Retire early but poor or work longer for bigger pension?

[KindnessMyFriends]

Which would you prioritise, more time to enjoy yourself or less time but more money? Work another year and retire very frugally, or work another 6 years and retire comfortably. Life is so short!

Really helpful information and links here.

@KindnessMyFriends - what did you decide to do in the end?

Going to try and drag myself through 2 more school years and pile as much as I can into pension and savings, then either very part time or retire completely. I'll be knocking on towards 63 then which will mean I'm still going 4 years earlier than I should. It feels like a fair compromise. I'm flipping lucky to even have the choice I know!

The Teacher Pension allows phased retirement. That might suit you. It means you can reduce hours (has to be at least 20% and obviously agreed by school) and take a proportion of your pension.

This means lots of people will be able to maintain their income at current level by having salary and some pension, whilst easing off full time work, rather than going from full time to nothing. Might be something to look into.

I'm lgps not tps unfortunately. Lgps is an excellent scheme though.

Could you reduce hours to part time now?

I'm having similar thoughts....

I think a lot will depend on my job and health. I enjoy my job at the moment but I'd still rather not work.

DH and I have just taken early retirement and have 6/ 7 years to go until state pension age . Our income will be about a quarter of our previous salary but we will be able to pay all the bills, run.a car , have some short breaks away and enjoy a few cheap hobbies . After 40 years of work I am happy to live more frugally and have more time to enjoy what we can afford to do

This Is also my attitude. I could retire at 58 and live like this.

I'm only in my 40s as is DH. I work 4 days a week and I'm encouraging my DH to drop to 4 days a week too.

We'll have to budget more carefully - we're still paying a mortgage off but I want the time. Not the money.

There has been 3 sudden early, unexpected deaths of people I worked with recently (44, 57 and just 65) and it's true. Tomorrow isn't promised to anyone.

I'm hoping to work 4 days a week until DC finished Uni (if they go) which isn't until 2032 () and then drop to 3 days. Then maybe drop again to 2 days when we're in our 60s.