To not really want to work anymore?

[caranconnor]

I am 50 and although I have enjoyed working in the past, I would prefer never to work again. I feel I have done enough. It is not an option, I have to work for another 17 years. But anyone else feel like this?

Soen, my mum didn’t go out to work till I was 18...1970
We lived well on dads salary
He never wanted her to work

My mum was a SAHM when we were children and went back to work when we were teenagers (late 1980s) - because she wanted to, rather than having to. The knowledge that it was a choice, not a necessity, I think made a big difference to her experience - that is, she always knew she could leave if things got awful; plus she'd had a long period of being at home.

I think house prices and cost of living has changed everything dramatically. Energy prices go up, fuel prices go up, food prices go up but in real terms no ones wages go up by the same factor. House prices are silly. My parents bought their marital home in the 70s for £3k. They still live in it and it's worth an exorbitant amount more. Interest rates on savings are non-existent. Were living longer and working longer hours to sustain ourselves.

I'm a single parent, I overpay my mortgage when I can and have started buying additional pension at work. It wont be much when I retire but hopefully it will make some difference to my life should I reach retirement age. I can but try.

These days you have to send the family cat out to work just to manage. I know so many people who live month to month just about scraping by. It truly is shocking in the 21st century.

If they put state pension up to 70 I'll be fucking fuming.

If they put state pension up to 70 I'll be fucking fuming.

If they put the state pension up to 70, I'll make sure I'm 'managed out' at work on capability grounds, and claim whatever unemployment benefit is available at the time.

Nearly 70, teacher, and I've just retired. Suddenly, 12-hour days, stress, marking piles of internal assessments seemed too much. Been doing it for 46 years now. Now, the days dawn bright and clear, I have coffee and sit on the veranda in the early morning sun without any demands or pressures. Bliss.

I was lucky to end my career (the last 14 years) doing a job I loved so much that I would have done it for nothing had I not needed the money! I was part of the sliding scale of retirement ages and went at 63+3 months, but the first thing I did was set up as a freelance doing the same thing as before!

I think the joy might have gone out of it if I was still full time - I like picking and choosing my work!

I just think at mid 50s where else would I go, could I cope? and in my 60s how will my brain work? my colleague of 61 is quite embarrassed as some things she cannot learn, so she just avoids them, Will that be me?

Also relevant is how you are treated as an older employee. I see some of my older colleagues patronised by the younger ones. There is no reverence for age, a bit of mild contempt in fact. (They will get old too of course, but that never crosses their mind.) That is not great for mental health, you are past it, should be put out to grass....

But also, some older workers get set in their ways and don't want to do things differently which can cause friction and stagnation. I can see why you wouldn't want to do stuff differently, if you resent having to work, you just want to make life as simple as possible and that includes not changing.

I am middle aged, I try to stay engaged, but it is getting increasingly harder to be arsed. The longer you have been working you see the same ideas come around with a fanfare like they are revolutionary.The first time you welcome them but after the 3rd and 4th time unless you are brand new, you just nod and try and hide a yawn. Yeah, whatevs...

Also, I used to be a hard worker. I am physically fit and not tired, but mentally I have checked out if I am honest. When you get to a certain point and realise there is no point striving, this is as good as it gets, you will never be a captain of industry (!), then it is hard to keep upbeat about working.

@caranconnor yes agreed I went to college at 16 but from 14 worked evenings, weekends and school holidays in a local shop and at 17 did the same as a waitress around college before full time at 18.
Had DD 10 years ago and took 6 weeks maternity leave before going back to work pt for 3 months then ft ever since in the last few yrs also took on a small extra job to make ends meet.
It won't get any better

The menopause is cruel though, just at a time of life when you want to be firing on all cylinders to stay current, you get brain fog, permanant period, anxiety and insomnia. It's a bloody nightmare. Luckily I was a trainee teacher when mine started, and my doctor took me seriously and started me on HRT patches straight away. They really saved me. I really would recommend anyone who is suffering to come over to the menopause board, or see their doctor. This site also very usefull.

@SecondaryBurnzzz HRT helps me massively too but now I can't get my patches and they keep trying me on alternatives I'm back to unscheduled bleeding, palpitations, anxiety, lack of sleep and terrible memory. Working is currently hell. Most days I feel I'm walking through treacle

I have a lot of friends who feel like this. I don't feel it particularly(early 40s)for some reason I'm full of beans and creative energyat the moment, but I'm very conscious that I am in that precious time between caring for young kids and caring for elderlies.
I don't have a very corporate job now. I used to for a while in a marketing type field but found it couldn't move up (or on) after 38...they want us to work til 68 but, if you are a woman, you are considered well over the hill by 40! I have a (very)small business now, and a job (not a career job) that I like so I'm not in the corporate world at all.
I don't have a pension at all so I basically will work til I die. At the moment I'm weirdly cheerful about that. Denial clearly!

indie my doctor switched me to ellesse duet (sp?) which really suits me, but patches are meant to be better. This video is really informative.

