More of a fettler I thought... Enlighten us unclealec.
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I see what you did there - "expert in his field" - but I owned a company that was established (not by me!) in the 1950s that specialised in one particular model of one particular make of British car. The company moved southwards when I "retired".
I repaired and sold spares for them.
And (breaking news!) still do.
The moving of the goalposts seems horribly unfair/unjust to me, a rigged game where ''winning'' means grafting into your late 60's for a small stipend and likely a decade or two of declining health and fitness in which to enjoy it, no thanks. Different if you're fortunate enough to love what you do/ do what you love and can monetise it sufficiently. Never really felt that way about work personally but everyones different of course, saw it more as a means to an end, abreit macht frei and all that.
Age has nothing to do with it. I’d bet 60 year old Gary Lineker is faster up a ladder than James Corden.
My parents, turning 70 this year are members of the local Rambling club, cycle a lot and are member of the gym. They’re in better shape than many 40 year olds I know. Both are retired but absolutely capable of holding down a job if they wish. My in-laws (who are younger), not so much.
As someone who made some dubious life choices in my 20's and 30's with some severe financial repercussions (be careful who you marry kids) I cannot realistically see myself retiring at the traditional age or in the traditional manner.
I'm hoping that I can 'retire' by downsizing my house and doing consultancy / contracting when necessary while keeping my hand in working on personal projects. Luckily I'm in an industry that can accommodate this.
Failing this, I'll see you from behind the till in Tesco.
Age does have something to do with it, whether people want to accept that is not the issue. No one questions that some 60 years can be fitter than some 40 year olds, but an organisation cannot base policies on a few outliers
Fact is MOST 60 years old aren't as fit as SOME 40 year olds
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Seems the reality is that millennials will spend the last 15-20 years of their working age lives either forcibly self-employed, working in a supermarket, or unemployed?
Yup. I'm 51 & an electronics engineer. I still have plenty of love for the job, plenty of energy & I'm still ambitious. I can see a role developing in my company for global head of electronics design & I'm well situated to create & fill the position. But I work to live, not the other way round. I also have two mortgages and the pension pot is only just on target to support retirement from 65 onwards. I'd go (much) earlier if I could.
Be careful what you wish for...i was lucky to retire at 50 and for 5 years i did what i wanted...travelled the world lived a few months of the year in Spain or Oz but towards the end what do you get up for...another day in the sun...another round of golf/cycle ride read another book every week.
So i went back to work part time after 5 years and as long as i have good health i will never retire again...i have the right work/life balance and yes i am lucky that i don't need to work.
Another good friend of mine retired at 63 and he was pulling his hair out after a year and wished he hadn't done it.
How old is too old? 18.
I quite fancied the idea of being retired and taking my state pension between 18 and 30 and then going to work and paying my taxes until the day I couldn’t work any longer or the day I died.
I didn’t, went to university, worked and am still working on and off way beyond the age I ever planned to. I should have tried harder!
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The trouble with getting older is that you’ve done some things so many times that you know exactly how to do them, just when you really can’t be bothered to any more. You can also start to feel that you don’t really care about the strongly held but half thought through opinions of the millennials. To an objective observer, this could be interpreted as ‘lacking drive’ and ‘being out of touch’. It does seem to creep up in your 50s, just when the idea of a finish line appears over the horizon. The lockdown certainly hasn’t helped; where there used to be momentum, I’m now feeling a worrying amount of inertia.
I could have written this myself!. At 50 I was still keen as a bean, 4 years later I have lost all interest and dread Monday mornings. I handed in my notice in April and leave in August just after my 55th birthday.
I can't wait to be out of the rat race. I'm going to enjoy the rest of my life without thinking about the corporate merry go round. Bliss.
Met far too many people exactly the same. The amount of people I have seen over the past few years who leading up to retirement were counting the days only to see them back in work within 2 years.
It’s all down to what the individual wants I don’t think there are any hard fast rules.
I retired last year, aged 60.
Personally....it was the best thing I've ever done! I just wish I could have afforded to retire earlier.
We are all massively different....so have differently views on life, money, on?....... everything really!
I think lots of people would love to retire earlier, they don't though, as they simply cant afford to.
Again, lots of people , dread the thought of retirement...we are all different, all jobs are different, some involve manual work, shift work, lots of stress etc etc. No two jobs and no two people are the same.
I worked as a train driver, lots of stupid shifts and working patterns...I don't miss a second of it!
Horses for courses!
Me to, retired last year at 55 and sent George Osbourne a thank you card
He wanted an army of sippers to start spending money, what he got was an army of early retirers who either sit on cruise ships or buy Mx5s
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I guess it depends on how much your work defines you is a stance some may take over retirement.
I owned a couple of businesses but always found work tiresome, even though I rarely did more than 4-5 hours a day.
