement.
Not depriving ourselves, we have a bit more than we need for what we want to do, but our spending is modest.......no cruises.....no trips to Canaries or similar....not our style anyway!
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Final salary pension ??? ..... I would've had one if Cadbury hadn't bought us out for the product names & shut the site down to send it all abroad. And final salary pensions were a dim & distant memory for new starters in the land of Beanz before I started. And I'm sure Kraft haven't finished yet either in their drive for cost cutting.
As for retiring before 67 ...... mmm ???
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Yep, I was one of the lucky ones in the company who avoided by a couple of years having their FS pension discontinued, now they have a defined contributions pension.
Both our children have a defined contributions scheme, DD has a good one as she puts in 10% and her employer matches it, so she is hopefully going to retire on a decent amount.
Her husband is a teacher, so has some sort of FS scheme, not as generous as before however.
With 2 works pensions and 2 state pensions, assuming they still exist, they should be OK.
In my generation, your wife working was not so common, so OH was a stay home mum, therefor has very little pension....only 60% of my basic state pension, which is not a full state pension as I only worked in UK for 37 years.
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In my generation, your wife working was not so common, so OH was a stay home mum, therefor has very little pension....only 60% of my basic state pension, which is not a full state pension as I only worked in UK for 37 years.
Had my wife been alive K we would have had my works pension and, eventually two state pensions. She did do some part time work when the kids were of an age but they were about 10 years apart. Sadly she died aged 43. I would probably have retired at 55 just the same with the same 80% of my full works pension. We would have managed as I accrued a fair bit of capital.
As it is OH has about £12k works pension and full OAP. I have around £16K (all before tax). My OAP starts November. We are fortunate in that regard.
If my late wife had been alive money might have been tight for us if we both made 80
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As for retiring before 67 ...... mmm ?
I was fortunate to be able to get my pension early at just turned 55. I could have held out a couple of years for anticipated voluntary redundancy. However I determined before age 54 that if I could not get an early pension I would still quit at 55 and wait until 60 for my works pension.
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If I had retired at 55, my pension would only have been 40% of what it is now, not enough to have lived on till my state pension kicked in 10 years on.
At age 55 I still had a 12 year old daughter to put through school and university....very expensive these daughters.....not to mention a mortgage to pay.
Our children are 15 years apart, fairly unusual probably.
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Being in the private sector, no way could I have afforded to retire early, each month before I was 65 would have lost me 0.5%,so 6% per year, plus obviously a corresponding reduction in my available lump sum.
I do have a final salary pension that I paid into for over 32 years, which I did think was a good pension, but it sounds like most of you early retirers got a far better deal!
I also worked 32 years towards my pension. To have received a full pension I would have had to work another 8 years until 63. As it turned out I could have taken my 80% of full pension and still been employed 2 days a week. To hell with that though. Too tying. About 9 months after I left I was asked to return on a consultancy basis. Not a difficult decision it took but a moments thought to say 'No Ta'.
I remember my father in law having worked for shell since an apprenticeship and having risen to shipping controller with an excellent non-contributory pension. He could have retired early on a good pension. I remember saying that if I were him I would do and enjoy my time with my wife. He retired 5 years later and my mum in law died within 6 months. I think the thought of the time they could have spent together hit him hard. I know the impact on my dad when mum died at 48. I decided at age 35 when I moved house not to extend myself too much. I increased my mortgage from £10k to £25k and used up my savings of around £7k to do so. At that time those working around me were looking at borrowing 50 to 60k. My wife also started to work two days a week and by age 40, we had paid our mortgage off and started to accrue capital whilst still enjoying life in order to ensure that I could leave work early.
When working at a job that I enjoyed I was in the fortunate position for at least the last 16 of the 32 years of having 12 weeks off each year. Although I certainly put the time in during the other 40 weeks.
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My advise to colleagues when the generous schemes were available was 1)no dependant children,2) No mortgage or paid off out of lump sum, 3)Was the pension sufficient to live on 4)any part time considered as perk. I was OK it all fitted, Kids Uni finished, No Mortgage. Like another within 12 months I was working as a consultant ( then at £600 per day plus expenses). Far better deal than when full time. No other generation will be so lucky.
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Good advice!
Our company scheme was 30 years for full pension, till they increased it to 40 years, but we old people were allowed to keep the 30 year requirement, any years above that gave a small increase.
So under the plan you could retire at 65 and as long as you had at least 30 years service your pension was supposed to be 2/3 of your final salary.
However, no additional allowances were taken into account, so not as generous as at first glance.
Plus, part of the 2/3 calculation included the full single person state pension, whether you received the full amount or not....so even less generous.
I was aware that that was how it would work. Once they moved the goalposts to 40 years, they stopped including your state pension in it, so I have a sort of hybrid scheme.
I took the maximum lump sum as that did not affect the widow's pension, so we have made good use of that, though it did of course decrease the monthly pension amount.
This now forms our "new car/new caravan fund" and our "helping the kids fund", so has decreased lately, but will build up again gradually.
Only part of the pension is index linked, so increases have been pretty minimal.
I could have gone back to work after I retired, I did a few months of work on diving vessels, which are pretty specialised ships that not that many people are qualified to certify, but then decided to get on with enjoying retirement, you never know how long you may have. My father did not make it to pension age.
When I hit 67, I qualified for a small state pension from Norway as I had worked there when younger, and served in the army there, so that made up for the shortfall in my UK state pension.
With the mortgage paid off before retirement, and DD becoming self supporting just after I retired, we feel we are doing OK.
If we fall on hard times, we can always sell up and buy a smaller place!
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It will be a year on September 1st for me. I was on a final salary pension (actually the best out of the last 10) and had 34 years service so it came to a nice package, I also took it two year early as that way you can carry on doing work which I have with inspections and some supply work. Still working in one way but I get to choose which dates and in supply work which schools.
I was lucky that I was still in the FS system and now the teachers pension have gone over to a career average system for the younger ones. They have also taken out the lump sum which was three times your pension.
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. With vanning,the grandtwins and relatively good health life is sweet.
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