How do you plan to spend retirement?

[Bluemooninmyeyes1]

Ok I’m only in my 30s but it’s a Monday morning and I’m daydreaming about retirement and the things I plan to do lol. I’m not in a particularly well paying job so my pension won’t be much but I’d love to move into a quant little bungalow and buy a caravan near the coast. I would also get a dog to take on lots of walks near the sea, cook nice healthy meals from scratch every day and also enjoy a nice holiday now and again.

How does everyone else envisage retirement?

I reckon after a week I'll get bored! Nonetheless I'd probably get a place on Portugal or abroad somewhere and spent a few months of the year there

In mid thirties too so a long way off for me lol

I love your dream plan OP and hope for something similar.

My retirement will be very short. I really hope to work til the very last opportunity.

I guess I will spend it going to medical appointments and reading.

I'd love to have a retirement like my parents - still in our childhood home, pottering around quite happily together with plenty of amazing holidays. I can't imagine we'll be able to afford to travel as much or as luxuriously as they do but we have a toddler and a baby and it's a lovely fantasy.

Working as long as I can because I can't afford to retire! I am 50, always worked, but my pension will be tiny.
I am a teacher. I will be working at 70.

I've got 6 years until I retire which will be at 60. I plan to not worry and fret about work. I've worked full time my whole life even during the baby stages of my two girls and that will be enough. I will probably travel.

I planned an early retirement and went abroad to a far-off and unusual land. It was very exciting but also very challenging. I had planned 'the dream' for several years.

There were two things I found out....firstly, despite my age and maturity, I didn't realise that I would feel homesick, that took my by surprise.

Secondly, the dream was stopped by COVID. The pandemic caused problems with residency and in the end I had to return back to the UK....and now I am working part-time again. The moral is, no matter how careful your plans are, you really can't prepare for everything....

My retirement will also be short and when it happens I'll be spending my time attempting to make my tiny pension stretch as far as possible.

A campervan and a passport! Or if im wealthy (unlikely) a passport and list of hotels scattered across Europe.

I’m going to do an OU degree in maths and get good at tennis.

I’m 49. I could theoretically retire at 60-ish, depending on how my private pension does, with state pension and occupational pension at 67/68. However, I like working so I might just carry on.

I think a lot depends on my health at that point. I think the reason it’s common that pensioners go on cruises, is that long haul travel is tough at that age. I’m 50 and I now really struggle to go on a 12 hour flight in economy! It makes me hurt all over. So I personally am doing all my “big” trips pre retirement. So any travel in retirement will probably be more short haul. I’m quite happy pottering around at home, I have lots of hobbies. I may still do a couple of days a week of work (It’s possible in my career) to supplement my income. I guess you could class me as semi retired now as I only work part time. So it won’t be a huge change.

I'm also in my 30s. I have a progressive, incurable condition that means I will almost definitely be dead long before I get anywhere near retirement age.

So, the experiences I want to have in my life I bring into the present rather than postponing them all into the future.

Even before I got my diagnosis I had seen too many people save up all their dreams of nice things they wanted to experience "for when I retire", leaving the present as a long hard slog, only to die before they made it there.

I am retired at 55, actually have been for about 3 years. Mainly for medical reasons but we’re also fairly comfortable financially

I’m no longer able to travel but spend my time with my rescue animals, and bottle feeding abandoned pups and kittens when required. Reading, writing, crochet, cooking and swimming in summer. Thankfully we had already made our move abroad 17 years ago so we have the benefit of a sunny, warm climate most of the year

I’m currently planning a mid life crisis gap year, I’m going to be flipping a cottage to Airbnb to provide funds for me to travel for a year, if it works out I have about 18 months until I can do it.

I’ll then need to work again but hopefully not as much. It’s currently the only thing getting up in the mornings. Daughter will be off to Uni.

Volunteering! There’s a local hedgehog charity I would love to volunteer with. Midday gym classes, maybe an OU course, hopefully help out with my grandchildren if I have any. Oh and I’d like to have a dog too.

I want to have a catamaran and be cruising it around the Bahamas, through the Panama canal and onto Tonga, Fiji etc. I have been learning to sail for the past 5 years, building up from basic dinghies to now dealing with yachts, but I am still quite a beginner. I'm not too bad on theory stuff and navigation/weather etc. And we did a few big long haul trips by air so far (some pre-DD and some with her) but only 2/3 week holidays so I want to be able to spend more time just exploring different places.

My back up plan is moving into the countryside to a house with a large enough plot (at least an acre) and being a lot more self sufficient with fruit, veg and hopefully a couple of chickens and pigs. (I used to have an allotment but had to give that up with pressures of time and distance, but still grow some veg in our pocket hankerchief back garden).

Reality is probably that DH and I will still be in this house, or a similar one close by. Probably doing some work on Boards, charities etc, doing a lot more crafting, getting out to theatre etc more than now, and just mooching around. (I do volunteer now, I try to get to lunchtime performances in the music venue near my office a few times a year and live theatre at least once a year, and I have managed to get back to crafting this year again).

We're early 50s and both part time now and I am dropping down to half my hours at the end of the month. So I will be semi retired.
I had a good pay rise this year so it won't be too different money wise. Dp is going to be working for another year then he's doing the same. In two years we'll properly retire.
We have small pensions and work pensions, two rentals and savings.
We've got a camper van and a holiday cottage and dogs already. We'll be getting touring motorbikes too.
Hoping to carry on with festivals, rallies, holidays abroad, city breaks and cruises that we do anyway.
Maybe a world cruise if we can stretch to it. And we normally have a busy social life so hopefully we can continue with that.
Would also like a few rescue animals and help out on local wildlife projects.

Planning to retire by 57. Will spend winter months in Spain/Portugal. When in the UK, I’ve got lots of hobbies to keep me busy. Will do a lot of hiking, reading, weekends away. Hoping for a couple of long holidays a year too.

@Athrawes

Working as long as I can because I can't afford to retire! I am 50, always worked, but my pension will be tiny. I am a teacher. I will be working at 70.

Teachers get a really good pension though?

Exploring SE Asia. My family are from that part and realistically with work and family, I won’t be able to do a gap year. I’m hoping the cheaper living cost will make my pension stretch out as much as possible. It would be nice to spend a few months getting to know a place rather than being a tourist for 2 weeks. Then when my husband and I get too old and we can’t travel anymore, we want to downsize and live near our children.

Not anymore they don't blue25. I'm a teacher in my 50s. I have had to move overseas to try to save money to retire on.

I hope to be able to retire at 60, home school my grandson (because frankly, UK schools are so starved of money and resources, I don't think they are fit for purpose anymore). I would like to move house, to be by the sea. Do some private tuition and a bit of supply teaching.

I hate the thought of having no work.

After decades of working in the big city I plan to cash in my tiny flat and find a house "back home" in the market town near where I grew up. Enough garden for a small allotment and for drinking beer in the sunshine .

In a house by the sea on the French/Spanish border half the time and in a house by by the sea here the other half of the time. Living by the sea so I can walk on the beach every day and go swimming in it whenever I want is my ultimate dream so if the France /Spain thing doesn’t work out I’ll be happy as long as I have a house by the sea somewhere.

What retirement?

Covid and cancer has wiped us all out.

Dp has no job and is 64 so won’t probably get another.
My business has gone, savings and pensions have gone, dds and ds’s businesses have gone.
It is looking quite bleak.

Atm it is looking like everything we have worked so hard for over the years was for nothing.
I would have been better off drawing benefits and letting the council house us.