Would you keep working after 45 if you didn't need to?

[elsamayy]

Disclaimer: This is not me yet, I am just thinking ahead and evaluating options.

My ambition is to accumulate and invest enough money within the next 10 years to put me in a position of financial independence. I am mid-30s now, so that will take me to mid-40s. I am also planning to have a child in the next couple of years. So by that point, I might have a primary school-aged DC.

At the moment, I work full-time in a regular corporate job with decent flexibility and good perks, nothing awful, but it’s still a lot. I’m someone who experiences financial anxiety, so feeling financially secure is really fundamental for me. My partner earns a good wage as well, but I prefer not to rely on anyone else but me for my financial stability. The agreement with my partner is that he will go part-time for a few years if a DC arrives.

I love the idea of scaling back or stepping away from work to spend more time at home and just enjoy life and family a bit more, but I am conscious that 45 is very young to stop working, and it might be a silly plan.

So, I’m wondering: if you reached a point where you could afford not to work through financial independence, would you actually stop? Or would you keep working for structure, social contact, or “just in case”?

I’d love to hear from anyone who’s thought about or done something similar.

I'm 51 and still working. I have worked full time since I was 17.

But, I do want to retire early. My partner is 5yrs old than me, and if he retires at 65 I would like to retire at the same time. So ...... i have 9yrs ish to stash away as much cash as possible (note to self, stop buying shite from Amazon).

I'm 44 and work part time (no kids). I made this decision because I can afford it (just) and working FT was just too much. It's the perfect balance because I work, enjoy what I do but it doesn't take over my life. It might be different if you have children, but 45 is very young to stop work altogether.

My husband's grandfather retired at 55. He is now 80 and has been retired for 35 years. He is incredibly bored and depressed. Unless you have something positive to do with your relative youth and free time like travel or child rearing or volunteering, it might leave a lot of empty time.

Yes that’s the reality of people we know who’ve not worked for many years, that they feel
aimless, get obsessed with politics or family, very fixed on their views, depressed from lack of variety.

whereas people I know working 2- 4 days a week are pretty happy they’re best of both.

We know a couple of people who have sold/floated businesses at about 45 and have stopped full time work at that point. They are now very wealthy and seem very busy, not at all as if they are 'not working.' They have non-exec and senior charity roles, oversee their own charitable organisations, mentor young business people and seem to enjoy endless sporting quests, spells overseas etc. But their financial situation is very different to £2 million invested. At that level, you could of course provide yourself with a decent income, but would you comfortably have the capital to pay for school fees, university fees, flat deposits and the various other gifts you might wish for your children or grandchildren? Obviously, very many are not in the fortunate situation to be able to offer this and many have no choice but to stop work early. But if you could, it seems a shame to give up a good income at such a young age and compromise your wealth in that way. I am all for retiring in time to enjoy the good years, but unless you have a great next act planned, 45 seems very young, both in terms of giving up the chance to make more money, and in potentially getting 'old' before you need to.

I think investing as much as you can is a great idea. You just never know what the future will bring. If you have capital, then you have options.

It also might not be "your" rule, but it's worth thinking about eliminating whatever it is you don't like about work, and only doing the kind of work that suits you.

Do you like getting out of the house? Exercising a bit? Staying in? Events?

Friend of mine works in a garden centre 3 days a week post a big career, and she loves the fresh air, meeting people, but it being low stress! My friend's neighbour is a landscape architect after making a killing in trading in the 80s. He does a job a month for pocket money and is on great terms with all his neighbours because he's very cheap and reliable. He's not squeezing jobs in - just making about £1k profit a month.

I retired at 48. I enjoyed every moment of my career but got to a stage where I realised that if I stayed another year it would be just like the few that had gone before it.

Financially secure and with a list as long as my arm of other things I wanted to do so I was off. 12 years later and I've never been bored.

I live very frugally and have a couple of little things I do to make beer money.

I'd stop working as soon as I could, to be honest. I have so many hobbies and things I want to do with my life, work only takes time away from those things. I'd definitely never be bored!

