To be worried how I will manage to work until I am 67?

[brasty]

I am in my mid fifties. I already get more tired than I used to when younger. I wonder how I am going to manage to work full time until I am 67 years old. And continue to do my share of cooking, cleaning, family stuff and actually having some fun.

Anyone got a small defined benefit pension frozen? Transfer values are phenomenal at the moment and you can then use the new flexible drawdown rules.

I transferred a pension worth £1000 a year at 60 and got £55,000 for it! I couldn't believe it! Retired 4 years earlier on the back of that!

Obviously you need advice though as it won't suit everyone.

Castor oil plant?

A trip to Dignitas costs around £10,000 that includes the flight, documentation and direct cremation. It’s not a cheap option.

I really think the govt needs to give its citizens the option of being able to painlessly off themselves if they don’t wish to live in poverty or pain when they’re older. I have a child who is autistic and needs somewhere to live once he’s an adult. I don’t want the house sold to pay for my old age, I need it to go to him. I’m quite willing to die before retirement age to enable me to do that for him.

when there patently is money available
Also not forgetting all the money hoarded by large corporations and very wealthy individuals kept in offshore funds and what have you

The other thing is that I am now unemployed at 61 and nobody will employ me. With lots of qualifications I have applied to jobs I am qualified for and supermarket jobs and cafe jobs. Nobody wants me so someone who can work until they are 70 are lucky. I don’t get my pension for another 6 years!

Incitatus you are right, dignitas is too expensive. A previous poster and I will be using 'undignitas' aka cold river in winter. I would be ok with that as I hope to serve as food to whatever aquatic life there might be.

It's terrifying. I thought I was in a fairly decent position until I looked it up the other night and realised I'm on course to get a whopping £5k per year.. despite having paid pension contributions for 20 years..
Dp is on a decent final salary one so needs to stay where he is if he can hang in there.

Some of the comments on here are utterly heart wrenching.

I would rather try to be as healthy as possible for as long as I can by keeping fit and by the way a positive attitude and keeping worry at bay will improve the chance of you feeling better in general

hahahaha

what about people who are born with life long illnesses or people who give birth to other people with life long illnesses, who then become carers, child reaches 18 years old and said carer gets a kick in the bottom, no cv and still has caring duties towards their child.

Pensions should just form part of your total investments - there’s property, cash, other investments etc

Umm... most folks don't have property or cash, or other investments.

I have nothing at all. What will happen to me then?

I do think it's really difficult for a lot of low paid workers, but I also think there are a lot of young people (my friends and colleagues amongst them) who are not poorly paid but are living for the moment, putting less than 5% of their salary into their pensions (some as little as 1%), taking intercontinental holidays and funding fancy phones. Whereas I've chosen not to do those things and my pension is currently at 10% plus employer contributions and will be going up to 15% in the new year. Lots of people don't have choices but lots of others do and still choose not to save for their old age.

Pension savings are incredibly good value: if you are a lower rate tax payer earning over £21k with student loans then every £59 out your net pay is instantly £100 in the pot, and then at 4% growth rate that's nearly £400 35 years later. Early is the best time to save, because of the magic of compound interest!

username a cold river in winter sounds awful I want to go in a warm bed whilst watching cat videos on YouTube.

there’s property, cash, other investments etc

Looks like I’m relying on my signed Harry Potter and complete collection of Pokémon cards then.

Incitatus I want to be able to do one good thing as I go and that is to be food for animals. I have eaten a lot of animals in my life and I think it's only fair I give my body to them as food. That is my wish.

I think those in power who are forcing the citizens of this country to live like this should take a long, hard look at the situation and take steps to deal with these issues. They’re not the ones who have to deal with the consequences of everything being unaffordable and out of the reach of ordinary people. They’re not the ones who will face old age in poverty or being homeless.

And I don’t have words bad enough for the upper middle class god botherers who keep opposing assisted suicide and blocking attempts to legalise it in this country. They’ll face a nice, comfy old age surrounded by private carers and private medicine not the shite that’ll pass for care when we’re old, if we even live past retirement age.

I think pensions and retirement are the least of our problems. Only the rich will retire.

Lots of people work into their later years without even thinking about it. I will be 70 next year and I still work full time, I have no intention of retiring

That's bloody brilliant! More power to your elbow! Good news!

I'm pretty sure that you are enjoying your job. You wouldn't do it otherwise.

However, at the same age I'm still looking after my disabled daughter for no financial remuneration whatever. I can't just check out from my job and go home and go to sleep. She is with me 24 hours non stop duty.

I would like to retire quite soon, and do your job instead,

username they’ll retrieve your body and send it for post mortem. They won’t leave it there for the river creatures to consume. You’ll be all smelly and make a mess. Children and anglers will be uncomfortable being around you and you’ll pollute the water supply.

It ain’t gonna happen

user you'd be better off having a woodland burial if you want your body to go for animal feed.

'I also reallly want to know what this common suicide plant is too ! I remember reading the Oryx and Crake books and the Toby character had a whole loads of natural remedies I loved it '

Don't really think there are any. Better off scoring some heroin, then rigging up a running car accordingly, injecting the heroin and making for the Big Sleep. Yep, I'm already planning.

I'm quite shocked reading a lot of these posts.
We're talking about working until 67
And people are seriously talking about ways to kill themselves!
Omg! Get a grip!

Sadly there is just a gap (on average, across society, not singling-out the OP) between expectation and reality when it comes to what proportion of a life needs to be spent on productive work.

Basically nobody is nowadays economically active before about 18, and about 50% of the population are now not economically active until they're well into their twenties, having spent a chunk of their prime in a very expensive combination of leisure and education. People relentlessly live longer after retirement and have higher and higher expectations about the amount of medical treatment they'll have in that period - for example hip-replacements are commonplace now - 40 years ago you just expected to hobble.

All this has to be paid for, and ultimately the only way it can happen is if productivity at least keeps up with our ever-increasingly expensive and work-shy ways. Which it isn't. Which is why we have to work longer. (In years, if not in hours per week)

Earlier-retirement for women has long (always?) been irrational, and should have been got rid of years ago.

Incitatus Yes, I knew that. But let me dream of a good death.

Except most people now in their mid fifties and early sixties started work far earlier than the present generation. Only a very small percentage went on to further education. Most started work at 15 or 16.

"For deaths registered in 2016 in Great Britain, persons aged 40 to 44 had the highest age-specific suicide rate at 15.1 per 100,000 – this age group also had the highest rate among males at 23.7 per 100,000; the age group with the highest rate for females was 50 to 54 at 8.1 per 100,000."

Priorities? They change. When you're told you need an operation preferably NOW before you end up paralysed
Oh and then you lose your job of a decade
Pension? I won't even be able to afford to have a child ever
My priority is finding any job I can, and I'm educated with a degree but the salary range I'm being offered is 18-20k. I can't cut my outgoings and I was on 20k age 22. So you end up with a mortgage and now I can't take a 20k job as it won't pay the bills