Retirement at 55

[Properlucky]

I am extremely lucky to be in a job where I have a final salary pension and I am able to retire at 55 - 9 years time - when I will have 32 years service. I could stay on after that but i’m already getting sick of the job so will probably go then. I can commute up to 25% of my pension tax free for a lump sum, and I think I will do this to travel and pay off the remainder of our mortgage.
DH and I are retiring within 4 years of each other and our take home from pensions (from the prediction calculation) looks like it will be very close to what we have coming in now if the mortgage was paid off.
Anyone else retiring/retired at 55 with a final salary pension? If so what plans did you make? Did you seek independent financial advice? (Workplace do pre-retirement courses, but i’m not sure how independent the financial advisers they recommend are). Did you find another job after retirement because you were bored or because you needed the money? Did you blow your lump sum on a round the world trip?
What else do I need to consider?
Thanks

@CoastalCalm sorry to hear about your health issues. It sounds like you have worked everything out sensibly. The mortgage is our main expense at the moment so without that expense our monthly income could be much less for us to afford the same lifestyle we have now.

Thanks

I have been seeing a financial advisor via Newcastle Building Society and have scheduled out expenses etc going forward - at the moment mortgage is half of our joint account bills so yes that being paid off will make a huge difference plus we have no kids so have the option to downsize home at some stage to release capital

Dh and I retired a couple of years ago him 58 civil service and me 55 NHS. We did put quite a lot of thought into how much we'd need and managed to build up some savings . We both took our full amount of lump sums invested some, paid off the mortgage and spent some on home improvements. I have now got a part time job in a vintage shop which I bloody love and Dh works for a mutual friend helping at music festivals. We have a nice life and I feel really lucky .

I am retired and had a final salary pension, I have a few health issues as well. DH is younger than me and wasn’t going to retire so young but a severance deal was put forward to all staff and he applied and was accepted. As well as his lump sum from his pension he is now getting a 40k severance deal in addition.

He is still involved with projects at work so will be doing some very ad hoc work as a visiting academic which is probably very unique to HE, this could possibly trigger NI, so he won’t pay off the couple of missing years NI he has yet. I have a full state pension forecast of max contributions. We both worked in higher education for about 30 years.

Our real luck came in around 2006-8 when our investments did very well and we paid off our mortgage very early.

He had a free phone consult with pension wise which was helpful confirming some stuff, he has spent a lot of time working stuff out with giant spreadsheets. We have never consulted an IFA.

The law changes in April 2028. Anyone retiring after that date can’t access their pension until age 57 unless it’s the police, armed forces or fire fighters schemes. So whilst you will be able to retire at 55 OP very few other people will be able to if they need to access a pension to do it.

@Properlucky Ignore posters saying that your figures may be wrong & that your lump sum is too high. If you've had the McCloud figures in writing then alls ok.

People don't understand that DB schemes that give a pension & lump sum can have the lump sum increased by reducing the annual pension. The NHS is like this & I've seen Doctors with retirement figures of £40k pension & £120k lump sum have the pension reduced to £32k and the lump sum increased to £200k.

Also, if you did not know, that on death the 50% spouses pension is based on the original (non reduced) pension......so in the above example the spouse would receive 50% of £40k and not 50% of £32k.

There are some links between early retirement and the onset of dementia. I would aim to keep your mind active by picking up some work/ volunteering or learning a new skill to keep mentally active for longer.

I took my FS pension unreduced earlier this year at 52. I have left my DC and will do until I get to 60. I plan to take a year off and will then decide what I want to do, at the moment I am not sure what I want to do.

Hi everyone, just to update DH and I have seen a financial adviser who has advised we are both likely to get more from our defined benefit/final salary scheme than the McCloud letter states. He is helping us with what to do over the next 10 years so we can retire, me at 55 and DH at 60. He is also going to give us advice on the tax implications of taking the lump sums at various levels (due to tax changes in recent budget) how and where to invest and also planning how much we will actually need at each stage of retirement given what we are expecting to do in retirement (holidays/family/housing repairs). He is also going to advise on our current savings to get the best returns based on saving monthly.
Thanks to you all for your comments. I wish all of you the best for your own retirements.

Thank you for updating. That sounds really positive for you both. Enjoy when you get there!

As far as ive read there are no tax changes to defined benefits pension schemes.
Please elaborate.

Not tax changes to the scheme but tax advice on saving/investing/drawing income from the lump sums we will get.

Retired at 57. In final year put 50% of my salary into AVC (which I'd had since early 20s) and got it back tax free as part of my 25% lump sum.
A no brainer.

The only one I think was removing inheritance tax exemption from pensions - so now, when you die, it's part of the taxable estate.