In a word: No.

I accumulated enough money to stop working at 52, I took one of my pensions at 55. DH joined a few years later, he is younger than me. I worked FT from 18 after A levels till 52 with 2 very short maternity leaves. I started working at 13, which was allowed back then. I was working 20 hours a week when doing my A levels, I trained on the job post A levels with release to college sponsored by my employer. I started investing and exploring money as a teenager as did my not known to me then DH. We have our pensions and have increased our income by a further 2/3 with investments over the last year.

Hi OP. Yes I would. I did. I retired at 48. Planned to leave at 50 but I had absolutely had enough of my career - high paying corporate type - and chose to go earlier with a bit less cash. I had formally worked towards it for 5 years at that point - a FIRE devotee, but had been financially prudent for years. I was the family breadwinner too so it was a big shift for everyone.
I stayed out of the workforce for 2 years and focussed on new hobbies and learning skills I had always wanted to pick up. Then I decided I wanted more and chose to volunteer for a charity. That actually eventually translated into a paid job and I now work 3 days per week for the charity in a job I love. The savings I have mean I can afford to do that without sacrificing my lifestyle. To me the point of having the financial buffer is not to work or not but to have the choice not to.

Also great for your brain to retrain at this age and do something new @SickandTiredofEverything I’ve been doing the same thing 26 years and i can see the appeal of learning something new.

Goodness me, 45 is very young to think about giving up work. I loved going to work at that age, found it very fulfilling, enjoyed being with colleagues and liked earning some money.

It must be great to be completely financially independent so you have choices. For example, you could have a year off to do something else. However completely giving up work twenty years early is a different matter altogether.

@elsamayy I gave up work aged 35, coinciding with DS1 being too poorly for work to work with a sickly baby. I could give up because my career from 20 to 35 was lucrative and I married a successful man.

By the time I settled dd into reception 7/8 years later, I was bored doing PTA stuff, playing tennis, volunteering at church, doing a lay non exec role. Not only that, but as DH pointed out, I was getting very busy and for free. Also, the cooker doesn't speak to you as you clean it.

So, I went back to work, starting a new career. 22 years later, just reducing my hours.

So no, it sounds great but the reality is different. Also, I think my marriage and relationship with my children became more mature because I was something other than mummy who only talked about the children, schools and our next holiday.

I might do two days but perhaps not when my children were still young.

Not working for money does not mean that life is empty.
If you have plans for how you would like to spend your time then do it! Why not? Sounds like a good plan to me.

I’m 45 now, and no I wouldn’t stop working at this age. 60 maybe. Part time would be nice (I work 6 days a week at the moment!) but giving up altogether would be too much.

I enjoy my job and have friends at work though, so perfectly understand why other people might feel differently.

I personally wouldn't, mainly because the times I have had off work in the past haven't been great for my mental health. With DD at school and DH working the days are actually pretty dull unless you have lots of hobbies and friends. There's only so much housework and going to the gym I can do. I thrive on the routine of part time work and need the socialisation to feel energised. But that is me personally. We are already pretty financially well off but I keep my part time job as it has a good pension and I think work is about more than just cash money each month

I enjoy my job so I wouldn't stop but would cut down hours a lot if I could afford it. I'd also say assuming you have just enough to retire early is dangerous when you don't know what the future holds. You may need/want to support your kids/grandkids as they grow up in all sorts of ways. You or someone in your family might need full time professional care.

Also I agree that when everyone else your age is working it could be hard to fill the days without spending a huge amount of money. If you were absolutely loaded (multi millionaire) then you could go off travelling, go to spas and expensive places with your partner or alone. But if you have just enough to not need to work you presumably have to live fairly frugally and therefore risk getting bored pretty fast.

I hate not working and wish that I could but I have a disabled son.

