To suddenly not want to work anymore?

[MasterGland]

I want to sit at home with my cats and read books. Perhaps bake occasionally, play board games with my son. Weed the garden.
I have realised that I can easily fill my days with these things. They make me happy. I am really struggling with motivation at work. I used to be quite career oriented, but now I keep calculating the minimum I need to retire, and how I might do it as soon as possible.
It is a sudden change for me, and not sure if it is related to the current lockdowns... but have not directly been affected by them really as worked straight through both. Anyone else had a sudden change of heart about the pursuit of endless work?

I took a sabbatical aged 46 and while I found stuff to do - gym, coffees, house stuff - I lost my "fizz". Every day was the same, no-one appreciated my efforts to make a nice dinner or keep the house particularly clean.
It wasn't fulfilling. I'm glad I did it so I realised that, but I went back to work within 6 months.
Interestingly, none of the things I enjoyed doing - coffees and gym - are even possible during lockdown!

I feel exactly the same- could happily spend days reading, watching Netflix and generally learning about life and all the subjects I’ve never had time for. Have to work instead unfortunately.

hi all

I think that this poster unknowingly speaks for many people post Covid.

A few thoughts.

Think of working life as a James Bond style casino. We join the table, work hard, make the best decisions/gambles that we can (jobs, when to buy a house, when to sell a house etc) and then at some point we cash in our chips and b**r off to a peaceful place.

So the question to ask is, how can I do this now rather than in 10 or 20 years' time? Firstly, keep living simply, it's amazing how little we can live on if our wants are simple. Second, downsize or liquidate assets including property, and either find a smaller place further from the city and go mortgage free or just cash in the property and start renting. Or buy a wreck and learn DIY as you go like those Chateau people on the telly. Or, if you're old enough, go for Equity Release or some kind of long term mortgage, as long as you keep on top of the interest it's a cheap way to borrow later in life. Or try an interest only mortgage for a while.

The differences are simply staggering. I now have a 3 bed detached house for the same money as you would pay for a 1 bed flat in most parts of London, and I'm still only 90 minutes away from London by train. And I enjoy London much more now as a visitor than when I was trying to navigate the transport system and make a living there.

I lived and worked in London for many years, bought and sold a house at the right time, and I now live mortgage free in a beautiful place in the English countryside having retired in my 50s. Partly luck, partly judgement, partly self discipline - I don't smoke or drink, I always put any money I ever had into the next property, waited years of saving up to renovate them sometimes etc. Living in someone else's crap decor might suck a bit, but doing that for a few years until we can afford to do the place up won't kill us.

In London I hit the "wall" you talk about in 2018. My last big working project involved working with some horrible psychotic people, and after a year of that I realised that if I stayed where I was they would make me ill, and work in general was becoming increasingly hard to come by due to the usual workplace ageism, so I plotted my escape. This involved bridging loans, downsizing, changing my life (I had always lived in cities before), and being open to change and simplification. Je ne regrette rien, do it now and good luck!

MM65

I was getting like this, but then I changed jobs within the same organisation to one where I get out and about and see people.
Before that, I had six years behind a desk and that's a killer. The job now, when I come out of training, is about 70% out and about and 30% deskbound.
The fact that I am getting some decent training and have an exam coming up is countering the menopause fatigue I have in my late 40's.
A change and some new learning has woken me up. I was ready to retire before I started it.

I retired at 44 due to ill health, if there was a miracle & I could get better I don't think I could go back to work after 10 years at home. I've got used to being able to do what I want (health permitting) there is no way I could go back t0o being told what to do.

Slightly worried by the poster who’s mentioned equity release mortgages (otherwise known as lifetime mortgages). The compound interest on these things are scary. If you’ve no one, literally no one, to leave a home to, fine, but go into it with your eyes open and look at home the interest accumulates and erodes your capital.

@MasterGland if you are sitting staring out at birds and handing out a worksheet then you definitely should retire - from teaching ! You're the last kind of teacher schools need.

Yes I felt the same and so I did it. I'm 48. A change in my financial circumstances a couple of years ago made it viable for me so I stopped working and haven't looked back. Well, I say I stopped working - I own my business but I can do as much or as little as that as I fancy but it's not hard work as it's also my hobby and passion in life.

I still have children at home - one is quite young (13) so I have plenty to do and I don't miss work out of the home at all

Only read your first few posts @MasterGland but my suggestion is a career change, anything from something drawing on your teaching skills , or retraining (you are young enough) or starting a business / going freelance .
Maybe seek out a career coach?

I haven’t worked since I was 35. My husband is able to support us both. I have very busy days. I do sort out the accounts for our business but that’s a few hours a week. I’d hate to go out to work again now.

Oh I understand this OP - and I actually like my job. But I'm self-employed and it's an endless treadmill. Like you I could easily, 10 times over in fact, fill my days with all the stuff that needs doing, my creative hobbies, reading, exercising and everything else I don't have enough time for.

It is harder because I'm a single mum with DC at home - ultimately when they're grown up I'm hoping to be able to work 2-3 days a week, reduce my outgoings and have more time to do what I want.

I don't think it's a woman thing. Women have always worked in the main, including paid work - as servants, farm labourers, mill workers, washerwomen, midwives, seamstresses, journalists, and all kinds of things. It's not somehow the natural order of things for women to not want to work. And loads of men do early retirement.

