How do you stop obsessing over retirement? 🤣

[AssCeiling]

Weird question I know!

I'm about 8 -9 years away from retiring. I'm really looking forward to it.

But I'm also getting a bit "obsessive".

Maybe that's not the right word but every day I find myself thinking about how life will be different when I'm retired. Like I'm sat here now readying myself for work thinking "Imagine what today would be like if I didn't have work. What would I do?"

I don't hate my job at all. I'm not looking to leave or change my hours. I might go PT as I approach retirement age but not yet.

I love my life currently and I really don't want to wish my life away (though I don't think that's what I'm doing). I know it's a really weird question but how can I retrain myself to stop focusing on retirement so much?

Thanks!

This is me, but I only have a year or so to go. I have spreadsheets with financial calculations and countdowns, and I check my pensions too often for my health. It doesn't help that I moved to a role with a manager that is destroying my mental health so retirement feels like the escape route.

We retired the moment we had enough money to cover our costs after the mortgage was paid off, and he drew down his private pension and I was 18 months off drawing down mine, we put our savings into buying a house in France, rented out our UK house and moved here in 2021 and every working day, my alarm still goes off at 7am just to remind me how lucky I am that I don't have to get up if I don't want to.

OP, I stand with you! I'm mid-50s and have been thinking about retirement for at least a year. I can calculate it to the day pretty much. My DH is a few years older than me and he retires next year, I have another 4 years. Or, rather, I did have - Iike you I've done all the spreadsheets and forecasts and calculations and realised that we can afford for me to retire at the same time as him. So that's just over one year to go and I cannot wait. Unless I'm made redundant, which is a strong possibility and would see me jumping for joy.

Do you talk to anyone about possible retirement? I am 53 and hope to go at 62. I have worked full time all my life. I have 2 teens. I am in a government dept so pension won't be huge, but I will have something. I do not deal well with stress and get very tired. There is not loads of time for exrecise, meeting friends, dealing with the house etc.

If I try to talk to people my age and older at work they say that I am a long time away from retirement yet. One person, who is older, relished telling me that my dcs could be in college for 'years' thereby scuppering my retirement hopes.

Even my dh, who is 56 says that a person may have bad health in their 60s and could 'have' to retire etc. I know that any of us could get sick, have parents who need minding etc. If you thought about all that, you would never think ahead or plan anything.

There is one friend who will retire at 60. She is the only person who will talk about retirement. I mention my hopes to her. I have been used to getting such a backlash that I won't even mention retirement.

My parents are mid 70s and run a farm. My mother worked fulltime until she was 63. She can't come and go as much as she would like over the farm. Out of respect for her, I don't mention retirement.

Before I retired I was in charge of an educational centre aimed at retired people. Many came from a fairly wide rural area.

If there was any significant overnight snow I had to get up early and go to the centre and ring tutors and students telling them not to come in.

I retired one Christmas; new term started and snow fell! I will always remember the bliss of lying in bed watching the snowflakes and knowing someone else would be getting up, doing the ringing round and frequently dealing with grumpy people, usually dwelling nearby, who couldn’t see why classes had to be cancelled just because tutors might live 40 miles away and many students not much less.

DH is also retired now; rarely a day goes by without our saying how wonderful retirement is.

It's actually quite good that you are doing this. People need to plan for retirement, their finances and exactly what they plan to do with their time, investigate what opportunities for hobbies, volunteering etc are available.

The people who struggle and either become bored and depressed or end up returning to work after 6 months tend to be those going from full time work to zero with no thoughts of how they would fill their time.

Reducing your hours before leaving work completely is also helpful as you can start putting a post retirement plan into place eg dropping a day and taking up a new activity on that day.

@user1471554720 Basically, no, I only really speak with DH about retirement.
I'm looking at obsessed with early retirement but whenever I've mentioned this in passing to people, they are very dismissive.

@tanstaafl
A final salary pension paying at 60 doesn't necessarily mean that someone can retire at that age though as the pension will be a good deal below their current earnings and they need to add the cost of the state pension to have a comfortable living. Also a lot of final salary pension schemes have changed rules part way though. Local authority in my area, for example is final salary at 60 for contributions up to 2014 but after that it's career average at 67 (for my age) and you lose a percentage of your pension for every year below 67 you are when you retire.