Glad to pack it in at 50 and have never given work a thought since.
Waste of time.
Same, I didn't mind it when had a family and mortgage to keep me focused as soon as those issues weren't there couldn't be arsed to work anymore . It's liberating not to have to worry about the roof over your head and incredibly privileged of course. I actually have taken on a part time consultancy role at home for 25 hours a week as gardening is boring
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Organisations shouldn't be making blanket policies based on age. Fitness is only one factor, experience, knowledge and contacts can be more valuable to an organisation. Many people give their lives to a company, the least a business can do is assess a member of staff's ability to work on an individual basis. Can you imagine Man Utd telling Sir Alex he has to leave on his 60th birthday because they're replacing him with a fitter 40 year old.
If I didn’t need to work, I would not, aged 44. Reality is I will retire at 65, however that may change for the better. No mortgage and a good valued house in the commuter belt & desire to move back west means the house etc will be fine.
No kids, only a sibling on both sides to leave things to, so no concerns on legacy there really.
To retire now though, I’d want enough cash for it all to be fun & not even have to look at the bank balance, which is sort of how we live now to a degree - we aren’t lavish, a good holiday and eat out 1-2 nights a week. Retired I’d want more holidays & more meals out, that is for sure.
I’ve had 3 different (enough) careers, and unfortunately climbed high enough up a corporate ladder that I can’t afford to really do what I’d love without significant impact on lifestyle, so will just save until I retire. Am yet to love any job or company, which is a little sad, but perhaps I’m just not a lover of work / 60+hr weeks.
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HR departments have spreadsheets based on years of service, cost to pay off etc, I’ve been sent a few by accident in the ‘hidden’ tabs when making some of my team redundant over the years.
I always look for what is not visible & what other data in in the graph in ppt if anyone sends me things, it is very useful sometimes.
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I’m 50 and have been employed by the same company since I was 21....I enjoy my job but I work shifts and there is no way I am going to be still working beyond my late 50s.
Sometimes the elbow offers are better than redundancy providing you can get a reference with it , but redundancy is not likely in most cases its a question of take the offer or they get something on you and make your life hell
I've seen guys negotiate a year's salary to p1ss off, these things work both ways sometimes
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I'm in my mid-fifties, I've been in continual employment since I was 18. I'd like to get off the hamster wheel of work - weekend - work and feel like my time was my own.
I did ask my employer about part-time but they advised my role isn't suitable for job share or reduced hours working. This might change if I do put my notice in, but I won't flatter myself that they would look to keep me.
I'd also like to retire while I am in good health and can enjoy my time, rather than waiting into my sixties to find some health condition restricts my activities (or worse).
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Another aspect is the degree to which you enjoy your work.
I am blessed in that I have never had any employment that I didn't absolutely love. I may have outgrown some, or acted in deference to changed circumstances, but I have always benefitted from a feeling of happiness at the thought of each day at work.
That applies to both employment and self-employment.
My career choices so far:
Share fisherman
Constabulary
Several years spent in womens' clothing
Fishing consultant for international retail chain
Riley car specialist
Magazine editor for classic car club
I'm not rich but I'm as happy as a dog with two dicks.
How much were you paid to wear womens clothes? Do they accept older gents?
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For me work is not really the issue. Problem is the fixed routine. Having to be somewhere for a certain time. Working when you don't feel particularly motivated. Wanting not to work coz the sun's shinning etc etc.
It's all about flexibility, and I guess that's what being self employed or consultancy can bring. Similarly running your own business with trusted staff.
If we had a culture of more flexible working and increasing and reducing commitments throughout the year and your lifetime I'm sure more of us could want to work longer, be more productive and more motivated for innovation and change.
Standard working practices seem out of date.
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Started well , mid 30s just when career and mortgage was panning out along comes divorce , so the idea of selling the London house and retiring on the proceeds went pear shaped .
Incidentally ex-wife not a single penny contributed but of course walked off with the lions share.
Work in the film industry so quite a decent salary , no longer have to be based in London so no hypersized mortgage required. Have a side business which on a good day nets sizable profits , on a bad day it pays its keep and a tiny bit .
Looking to other ventures ( even looked at setting up a watch company , possibly also selling a chinese fabricated copy of another retro mechanical device ) , not sure really .
Writing is also there as I spent a considerable amount of the last 10 years doing fairly adventurous things.
As ex-wife and ex-girlfriend ( no crossover) have departed with most of my money I guess I'll need to save and invest and seek other avenues to fill up the coffers , after paying for everything I didn't have enough left to make a pension worth consideration.
Work till old...not too bad if I can , try to make as much as possible on the side . Hopefully go bang all at once instead of languishing as a pale shadow for decades living off pedigree chum.
I put my hand up for redundancy a couple of years ago. I had done the sums and worked out I’d be slightly better off with redundancy package and not have to slog to work and commute for maybe 3h a day at the perils of Southern Railways.
