I dream of retiring and....

[LaurieFairyCake]

Reading all of Austen

Walking 15000 steps a day, specifically around London

Going out to every decent pub and cake shop in London

Doing an hour of yoga every morning

Joining: choir/dance/badminton/am dram/going on a climbing wall/taking up archery (all of these activities are within half a mile of my house)

Write my novel

Paint 🎨

So so many things ....

DH and I were just talking about this last night. It's probably 5 years away now for us but I've come to realise I will need structure and I really am not the community volunteer type. So I'm going to just start by working 2 days a week. I think we will also need to help our daughters out with their lives as rents are now through the roof. Of course we will take off in the campervan and go for walks and chill with friends but we do that now. I really don't see how people dramatically change their lives on retirement. I've certainly not seen evidence of that happening from my brothers and DHs family.

Paint, draw, tend my garden properly.

Learn the cello.

Live somewhere warm by the sea during winters and spend the evenings sitting on my balcony just watching and listening to it in peace and daytimes reading in the sunshine and swimming in the sea, on rotation.

Getting up in at 4am with insomnia and having a cup of tea and puttering and not having to care about the alarm going off at 6am and then having to go and teach teenagers. Instead I will simply read and then go back to sleep at 8am. I'll wake up at 11a and then go to the gym. I'll then get on a flight to the alps and go for long walks. Alone. I'll eat strudel and swim in lakes.

No one will make demands of me.

The problem is I need to be retired, rich and fit.

I want to fly from Nepal to Bhutan. Travel the whole tran-Siberian and Mongolian. Swim something brilliant (the channel maybe, the Dalmatian coast...). Dive with rays and sharks. Backpack around South America.

In order to be rich enough, I can't retire. In order to be fit enough, I need less work stress. Gah.

No one will make demands of me.

Yes.

Dreams.

Don’t wait get on with things you love now. I’m 66 and retired in May since then I’ve had two cancer scares,loads of Gp and hospital visits scans etc. thankfully everything clear. Lost a much loved relative. Had covid whilst away on holiday. Now mums in hospital. And there’s more upset, illness in the pipeline. Wish I’d stayed at work.

@Limetreee that's so unfair, so sorry to hear that. 😔

I'm sure most of us responding would love to get on with doing what we want now, but can't! Children to raise, insufficient pension pots to retire yet and not allowed to access them yet anyway in some cases, not old enough to be allowed to.

Owning a giant RV and travelling across Europe with our two lovely big dogs.

RV doesn't exist yet, neither do the dogs.

Gardening. Not having to fit it around long working hours. Being able to make the most of the weather and seasons instead of having to fit everything into one day a week.
Spending time with my mum.
Going to yoga and Pilates.
Swimming during the day when the pool is quiet.
Not having to plan holidays in advance and take a wild stab at booking annual leave and hoping the weather will be kind. Being able to say next week it will be glorious so let’s book a hotel/caravan and go away.
Being able to see friends as I’ll be available.
Not having to get up when I really don't feel like it.
Being able to book an appointment without having to plan months in advance due to work.

Oh and painting. I’ll be able to paint again.

My main dream is to be free from illnesses, my mum retired at 60 and within a year had a life limiting illness that scuppered her retirement plans completely. She died at 70 having spent all of that ten years coping with her condition.
But also I dream of,
No alarm clock.
Pottering around in my own time.
Seeing family that live to far away for a day trip.
Travel
Books.
Gardening.
Baking & trying new recipes.
Up cycling old furniture.
Visiting place in the uk.
Making new retired friends.

Once you have read Austen you can read all the spin offs. Murder at pemberley, the other Bennett sister, Charlotte. There are loads of them and they are great comfort reads.

I dream of work not consuming my thoughts, being able to do the exercise I need to stay well, walking holidays, volunteering, learning to love cooking again. I have ten years unless my bastard long term condition forces my hand to go earlier.

Oh and actually having time to do what I want over Xmas. My whole working life I've had jobs where we were still working all over Xmas and I've only ever had one or two days off at most. To be able to do Christmasy things instead of being at work will be lovely.

This thread makes me sad. I would love to do so many of these things but will be trapped at home caring for my severely disabled son until I die. With the state of any respite facilities now I doubt there will be anything by then.

I'm the same. I've toyed with semi retirement when the time comes.

In the first year of our retirement we plan to follow the European part of the Grand Prix circus in a motor home. Following that we‘ll split our time between Switzerland (we live near Zurich now, although we‘ll downsize somewhere closer to the alps) with lots of hiking and lake swimming, and our summerhouse in Denmark, eating lots of smørrebrød and long walks by the beach. DH will probably do lots of running while I knit/crochet/cross stitch/sew clothes and read endless books. Can’t wait!

@whiteroseredrose if you have a DC pension you would surely buy an annuity so that you don’t run out of money, wouldn’t you?

I can't wait. I've been saving towards self funding a few years so I can retire early, and it's still a few years off but within reach. I plan to spend good few months to a year just revelling as I think it will take a while to sink in. But Yes I plan to move/exercie more if it's gym stuff, yoga, walking. I do still read but I look forward to not having my mind preoccupied by the horrors of work so that I can more regularly. I look forward to seeing friends more - I've really slowed down socially over the last few years. I'm spontaneous in that I do little but often do what I want, but I look forward to being spontateous in a bigger way, day trip to France for dinner or something, I mean lunch, I can wake up early but hate staying up late!

Not unless you are bonkers! You'd get about half of the actual value of the money, unless annuities change massively between now and when you retire.

AND then if you die everything invested in an annuity is gone, whereas anything left invested in your pension fund if you use drawdown can be given to your children or whomever you nominate. As things stand, you'd have to be nuts to buy an annuity.

I retired over 5 years ago and for me the best bit is not having to struggle into work with a sore throat or when I'm feeling unwell but not really ill enough to justify staying home when I taught exam classes. I potter about doing my garden, I've designed my holiday home in France internally and we've done the work ourselves all except electrics. Lots of holidays out of school holiday times, so finally I got some cheap deals, I read, I drive down to see my sister's 4 times a year and sleepover, I go to lunch with my son who works on shifts. I do more baking and cook from scratch. I go to see my DGC. I watch some Netflix. I crochet. I never get bored.

I dream of buying a cottage in the middle of the Derbyshire Dales and walking every day.

2 years ago I got a great annuity. The rates shot up. I paid £34k and I'll get £467 ACM for life. There is also a Guarantee you will get all money back. You do have to pay tax on it though.

@Nepmarthiturn I agree re the annuities. I work for a pension company and gave a beneficiary an annuity quote. She would have had to live into her late nineties to break even!

That was when interest rates were 0% though. I hope they've improved since.

Looking at them at the moment they are still exceedingly dire. Anything that's beneficial to customers is always (not so) mysteriously slower to improve when interest rates rise e.g. annuity/ savings rates etc, compared to how fast mortgage/ loan rates adjust, isn't it? 🤔🤣 But I can't see annuity rates improving to anything close to making them worthwhile to be honest when current rates mean you'd be taking roughly half of what you could with drawdown (even with no index linking!!) and also be gambling the entire pot on your surviving into very old age rather than any surplus being an asset to pass on. It's a lose/ lose proposition which I guess is why annuity purchase volumes are so low, you'd have to be a bit crackers to do it!