It could be either that they won't be in the position to retire early themselves, or that by focusing so much on a point 8 years ahead that they are worried you are missing out on life in between. I said above that people need a plan, but not to the detriment of living in the present.

@TrickyD
Do you go to the education centre yourself as a customer now? Is it still going? It's unusual to have such a community resource nowadays, I don't think there's any day time adult education still going near me that's not employment focused.

As it is getting closer I think about it everyday.

Mortgage finishes this year and I have put aside extra savings for home repairs/improvements. I have no debt. Pensions are on track as I have been paying into one since I left school.

DC are young adults now and are no longer financially dependent on me. I have been building up the hobbies (including resources) that i would like to continue into retirement, so I will have some structure to my day.

Just doing a last push to save as much as I can/top up pension. I had planned to go p/t at 60 with final retirement at 63 but the nature of my work has changed and I am not motivated at all. I am not sure if changing to another role would make a difference (as I have done that already). The job market isn't incredible at the moment and all the roles that interest me are either zero hour contract roles or have extremely long hours, neither which interest me at this point in my life.

I daydream of all the things I will be doing and countdown to the day when it will actually become a reality.

I retired early, in my 50s. I took time off to care for my elderly father and after he died I had a talk with DH about things and decided I wouldn't go back to work. So many other things to do. DH waited till they kicked him out in a reorganisation as he was actually past retirement age then. I hadn't really given a lot of thought to retirement but it does take planning as time can just pass by without anything achieved.

No I don’t. DH and I seem to fill our days without it. But yes, it is still running. Entirely funded by students’ fees, nothing from local council despite its great value in providing educational and social opportunities for so many people, particularly those bereaved.

I'm counting the days, I have 6.5 years to go.
I'm not unhappy but I've reached a point where I'm 'tired' (albeit not physically) of working. It's the constant slog and just I have no choice in it.

DP and I often discuss what we'll do, where we'll go etc.

I think it's quite normal.

We retired early at 50. Lasted 4 years and are now back at work 😂

Live in the moment - why wish your life away?

Once I started thinking seriously about it, I got kind of obsessed too. I only resolved it by doing it! My (also extensive) spreadsheets said it was ok if we kept spending to a certain amount per year and so far, 2 years in, the stock market has been kind and we are fine and I have absolutely zero regrets.

by living for today and hope for tomorrow

I am not even thinking about it. I have severe mental health illness and generally the medication I have to take knocks ten years of my life. My grandmother with the same illness and medication died at age 62.

NHS admin here! Can't afford to retire so will be slaving to the bitter end! I get depressed thinking about it. We had a child later in our 40s and can't afford holidays abroad or anything even remotely luxurious so caravan holidays it is. I just try to focus on each day at a time. No point looking that far ahead.

When we are saying how much we love being retired, we add on ‘Thank God for Teachers’ index linked pensions and long may the triple lock continue’.

I felt like this in my previous career (business). Then aged 52 I retrained as a teacher and absolutely loved it. I was told by my Financial for the last couple of years to retire (he us great dnd said I should enjoy the last few years of good heath 😂) So did retire’ aged 63 at Xmas. (I’m calling it a sabbatical cos can’t imagine not ever working in a school again.)
So maybe change your a different job and her your mojo back for a few years?

I was forced to retire end of 2024 so money is a bit tight at the moment BUT
it is lovely not to rush everywhere. Really lovely. I didn't realise how much I was rushing.

Also having had high BP for 20 years, - 3 months of not working has now completely normalised it. 3 months. that's all it took.

That's not quite right re LGPS pensions. The normal retirement age up to 2008 is 60. It's 65 up to 2014. These are all based on final salary and lump sum on pre-2008 service. After 2014, retirement age is 67 and use career average for this portion.

So if retire earlier than those dates you'll have about reduction of about 5% per year. There are some protections depending on your age and service.

I'm in the LGPS and got my figures for my retirement planning - looking at next year or the year after ( at the latest).

My employer unexpectedly offered to make up a limited number of peoples' pensions to normal retirement age.I fit the category but have struggled to know whether to apply.I'd take a direct loss of about 12k per year and incidental expenses etc, obviously this would be reduced at retirement age by the state pension.
It's forced me to think about retirement which would be 7 years off normally and has made me realize I'll drift along , probably extending my work beyond pension age if I don't plan it carefully.