to think most people will work till they're dead and won't see retirement age?

[tugging]

Ok massive generalisation but I see a lot of people talking about how they're 40 or so and have 20 + years before they retire.

As a society, we're more sicker, more stressed and more busier than ever. These things would shorten your life expectancy. I can't imagine working till I'm nearly 70- I'm not even 40 and I'm already knackered! I think I'll be dead before I reach retirement age. I know so many people who have died before 60. They never got to retire and enjoy a work free life.

I know people can retire earlier but not many people have a decent pension that i know of and are forced to work till they're nearly 70 or till ill health.

@Ifailed
I think a lot of people bury their head in the sand about pensions etc when in their 20s and 30s, retirement seems a long way off and they are too busy 'enjoying' themselves. When they hit their 40s and realise they've made no provision for retirement, they look around for someone to blame, and inevitably go for the easy option - it is their schools fault.

My take on this is that financial literacy will vary from family to family, so school - where everyone goes - is the ideal leveller. A neutral space for teaching kids about financial management. The easy option for blame would be parents - what they teach their children cannot be prescribed.

"Too busy enjoying themselves" smacks of the assumption that everyone has had the same financial guidance/ stability and some are choosing to just piss it up the wall. Which comes across as a very naive stance.

I don't know. I mean, these days all of this information is right there at people's fingertips so it's something easy to educate yourself on if you wish to. There are plenty of resources that explain it all in simple terms that would be found in a basic google search, like some that PP have posted links to. It is a choice not to access the information or do anything about it.

Of course, that's different to some people being in a financial position where they cannot afford to save anything. But to claim it never occured to an average adult that they might need a pension, or that they had no way to find out how to set one up, seems a stretch.

I don't think statistically most people work into their 80s, so the question in thread title is surely wrong.

@HalcyonSea I disagree. Yes, the information is there but to go and look for it assumes that the person already knows that there is something to know.

The information at school age won't be able to cover the full pension landscape as that will change. What it can do is introduce concepts and explain the value of saving for retirement right from the start of earning a living.

I had an aunt and uncle who were very upset to discover that his raf pension after a full service career was not sufficient to live on. They had assumed that they would be able to have a comfortable retirement starting in their early 50s.

They were very annoyed to find out that his pension needed supplementing by paid employment. No doubt the information was available but they had seen the word 'pension and thought that meant full retirement.

But these days there is auto-enrollment so people are presented with information and actuvely have to make a choice on how much to contribute or whether to opt out, so there is a prompt (for employees at least) to look at the information. People are also presented with annual pension statements if they have not opted out that include projections of what they might receive in retirement given their current rate of contribution. It's pretty difficult now for most people to stay completely oblivious to it all.

Most people I know are late 40’s early 50’s and have already started to work part time. I had a work break for a year at 52 but I’m 55 now and haven’t gone back - I think I might be retired!🤣

I used to think I was knackered in my thirties and I couldn’t possibly carry on working like this - 10-12 hour days - for decades. Guess what? I’m 58 and I am did exactly that. I still am doing it. I seem to have got used to being a bit knackered all the time and just get on with it. Get up at 5.45am, run into work, get shower etc, leave office at 7-7.30, check stuff online and sign off from home about 9pm. And repeat. I’ve got a good pension as a result of working ft for 35 years and could retire if I wanted, but I actually prefer to carry on. I love my job most of the time.

I'm in my fifties and knackered, I'd like to live long enough to retire but the odds are against it. Fingers crossed I get to sixty or maybe seventy you never know I may just be lucky

If you get ill in your 50s the benefit system can support you until early retirement. Previously working in the benefit system, those that saved into pensions got penalised for saving and were not entitled to anything.
Those that didn't save or didn't work a day in their life were better off.
We're entitled to council tax reductions, tax credits, energy grants etc
Sometimes you wonder who is the fool..

@Rockingrambo

If you get ill in your 50s the benefit system can support you until early retirement. Previously working in the benefit system, those that saved into pensions got penalised for saving and were not entitled to anything. Those that didn't save or didn't work a day in their life were better off. We're entitled to council tax reductions, tax credits, energy grants etc Sometimes you wonder who is the fool..

Benefits are a pittance and if you have a mortgage to pay you get no help with that.

My husband and I have just been discussing this for the last few months - we're both in our early 50's and mortgage free with good incomes - but with young kids and were thinking of moving to a more expensive area for school commuting purposes - but the area we were looking to move to would require us taking back a mortgage. The mortgage itself was not big relative to our salaries but it would mean being saddled with a mortgage again which would take up to 5 years to pay off and we decided against it - as we're losing the opportunity to do something else with that money and put it towards an early retirement. If our current financial plan works out as scheduled then we should be able to retire by 60 but moving would have impacted that and when it came to the crunch I was just not prepared to sacrifice freedom in order to do that. We both work in stressful jobs and I work to get out and have a fairly decent standard of living when I do. I've seen how fast my life has gone over the last 20 years I need a slower pace for the next 20 or I'll be dead before I know where I am.

This all assumes you are fortunate enough to have job to retire from!

Have 10 years until retirement but apparently that means I’m to old to even get an interview. When you are blessed with good health and good genes and want to work, it’s very frustrating to be refused the chance because so many people in their 50s are counting the days until they get their pensions

I retired at 48 and am thoroughly enjoying not working. I think your early career choices clearly play a big part in what happens, even though you may not realise it at the time. I certainly didn’t even think about being retired when I joined my profession at 19.

