To ask if anyone else over 50 isn't desperate to retire

[LornaDuh]

I'm 61 now so have taken a look at the retirement board on here and various threads about pensions.

People stating that life is too short. They want to retire to spend time on their hobbies, and to travel and volunteer.

Anyone else not keen on the thought of retiring? I like my job, my colleagues, the structure work brings. Work makes me appreciate weekends, holidays. If I had endless leisure time I'd probably waste it on Mumsnet and napping rather than crafting and hiking in the Alps.

We have 2 people over 70 still working in our team. One is 78, he’s partially retired but still work 3 days a week, at home now. I know another lady who is still working late 70’s too. I’m 48 this year and I can imagine myself feeling like you, I have a couple of weeks off and think oh no I’m going to miss my job / colleagues. I like the structure it brings to my life I think so can feel a bit out of sorts when not working. If you’re enjoying work absolutely no need to retire. You can always review in the future

I don't want to retire, not yet anyway. I enjoy my job, but I'm self employed and have been for about 15 years. If I had to go into an office everyday I suspect I'd feel very different 😂

I'm with you all the way OP. I'm past retirement age, love my job and don't want to retire !
After a couple of weeks leave I'm really keen to go back to work !

I did love my job but a personal circumstance plus a health issue made me reevaluate. So I retired early at 55 and took my pension, DH still works but he wasn’t ready to retire and is also a bit younger than me. We had three friends die in their fifties so he has decided to retire by 57.

I currently volunteer a morning or two a week and also go to U3A classes and belong to two hiking groups.

Once DH retires we will buy a motorhome and travel round the UK and Europe.

Losing my mum young means I don't take longevity for granted. However, most of us will reach 80. So the idea of 25 years of retirement doesn't appeal because that's an awful lot of hours in a lot of days to fill. Over and over. Rinse and repeat.

And I get that some people will relish it but not me.

strange, previous posts on this topic have been full of people saying that Cannot wait for retirement.

Hence I started this thread for some balance.

@Willmafrockfit presumably the title of this thread made it more likely that people feeling the opposite will click on it and post.

yes that is of course the reason

All depends on your health.
If you have good mental and physical health, enjoy your job and earn well, then obviously early retirement isn't necessarily on the radar.

However, if you get struck down with a life limiting condition, or disease, then you may need to think again.

I shan't retire. Apart from the fact I only have a state pension and no property, I love my job! I'll be there till I drop. 😊

There was outrage about this in our house this morning
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/29/cambridge-university-retirement-age-job-blocker-mary-beard

Your health - mental and physical - can give way at any point. If you are serious about retiring at some point it makes sense to do so while you are still fit and healthy enough to enjoy it.

Academia is not the same as most jobs though. My DH is 74 and an academic. He has long given up teaching but still does advisory and consultancy work, writes and books and articles, and supervises the occasional PhD student.

My dad "retired" at 50. He was a secondary school teacher, and announced that teaching was "a young persons game". At that point, he'd recently lost his dad, and his mum had just gone into a home for people with dementia. I can totally understand why he thought "fuck this" at the thought of continuing with work.

As it happens, he dropped dead at 62 after a year of poor health. So he did get to have 11 good years of retirement. Which many people of his age wouldn't have done.

I'm very soon turning 40, and am hopeful of still enjoying my work 10+ years from now. Like you, I like the routine of work.

Maybe it depends on the role.
I am apparently „at the top of my game“ (according to my DH).
but I can’t do this anymore. I’m exhausted. Even thinking about presenting and about spreadsheets makes me feel sick.

@Summertimer why was there outrage? I agree with Mary Beard, and Oxford University where they have a 70 age limit for retirement as well. Of course lots of professors would like to sit there on a professorial salary pottering about and if they can stay part-time or do consulting work, I think that's fine, but they rarely can take on the whole role and cost twice as much if not more than two junior colleagues whose careers can't get off the ground til they retire.

