To give up working at 52?

[caniquitwork]

I am a teacher, but I've had enough.
I have a small teacher's pension- small because only paid in 15 years and even then mostly only part time. Have some other private pensions which will eventually pay out about £1000 a month, but not till I'm 60. Would not touch teacher's pension until then either.
So here's the aibu part - I have a house I own outright so no mortgage, but to live on until 60 I have about £250000 I inherited. Would obviously invest but don't think interest would be enough to live on, so would also just withdraw from the pot iyswim.
Would that work? Would it be selfish- should I keep this money safe for my children?
No dh in the picture. Keep
going round in circles. Wouldn't mind working in another job to supplement but worried if I could even find anything.

In a heartbeat if I had enough to live on and my children were grown. We are planning to retire at 60 when our youngest is 21. If we had an inheritance or windfall (not likely) before then that covered our costs we would both retire. Might find some part time work that was low stress but 10 hour shifts could GTF!

You can buy a great herd of goats with that cash and nice pasture for them. The choice is easy.

Just wanted to pop back in and thank you @caniquitwork for making me think properly about my retirement plans and sit and work out what I can do to give myself a chance of retiring or semi retiring maybe earlier than I had been planning.

The thing is not many people are living to 80 these days.

Do you have another language? Former secondary teacher here....I teach MFL not German though and I'm fully booked every evening. I also teach adults in the daytime. A fair few adults needing it for work so you just never know. I earn a reasonable amount but i don't have kids or a mortgage to consider. I'm a similar age to you with a decent sum invested.

I would if I could. Just do your sums. Remember you'll pay tax on the interest, so factor that in.

@ColourByNumbers88 the dream is to be away for most of the year but have a definite plan for 9 months and I suspect we'll decide on house sale or rental depending on the market at the time (3 years off yet sadly!)

We are planning a 3 month tour of parts of Europe mainly campervan but broken up with the odd hotel/hostel stay and hopefully some housesits. Then back to UK to reset our visa so more travel/& potentially house sits + time with family. We want to then end with 3 months 'living' in France so ideally a longer /winter house sit or we may end up renting a gite if we can't find a housesit. We have wild dreams of moving there but having only ever holidayed we'd like to get a slightly more realistic taste of it and I really hate winter so hoping to head a bit further south for slightly extended sun/warmth plus enjoy a different lifestyle & brush up on our french.

@Cosyblankets interesting- how did/do you find students?

Well given that the average female life expectancy is 86.9 a lot of people are indeed living to 80 and beyond. My DPs are 91 and 86. What I would say is they need very little money to live as they don't eat out or go on holiday.

However they did do a few long haul trips in their 60s ( both retired at 60), some holidays in their 70s and a weekly lunch out until Covid arrived.

I wouldn't worry about saving money for your 80s, I would be more worried about money running out between 52-67 when state pension kicks in.

I originally started with a profile on tuition sites. Uktutors / firsttutors but i rarely use these now. I created social media pages and now the bulk of my work is word of mouth. Cousins / friends / neighbours of existing clients. I used to travel to them but logistically it became too difficult so now i mainly wfh in person or online

I know people in their late 60s and early 70s doing a lot of travel. My relatives seemed to slow down in their mid to late 70s.

@PhoebeMcPeePee I've misunderstood, I thought you were retiree travellers. Just wondering, do you like cats? Random question, but I could use a 2 week summer cat sitter.

So from my observations with very well grandparents who lived to be 99 and 97 respectively and now parents who are 87 and 85, I think the health is deteriorating and that one person is usually ok and the other is not. So for future planning - minimal required after 75, budget for living it up until then.

I have asked to reduce my hours by 1/3 and to give up my management post. Hopefully the school will accept. Will see how that feels!

That seems like a really good compromise hope it works out for you.

Have you thought of moving to a small sleepy private school? Might be less stress than the state system.

I will say to you what I said to my mum recently - you don’t owe your kids anything more than a good education and upbringing. It’s your money to spend as you choose. If there are things you want to do or see get that done while you are on good health because you don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

Will keep an eye out!

You have 1/4 mill? In savings or invested? In an ISA or in a ( tax attracting) interest bearing account? I absolutely get wanting to retire from teaching but could you get something adjacent and part time? Invest that 1/4 mill and lock it in now as close to 5% as possible and you'll have 12K p.a. which should be a good starter for not having to be fulltime employed. And start dripping that 1/4 mill into an ISA at 20K p.a. asap. If you have a pension maybe get advice on topping it up before you stop work as you will only be able to add £2880 p.a. once you retire.

and apologies if I'm duplicating others advice

Sounds like you could do with a bit of coaching. You'll have picked up loads of transferable skills. A friend spent several years looking for work via Jobcentre and they have various support systems..I think for people over 50, deffo for over 55.

Its a great plan. And do it -but just check your budget long term as renting out property isn't all 'jam tomorrow'. Assume the mortgage is fully paid off? If so, safer, but still possible void periods when you have to cover utilities, Agent at 10-11% ( and more if you go away and need it fully managed). Possible upgrading of elecs etc to meet rental standards ( I had to put a whole new fusebox in)., replacing any white goods that breakdown if you leave any there. Then income tax on rent, and CGT when you finally sell ( though there is taper relief depending how long you rent it for).. CGT (at 24% currently) is the bugger as Gov'ts love to hit that up as an easy revenue source. If youu are happy with those sums you won't be getting any nasty shocks later.

In England and Wales, the average age of death for females was 83.0 years from 2021 to 2023. This is an increase of 11 weeks from 2020 to 2022, but 13 weeks lower than 2017 to 2019.