I’d lost incentives to work hard and made a promise to myself to never work if I didn’t enjoy it. I felt we had so many meetings to attend and so much compliance training to complete it left less and less time to actually work. Too many “stand ups”, “scrums”, “town halls” etc.
Forever on conference calls - I might never speak to anyone in my office for a day or two at a time (global company).
Bottom line - I’d had enough.
One thing I would say is - leaving your job is not “retirement” or at least don’t treat it as such. It is starting another phase. I will never work in IT again - by choice. But I have plans for other things which will occupy my time. I am not retiring I am changing. I may get paid to do what I do next but I don’t care if I am not paid as I have enough to live reasonably comfortably off in the bank for the rest of my life.
My whole financial plan is based on retiring at 50, hopefully earlier depending on earnings growth from where I am now at 33. I’ll then manage the properties I’ll have bought to fund the retirement. I can’t imagine wanting to work full time beyond 50, but then I’ve never loved what I do.
If you love what you do and are of sound mind, and physically capable of doing the work, I don’t think there’s an age limit. My grandfather worked to some extent into his 80s and said it kept him sane.
YMMV for sure here.
Statistically the younger you are when you retire, the longer you enjoy retirement. I retired in my 50’s [emoji1303]
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61 for me was old enough,as a service engineer covering best part of 1000 miles a week,on call ,working silly hours enough was enough.
This is a male forum, and ex wives do get a tough time.
But, while they may not have financially contributed directly through hard corporate graft, they are typically core in ensuring the financial success of the partnership through homemaking, full time mum or other aspects which allowed the man of the house the freedom to become more financially successful.
It is not about who earned what.
When a marriage breaks down it is easy to look at it from a very simplistic I earned this, and they earned nothing. But, it is much more complicated than that.
Been a service engineer all my life, work a lot of weekends and cover night rotas. Quite enjoy it to be honest but dislike all the corporate side of it and attempts to micro manage people.
Since getting a dog last October and slowing down a bit due to lockdown etc I could quite happily retire at 55…..I’m 51 now and fortunately it could be financially possible.
Will I get bored…quite possibly but I’ll give it a go and see what happens.
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Surely a lot of this is whether you enjoy your work or not?
If it's enjoyable, then going to the day you depart is almost understandable. However, if you're working only to make a living, then the earlier you retire the better surely?
No point being the richest plot in the graveyard as my Pops told me...
Cheers,
Adam.
If (big if!) things go according to plan, I’ll be able to retire at 49. But I won’t. Although stressful at times, I enjoy my job.
I did retire of sorts about four years ago and it really wasn’t very good for me. I was a 36 year old man who took a nap in the afternoon. I found myself getting vague and foggy in the brain and also struggled with a lack of identity. My job doesn’t define who I am but when you do f*ck all all day, there isn’t much to talk to people at parties about!
The other problem with retiring early is that your mates are at work all day so what’s the point!
I do work less these days - about 40 hours a week as opposed to the 60 I used to do and I find that balance really good. I’ll likely scale back again in a few years but lesson learned, I’ll keep myself occupied.
Peoples mileage may vary but that was my experience.
For me work and retirement goes in cycles and some years I have different views.
I’d worked out I could have retired at 46 and seriously considered walking away. Having another child then made me reconsider the importance of work so I carried on. Over the next few years my views varied. Last year I hit 50 and was loving work despite covid. So glad I didn’t retire. Right now at 51 I’ve lost desire again and am thinking of retiring!
One thing that’s affected my train of thought is worry - I’ve had a couple of serious illnesses and since then I worry about money. It’s bizarre as financially I don’t need to as I’m wealthier now than I’ve ever been, yet I worry about it more. I put part of it down to being ill, but part down to getting older maybe. Deep down I know it’s stupid but still the worry is there!
I think most of it comes down to whether you enjoy work, as soon as I can afford to I'm going to do something for the love and not the money. I think at that point you can almost consider yourself retired in a philosophical kind of way
Agree for those nearing that age now (if they wish), who may have been in employment since the age of 16, with a life expectancy of 78.
But, uni leavers now aren't getting into employment until 21/22 years old, with pretty low starting salaries and huge student loan debts – with a predicted life expectancy of 85 years old.
If they retire at 60, that's 38 years in full time employment, to pay off student debt, buy a home, support a family, and save enough to support 25 years of retirement, which seems unrealistic.
IMO anywhere between 55 -60 , however this is based on hindsight ! , i am now 65 and retired @ 63, i found i have not needed as much money as i thought i would , but left with no debt, no mortgage.
my biggest advantage was being in two final salary pension schemes !, but i appreciate not everybody is so lucky and have also versed my kids 28 & 31 year olds into preparing for their retirement as they will not be as fortunate .