I think Mary Beard is right, there's plenty for retired academics to do, they can still publish, write, give talks and travel or even be on grants if they retain some role at the university, but beyond that, no I don't think they should be using up a whole academic career space after 70.

Same OP - did I post this and forget ?? 🤣🤣

I'm 51 and worked in education all my life (admin side of things). I'm so done now. Funding, expectations and workload get worse each year and working FT in education just feels like it takes over your whole life.

I just want more proper quality down time on a regular basis. Not collapsing at the end of term having "survived it". And I want more regular free time to use how I see fit. Not lurching from one thing to the other, especially this time of year. I'm jealous of friends and family going for weekends away or cheap breaks in term time, and I can't go with them. There's only so many times people will arrange their trips round my school schedule once their children are independent and they can go all year round.

My children are young adults, one lives mainly away from home and I'm tired of not being able to take a Friday afternoon off to travel to see him for the weekend. Or any time at all during term time. I'm fed up of everywhere being full of kids when I go on holiday, when my own are finally grown up, and i'm surrounded by them all day in work.

I don't want the stress of telling my boss I need to attend a medical appointment, or take family to them. Or even phoning in sick. I'm in a junior position but my work is essential and if I'm not there it makes a massive difference and impacts on everyone else so much, as well as just creating as making it more stressful when I DO go back as work has just built up. Obviously the fact I'm needed gives some element of job satisfaction when I'm actually there but it does make it doubly stressful when I'm not.

So while I'll miss the people and the routine of getting up and being needed etc, it's just got too much and taken away far too much freedom the past couple of years as my family situation has changed. I don't think part time is an option, and anyway, it's the fact that term time only jobs are so damned tying that is the main issue.

I've got enough to retire right now but I'm scared to really as it feels far too early, and one son is about to start uni. So I've said I'll wait till he's finished, in about 3 maybe 4 years' time when I'll be 55. The long and short of it is that I want to travel on my schedule, not someone else's, and while my health is good enough to do it.

I've got loads of things I want to do and work gets in the way. I always used to feel sorry for people who said their lives would be empty without work but now that it looks like I'll be working till 67 (at least) I kind of envy them. Probably better to have limited mental horizons when your financial and practical horizons are also limited.

Once DH retires we will buy a motorhome and travel round the UK and Europe.

Yes, we want to do this too. I don't fancy doing it when I'm nearly 70. DH will retire after me, but if I'm not working it means that all our weekends can be totally free as the house and garden, laundry, shopping, etc, will be able to be kept on top of in the week. The thought of weekends just going off on your own schedule sounds like bliss to me.

I think the key thing to consider is if you only had a short time to live (less than a year) would you regret not retiring earlier when you could have.

It's all well and good saying I won't retire until I am a certain age thinking you will have years afterwards but that isn't a given.

If you honestly are happy in paid employment and have no regrets if you died or ended up in ill health which limited your life then I can understand why you would continue to work.

Personally I am at the point when I am done with the 9 to 5 grind. I am therefore giving up paid work in my 50s in a few months and have no regrets. Life is too short, I no longer feel motivated in my professional work and want to get up in the morning and do what I feel like doing that day.

I think the key thing to consider is if you only had a short time to live (less than a year) would you regret not retiring earlier when you could have.

Life expectancy for a woman in her 50s is 87, that means half of us will live to at least 87, that's over 30 years. And I have colleagues who have absolutely continued working after getting a cancer diagnosis.

I agree with @JaninaDuszejko. Unless you have a serious health condition, making decisions based on the possibility that you only have a year to live when you're in your 50s is unrealistic and may lead you to spend a long retirement in relative poverty, when you could have worked for a few more years and built up a better pension.

Healthy life expectancy is 62.7 years.
By retiring in your 50s, at least you increase your chances of getting to enjoy some years of not having to work. Working yourself into old age and infirmity, no thanks.