Aibu Retiring at 55 - 30 years of idleness?

My mum gave up work at 41, my dad retired at 50, but then worked as and when someone wanted a kitchen / bathroom fitting or some decorating doing.

They are now 76 (mum) and 79 (dad). If my dad isn't doing DIY, he's watching TV, unless he goes food shopping. After some light cleaning, my mum sits on the sofa all day, day after day and watches TV.

It's infuriating, and such a waste. They are absolutely minted, but won't spend any money doing anything interesting. They will shop for food, and that's it. Tragic really.

If I was fortunate enough to retire now, I would reduce my hours, but not give up work completely. My job is sociable, challenging and rewarding, and I work with some really interesting people. I wouldn't want to lose those benefits.

Oh and I’m still applying to jobs… everything from PT casual to full time stretch… but only jobs that interest me.

Is all you talk about work? I've retired at your age. I'm my DD's childcare and a carer, I'd love to have every day to garden, you do know people make a living out of it? What type of job do you have to have before you are interesting? I've left gyms because we've had the teachers/sws in and they seem to have nothing else to talk about, or rather moan about.

My four grandparents died between the ages of 85 and 94 and I naively hoped I’d have my parents for that long. My dad died aged 62, a few weeks after his mum died and a year after retiring. You just never know.

I was told by my financial guy at 50 that I could retire…this was at our meeting after I was laid off(made redundant). That was about 6 months ago. I’m still figuring out my next steps. 🤷‍♀️ In the meantime I’m healing, going to university, and just today put in a volunteer application. Who knows what I’ll do next but I’m not in a hurry to figure it out.

ETA; I was always planning on a ‘soft’ retirement at about 55 but God laughed at my plans

This is something I think about a lot. My husband and I are both in senior professional roles. His requires a huge time commitment (often working until 10pm-midnight) and is very stressful. Mine slightly less stressful and better hours.

We're thinking a lot about retirement, which we could conceivably do in about 4 years- he’ll be mid 50s and I’ll be early-mid. I feel really split- one part of me thinks it would be great for him to stop his massively stressful job and have some more relaxed years (especially as his father had a heart attack late 50s and I’m worried there may be a genetic element). But for me retiring at 53 seems very early and I feel I’d be missing out on the bit of my career where I get to fully stretch my wings, especially as I also took a career break earlier on for childcare reasons.

So many things to think about. I can see myself starting a side business or charity. Can’t see myself volunteering for an existing charity as my experience is that volunteering is hugely inefficient and frustrating, which in turn makes me think I’m seeing it purely in efficiency terms rather than as a valuable activity for the volunteers , which in turn suggests I’m not there yet.

Sorry, op, not really what you asked 😂 But yes I think retiring early without things to keep you young can be very ageing. There are lots of ways to keep in touch with the world though, if that’s what you want.

Depends on what your job is surely? Plenty of people have really boring jobs or jobs they don’t particularly enjoy, that don’t make them particularly ‘interesting’ or ‘interested’ myself included.

I’m only part-time at the moment as my children are still fairly young but the thought of going back to spending 40+ hours a week plus the time spent travelling to and from work, and having to cram all other responsibilities into 2 days a week when you’re already knackered, and getting 4 weeks annual leave a year is pretty depressing, can 100% see why people would want to retire early.

If anything there’s a million more interesting things to do in the world then ‘working’, so if you can afford it why not.

I personally cannot wait for retirement. I plan to study. I don't have a degree but I would quite like study through open university and study something of interest. I would like to get into fitness a little bit. Years of desk work is ruining my body. I might look in to volunteering which would be slightly related to in sector I work in now. I also want to spend time with my husband. I don't seem him much. At the end of the day you make retirement what you want.

Idleness?

I’ll be too busy drawing/painting/making pottery/gardening/writing/in the gym to indulge in any idleness!

You can’t really predict how long you will live. My BIL has just died from cancer at 60

Interested and interesting

Sod that performative middle-class twattery and fetch me the newspaper (with another coffee, if you don’t mind).

Yanbu. I just can't get excited about the idea of retirement, I'm currently trying to think of ways to carry on working beyond the age of 67 ...

My 80 year old MIL recently admitted to me that she deeply regrets retiring at 60. They don't have a lot of money and there's only so much gardening and walking they can do.

Who the hell can retire at 50-55 😩 I’d love to myself. I would do so many interesting things, volunteering would be a large part.

You do you.

Each to their own, if they are happy let them at it.