We are actually healthier than ever before and healthier into older age than ever before. 60 is the new 40...and this is reflected in the age we now get our state pensions. I am almost 60 and can see me having another 6 to 10 years of part time work, then 20 years of retirement. Looking forward to it.

It's not necessarily an age thing.
I've known people retire in their 50's and early 60's last a few short months and drop dead. It happens a lot, always has.
I remember my dad asking for a list of jobs, as his retired colleagues were bored, or dead.
When some asked if he was bored, his reply was I'm too busy to be bored or dead.
Better to work fewer hours throughout your life as many workers haven't got a clue what to do when they don't have a boss to tell them.

I am not entitled to a state pension, don’t own my own house and have no savings. So yes, I’ll definitely be working until I drop.

I'm 42 and constantly exhausted. The people in this thread suggesting this indicates a physical illness should consider that perhaps other people have more demanding jobs and lives than they do. I am fit, healthy and well. I am also on my knees under the weight of my job and my family. I'm expecting to work until at least 70. The idea of 28 more years just depresses me. Is this IT? Is this really all there is to life - to be a cog of economic production in a giant machine of capitalism? Are we really just ants, mindlessly producing until we are physically no longer able to?

I'm feeling pretty bleak about retirement and indeed life, tbh.

I had never heard the terms generational wealth, passive income, multiple streams of income etc until I moved to the US. Here everyone has a side hustle and private pensions are shoved down your throat. The social security is a lot more generous than the UK but it's not enough so yes I learned quickly from the yanks that I better start hustling now so I can retire in comfort. I dread to think what would have happened if I stayed on the one income mindset. Do what ever you can now to provide for your future and yea that means doing more than one job at a time. I also pay for long term disability in case I can't work to retirement age.

I'm 46, in all likelihood, state retirement age will be 75 for me and anyone younger so if we make it to that age, we'll be lucky to be fit enough to enjoy it. I know plenty of fit 75 year olds now, but they've been retired 15 years already!

@shamalidacdak

I had never heard the terms generational wealth, passive income, multiple streams of income etc until I moved to the US. Here everyone has a side hustle and private pensions are shoved down your throat. The social security is a lot more generous than the UK but it's not enough so yes I learned quickly from the yanks that I better start hustling now so I can retire in comfort. I dread to think what would have happened if I stayed on the one income mindset. Do what ever you can now to provide for your future and yea that means doing more than one job at a time. I also pay for long term disability in case I can't work to retirement age.

I'm an American, and it is more of a "you're in charge" situation here. I'll retire in a few years at my full retirement age for social security but I'd be screwed if DH and I hadn't been contributing to our individual retirement accounts for years. As soon as our kids started working they opened up Roth IRA accounts. I wish I could have done that when I was 21.

Well, at 40, your life expectancy in the UK is 87 years.
If you retire at 75, you still have a 50-50 chance, approximately, that you'll live another 12 years.
Even if you were male, your life expectancy would be 85 years.

So, you are simply wrong in thinking that "most people won't live to retirement age".

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/articles/lifeexpectancycalculator/2019-06-07

I to agree financial planning and pension should be part of PHSE. Not all children have sensible patents to teach them to budget. The key is starting a pension early. I started paying pension as a teacher in my first job and in addition to that l also payed into a stakeholder pension. I am not being smug but it has led to me being able to stop teaching at 56 and just continue as a foster carer. I will be 60 in August and start drawing my Teacher's Pension. I can simultaneously do a £8k drawdown each year for 7 years until my state pension kicks in. I will get £8.2k State pension per annum. DH has been paying into a Civil Service pension for 24 years and will be 60 in 3 1/2 years. He will get his first pension then. Then 7 years later he can draw his second pension as Civil Service pensions changed. He also has a separate stakeholder which means he can retire as early as 60.or as late as 62 if he wishes. All this is possible because we planned far ahead and paid 2 pensions. For me it has meant I could give my dd money towards a deposit for a house and help pay towards dgc nursery fees and now I am giving DS money towards a deposit out of lump sum in August. To me being able to help them along makes me very happy. My own Dad gave me deposit for my first house and told me to pay a pension from day 1 as then you don't miss it. I had to work for several years before we could afford for me to stay home and have a baby and then I had another quickly then stayed home until you get was 4 and starting school. I made sacrifices along the way such as missing Sports Days and school plays in afternoons. My children had to go to a childminder after school too.

I'm 42, childless/childfree and a widow. I have a tiny pension of my own and a very small one that would have been my husbands. I refuse to put any more into those as I need all my current income to survive and anyway there's no guarantee I'll make it to pension age (my husband didn' t did he!) Life as a 'old' person looks pretty bleak and I've no intention of living once it becomes a struggle be that financially, physically or mentally.

@motherrunner

I’m wondering whether the type of job you have makes a difference. I’m exhausted now teaching full time and I’m only 42. I can’t imagine how I’ll feel at 68!

You won't need to go on teaching till you're 68, surely? Just long enough to pay all your NI contributions, and your Teacher's Pension (please say you're still in it!). You can always go PT or tutor when you're older. My DM stopped teaching at 56 and had 6 years of travelling etc before she got Alzheimers and Cancer and died at 66.

@supersop60 The Teacher’s Pension changed so it can only be claimed at state retirement age to claim full amount.

Hopefully PT will be an option!