We’re very similar ages to you, OP, but don’t have children and we both work desk jobs (primarily from home). Although I probably could stay in my job until state pension age (68), the thought of another 24 years of it fills me with absolute dread. I feel tired, drained, apathetic and want to retire by 60 at the latest, so that’s another 16 years, which is still pretty bad but more palatable than 24 years. My husband despises his job (or any job) and wants to retire immediately (not happening!). Working from home has had a big impact… if I was still having to commute in each day, my expiry date would be a lot sooner.
Our mortgage is due to be paid off in four year’s time, then we’re going to throw that money at savings/pensions. I have no idea at this point if 60 is a realistic retirement age for either of us. How does one calculate these things? As someone said upthread, their colleague had a stroke at 56 so who really knows what to plan for? I know that once I’m out of the work force, I never want to have to go back, so I want to build up more savings than I think we’ll ever need.
I don’t even know if my job will exist in 15-20 years’ time. It gets harder every year (increased volume and complexity) and I may be automated out of a job at some point. As I work in Higher Education, that may take considerably longer to do than if I were in the private sector, so if I can cling onto my job for at least another 10+ years then a healthy redundancy package could be enough to cover me until retirement age anyway.
We have been basing our (vague) projections on the assumption that both of us will receive full state pensions, but of course if that’s scrapped at any point then we will have to have a major re-think.
We may receive inheritances at some point, but we never factor that in because it cannot be relied upon (and most likely we’d be retired by then anyway, so it wouldn’t be all that helpful).
16 more years of work though… shudder!