Is retirement all it's cracked up to be?

[madroid]

If you have actually retired, are you enjoying it?

All things being equal, without, for example, health problems are you actually enjoying your free time? What do you do? What does your day look like?

I imagine there's a 'honeymoon' period where you relish not having to get up to go to work, catch up with all sorts of things... but then what? What have you got into?

@BeaBachinasec

Thank you so much.

Well I dunno most of my friends are retired, they are always out and about. One always goes on walks/theatre/cinema. Another goes on holidays! In fact I joke she should have had a mobile home that she can travel around in!

Pretty unlikely that a banker even in the IT department would marry a care assistant tbh

I worked in IT in banking and can say it’s not unlikely.

I didn’t earn 200k though.

That they'd marry a care assistant or they'd have a £200k pa pension?

I don’t think that the poster meant that their DP had a £200k pension, I think they meant they had a £200k salary before they retired. Which is possible in IT in Banking especially as a contractor.

How much of that they saved towards a pension is another matter.

Up until this year (when the rules changed) you couldn’t save more than circa £1.1m in a pension (a bit less than that, I can’t remember the exact figure) without a punitive tax bill on the surplus of 55%. So a pension over about £50k a year (plus state pension) is not a sensible idea to have, you are better off saving into ISAs.

That wasnt the point. £200k IT manager with a care assistant = unlikely combination.

I doubt very much anyone would wipe arses for minimum wage whilst living with someone earning £16,000 a month.

@3BSHKATS I think so too and I think that figure is ludicrously high even in IT - I think what may have been meant was a £200k pension pot .

That they’d marry someone who was a carer.

I think they meant pension pot or possibly salary.

not that it matters, but perhaps they met when he was a jobbing IT bloke?

They meant what they said.

They had £200 in their pension POT. Which at current rates gives you about £11k a year.

I doubt they'd be doing 10 holidays a year on a £200k pot. If that was on a drawdown basis over 30 years (an assumed age range of 60-90) it would mean an annual income of £6.6K....

More likely it's salary. I know IT contractors and specialists on six figure salaries in that range. If you are talented, with specialist knowledge, you'll be in demand.

But what size pension would a £200k pension pot give? I'm no expert but don't think that would give a particularly big pension. I think that poster drew attention because they said they had 10 holidays per year. Depends what people count as a holiday. Some will count a few nights away as a holiday.

Sorry, missed the previous messages making the same point.

I stopped working several years ago - early reitement I guess; but I'm primary carer for a disabled adult child so I'm still busy doing that.

DH has just retired. He helps me with dc in the mornings and goes back to bed. After lunch (which he usually makes) he falls asleep on the sofa. In the evening he falls asleep on the sofa....

🙄

You are embarrassing yourself, now...

@3BSHKATS

Get over yourself.🙄🙄🙄

When I had no childcare and Dh was working in Europe Monday to Friday and earning a fuck ton of money I worked for £8 an hour in a school kitchen for two hours a day for the company and the holidays. DH was in a good year on £150k

I eventually returned to my qualified profession.

Stop being so judgemental it is a most unattractive trait.

I would find that v hard to live with. My Dh who works shifts so gets easily exhausted with the constant change of body clock nods off on the sofa in the morning on his days off and I even struggle with that even though it's basically totally understandable

About £11-12k a year

Oh believe me he is being told!

The first month or so after I retired I just couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. I’d sleep until 10 every day after years of getting up at 6am. It took a while for my bodyclock to adjust and now I get up at around 8. I hadn’t realised how exhausted I was.

@TheCreamTeaWasFromMe yes probably a contractor , you may well be right. My sons in IT in London and it just seemed a really high figure as even really senior PMs and specialists were more like £90k or so- but I was thinking salary- I do know shorter term contractors that made that yes- I used to work in in house recruitment for a big IT consultancy