Oh yes. However, due to circumstances that are now beyond my control, I feel i will have to work well after I qualify for state pension (in 8 years). Apart from winning the lottery, I hope to find work that I really enjoy and that gives me more time for leisure pursuits.

I'm in my 50s and also feel that I can't work much longer. I'm not in good health at all but my colleagues of the same age feel the same way regardless of health. Even if well, I think you get the point where you realise you aren't going to progress any further in your job and totally lose enthusiasm. I remember my father feeling like this in his 50s but the difference was he could retire at 59 because pensions were better. I keep thinking that I may have to retire early due to ill health but I don't how I will afford to live if I do that.

Yes I think it is the menopause.
Also the ageism gets me. Someone mentioned how all of us in our fifties need to stay up to date with technology. When it comes to leisure technology my young colleagues are way ahead. But when we have had to learn last year how to use new technology at work, I was the one that got to grips with it first. That surprised me, but it was true. I got the impression that I was more used to having to explore different options, whereas my younger colleagues seemed to give up quickly and declare they couldn't do something.

I always find it slightly amusing when someone says the OP has disappeared from the thread i.e. you are not on it 24/7. I don't spend all my life on mumsnet.

And yes I am way more cynical. Because you have seen lots of management fads already enacted that are recycled in different packaging.

I am middle aged, I try to stay engaged, but it is getting increasingly harder to be arsed. The longer you have been working you see the same ideas come around with a fanfare like they are revolutionary.The first time you welcome them but after the 3rd and 4th time unless you are brand new, you just nod and try and hide a yawn. Yeah, whatevs...

Yes that is how I am my colleagues feel most of the time. The revolutionary ideas from management who are of a similar age or younger and probably less intelligent are a joke.

OMG yes and if you can afford it, do it. You no doubt have loads of things to, getting paperwork sorted, spreading the housework load of days instead of one mad push, going to the gym, doing voluntary work eg storytelling at the local library, or walking dogs for the RSPCA or some other, pottery courses, actually having time to see friends, gardening ... the world is your oyster. Go for it. You deserve it.

They should teach how to maximise earning potential in schools. Warn young people how to avoid debt and credit which is thrust upon them at a young age, and how to get into the habit of saving.

There simply won’t enough jobs around. Lots of older ladies work in supermarkets, those jobs won’t exist in the future. Nor will office admin jobs.

Climate change, war or disease will probably wipe us out before we get to pension age. People in their 30s that is.

The thing is that illness/issues are so much more likely in your 40s up.

In the last 6 months I've developed a knee issue (probably arthritis) and it's completely taken over my life.

It's mentally exhausting, my eye is twitching from tiredness as it affects my sleep. I can't weight bear on stairs so I'm constantly trying to find lifts. I'm paying £400 every 12 weeks for steroid injections plus £80 a month for the gym.

All I do now is work and go to the gym and be in pain. Oh and eat 1500 calories a day to lose weight (lost 3 stone, 3 more to go)

I've had a musco skeletal assessment and she told me it was normal for 50 and to use a stick!

I get 10 weeks out of the steroid injections where I'm almost 90% fine (and feel great) but the two weeks before the next one I can barely think/move (and I'm trying to reduce work as much as possible)

I'm in that 2 weeks now and feel constantly sick and in pain.

And at some point I have to stop the steroid injections as apparently they wear away the bone.

I fear I will actually end up crippled.

And about 30% of people get arthritis....

It’s all kind of awful and pointless. Go to work for 40 years in a bullshit job. Die. 🤷🏻‍♀️

That is the reality of life!

I try to stay engaged, but it is getting increasingly harder to be arsed. The longer you have been working you see the same ideas come around with a fanfare like they are revolutionary.The first time you welcome them but after the 3rd and 4th time unless you are brand new, you just nod and try and hide a yawn. Yeah, whatevs...

Ha, I can so agree with this, and I've only been in my job for four years!

The repetition of ideas, as if somehow, this time, it will work even though it hasn't worked at all in the past. It's frustrating and depressing and it kills any motivation you might have.

I hate to inform you, but the pension age is set to rise. Again. Still. If you can afford retire, please, do it. You do not have to retire at 67! That's when the State Pension Age comes into force. If you have enough pension to retire at, e.g. 26, retire. You will not get your State Pension until 67.Or a bus pass. Already, my son's retirement age will be 70. He's only 36. You can log on to the Government web site for pensions, to find out when you can retire, and how much it's likely to be. You can also do that weird QR thing. Which I don't have. Well, I might have it. I'm a phone technophobe. I was SO looking forward to my bus pass. Free travel, all over the country. Pack a sandwich, get to the bus station, get on the bus. Sit back. Get back to the bus station, get on another bus, going somewhere else. My 96 year old friend does this, every single day. Bless her. She leaves at 9.30, and gets back about 5.30. She's usually travelled the whole County of Bedford, and probably dipped in to another couple of Counties. I want to be like Audrey!!