I tried to go back in a lowly role but it became a transition year with lots of social services emails / meeting and disability student meetings / emails and liaising with the care agency. Things are still not settled. It became chaotic with my mind on all that I had to do for my DS whilst trying to juggle the job. That was no good for me or my firm so I quit.

I realised that I can’t go back to my old job as I can’t cope with the stress of that and DS. But I do miss just being useful and separate from a carer. Part of me would even work for free in the non stressful aspects eg drafting statements.

i have sufficient income without work that i pay 40% tax. I have an investment property and also a dividend from family investments. I also have savings.

I have also worked out that DH does not need to work but he will until he’s 67. He is very driven and loves his job. So that’s over a decade more to go. He even works some weekends to catch up admin/ drafting.

I have to be more organised in planning evenings out and maybe short trips with friends. Luckily, some of my friends are retiring or work only part time.

My time with my DH is precious and I need to plan it better. We do take lovely holidays with the family. We also plan nice weekends every now and then when we see a show or comedian etc. I wish to plan more short breaks with him but it’s hard to get PA funding for my adult disabled son.

You need to get out there and join classes and go to the gym regularly. Also plan days out with friends.

You end up being the house skivvy if you are not careful as well as chief cook.

So for me; I need to be out there. I went back to work for a while even though the tax on my paltry minimum wage salary was going to be 40%. I had overheads eg paying a dog walker and bus fare so at times it seemed that I was working almost for nothing.

I do miss the people I was with even though I was a dinosaur and my boss was younger than me. However it was hard taking flak from clients whilst on a low wage and not having to work.

Eventually, I saw that my DS was going to suffer without me home for the Summer and it was quite disruptive. He had to have a procedure in Summer and I needed to be home to care for him.

However, I would have happily done some work for the company on the side unpaid as aspects of the job I genuinely miss.

I also missed just being with other people even if they were considerably younger. They were very welcoming and made me fit in. I became quite fond of them in a maternal way.

So there’s lot to be said for work but also lots to be said for not working.

Join classes / the gym/ volunteer etc

I’m not specifically aiming to retire at 45 (and I have kids who are no doubt going to be expensive…!), but my financial goal is to generate a passive income stream of some sort so I have choices.

So - yes maxing out my ISA allowance annually, and putting enough in my pension that I can just stop thinking about it by my mid 40s.

As to will I retire at that point… probably not, but having the choice when you want to do it is good.

I wouldn’t sacrifice actually being able to enjoy my life to do the above (as many do, if you look at the FIRE community). You never know what might happen.

My weakness is that I want a really nice house - so having some sort of job will be important for that, albeit that could be something a lot less all consuming than what I do now.

I’d definitely quit my day job but I’d work in other ways, like maybe pursue things I put on the back burner or dabble in other industries or start a business. I wouldn’t be completely economically inactive, part of being financially stable is being able to earn an income should the worst happen. At 45+, you’ll find it hard to reenter the workforce after a career gap.

I think you’ve got to have a plan with what you do with your time. My FIL retired at 49 as he was made redundant and he’s spent more than 30 years just sitting in a chair not doing much and it really shows.

The difference between him and my dad (they were very close in age) was vast and I think that’s mainly due to the fact my dad was still working and engaging with people.

I’m 45 and while many years ago I thought that I would want to stop working when I could, as I have got older I have realised I don’t want to retire. I really like what I do. It’s a busy and sometimes stressful job, but it is intellectually stimulating and I feel like I am contributing something to society.

There are two main things that have put me off retirement: I found maternity leave incredibly boring and realised I missed working, and I have seen my mother, who retired at 60, change (not for the better) since then into someone whose engagement with the wider world is so much more limited than it was when she worked. Her world got smaller and frankly, so did her mind. She has become more anxious about the smallest, stupidest, things, I think because without work she has less of a frame of reference for what is worth worrying about, and more time to sweat the small stuff. By contrast, my father who continues to work (part time) aged 79, is far more engaged and both more interesting and interested and less anxious. He does not need to work, he chooses to.

Within about 5 years I won’t need to work for financial reasons, but I will choose to.