What is natural is that humans had a shorter lifespan for most of history and working for as long as we do leads to burnout. Plus women get lumbered with most of the childcare and domestic work on average, so end up extra exhausted and fed up if we've been pursuing a career as well.

Plus there's that thing where you get less tolerant of bullshit around menopause and as you get older and wiser. I find younger colleagues who think they know it all, and stupid pointless meetings, increasingly annoying and I don't even have to deal with them much in my job.

Very concerned that MM65 is suggesting

cashing in property and renting*

going for Equity Release

These are not sensible financial plans for the vast majority of people

• downsizing makes sense but but cashing in your property and then spending the proceeds on renting ????

I do find this thread goady. Op has almost six months of the year AT HOME! How many of us have that? Many of us have far more demanding and stressful jobs that do not end at 3.30pm!

55, mortgage paid,Notingle mother, 3.5 years to go till the youngest is18 then im cashing in pension and heading off for a while. My job is nice but thus last year glued to my screen hasnt been the same and there are other things to do in life. Not the first time I've headed for the hills so it's been hard to stay in one place for a decade so the DCs can do school. 3 years goes fast but... Nofast enough just now.

I have done it, retired early, I mean.
I am on a very low income now but the house is paid off so that's the biggest expense out of the way. I have adjusted to a lower income beforehand so doing it again didn't seem to be an impossible ask. Holidays are now no longer an option but as I don't have to go to work I haven't missed them. New clothes are few & far between but I have plenty to wear already.
I do not regret it one bit!

TheEmojoiformerlyknownasPrince I got ill health retirement at 44, been retired 10 years now & will never go back to work even if my health improves (not a hope it will) I've got used to being at home now, had the chance to be at home when ds was young enough to need me to do the school run & be around for him, he is 16 now & not working means I am at home when he gets in from school & during the holidays, it will seem strange if he goes to university when he finishes his A levels.

@Shylo

Yes absolutely ! I could cheerfully call work tomorrow, tell them to stuff their job and make a perfectly happy life for myself at home ..... unfortunately my mortgage provider does not feel the same way lol

Exactly this!!

Yes I could stay home easily and find ways to fill my days if I had a comfortable amount of money. I have actually only returned to work after an extended period at home and would really prefer to not have to work!
My husband is the exact opposite and even if we won the lotto he would return to work to have something to do.

Single. Not Notingle. I can tingle perfectly well.

I know how you feel

I was furloughed for 6 weeks in April and May, and while I hated it at the time, I hate working even more.

When lockdown was announced this time, a little bit of me hoped I’d be furloughed again.

I don’t hate my job, I don’t love it either, but I was always happy enough with it, but now I just don’t want to be here. I’ve got no patience, everything is irritating and I’ve got no motivation and I just cba.

I’ve always wanted to do something more creative but it never really pays the bills

@Ihaveyourback

And THAT'S not goady? How many teachers do you know who actually clock off at 3.30pm? FFS. Teachers work early starts, do a day's work, after school clubs, tend to their families then sit up late sorting out the next day. Weekends, evenings, holidays. What a ridiculous thing to say.

Such an interesting thread. I’m 44 and have 24 years left on the mortgage :( But I did jump ship sideways From corporate land two years ago and started my own business. So have a better work life as although I work more hours it is flexible. Hoping to start overpaying our mortgage next year, and clear it much earlier - aiming for 10 years when our youngest will have left education...

hi again all

Just to clarify - in most circumstances no I wouldn't suggest renting rather than ownership, but there are always exceptions, and if the top priority is getting out of the grind, and if that's the only way to do it, then for a few people it might indeed be an option.

In Europe they see our obsession with property ownership as a kind of insanity. Most people there rent until their 40s/50s, at which point, if they can afford it, they either have a house built somewhere or they go to live in the family house with their elderly parents.

See also the Philip Larkin poem called 'Toads' LOL.

Work in itself is a good thing, but work that ruins our health and dehumanises us is not. And if we can stop the endless supply of cheap foreign labour post Brexit, and then start to exert pressure for better treatment (and some TRAINING wouldn't go amiss either!), because employers would then be forced to draw mostly from the existing pool of UK citizens (and especially with so much post Covid unemployment they SHOULD be!), then maybe, just maybe, work itself might change and become more pleasant. It's not usually the money but the conditions in the workplace that make people feel like this. And stupid people promoted to management LOL.

music - totally agree with your last comment about stupid people being promoted. I've just left after having one bad manager too many. And I love it. But i was only a couple of years away from retirement anyway. Apparently after treating me light shit she was surprised I was leaving! I had a lightbulb moment....i didnt need to work and didnt want to be there so why I asked myself am i doing it?

I have several friends that are teachers, and they are the first to say how truly lucky they are to have so many holidays!
My niece is a teacher in very tricky school, and she is at home by 4pm after collecting her child from another school. Yes she does some marking from home, but she usually starts around 8am so not an early start by any measure.

Teachers are very blessed to have so much free time, my niece travels in the holidays extensively for seven weeks each summer, can you do that? She also spends christmas in another country for nearly four weeks.

I think there are a great number of jobs that are far more demanding that teaching. The lazy option of giving out work sheets and looking at the birds is appalling.

I've had two weeks off and been pottering around the house, lying in, doing small and not so small DIY jobs and there are still more to do.

There's too much to do for me to go back to work next Monday. I don't want to go.