Would anyone like to share their pitfalls of early retirement

[LetterOfTheLawFella]

Dh and I are both early 50s and looking to retire within the next 5 years. Other than not having enough money to live on (!) what other factors have negatively impacted your early retirement? Just want to be able to balance the positives.

So, last night - we went out early evening to meet a family member who is down in London for the evening. Drinks and dinner.

Came home around 10-ish, caught up on a bit of TV and then sat up with DS1 who came home from his late shift. Went to bed pretty late.

This morning - slept in, given late night last night. Spent the morning reading the papers, doing a bit of cooking and prep (a roast for later this evening), read my book and then did some of my Mandarin homework.

What's not to love?!

I was looking forward to plenty of lie-ins but inevitably you end up waking at 6 and not being able to get back to sleep.
We are updating DS’s bedroom at the moment and after redecorating had a new carpet fitted. I hadn’t read the invoice and the fitter arrived at 9.30 this morning. DS was still in bed so I had to forcible evict him ( along with his mattress and TV). Fitter was not impressed but I made him a cup of tea and had a chat ( turned out he’d fitted some carpets at work years ago and remembered me so soon warmed up).
Then a quip trip to pick up some stuff I’d ordered in M&S turned out to be an epic detour due to a major accident just down the road ( bus verses car possible fatality😔) then another accident on the way home, also involving bus and car, bus rear ended car on a 60mph road. So what should have taken me under an hour took 3hrs. Pre retirement I would have been acid but post retirement you just relax and thank the gods you weren’t involved and also feel for those who were.

I do find that I stress a lot less about sleep though @Angrymum22 - either early wakings or middle of the night wakings. Knowing that you don't have to be up at a certain time does make those a lot easier.

Thanks for this interesting thread. DH and I are planning to retire in 6 years when we’ll be early/mid 50s. He’s looking forward to it. I am too but I have some reservations-

• will we decline mentally more quickly without the stimulation of our jobs? I’m a big believer is use it or lose it so worry that stopping work might have that effect.
• will we be bored? We have lovely weekends pottering about, walking and gardening etc and we live in a lovely area, but maybe these things are enjoyable because they’re a contrast to our busy weeks?
• I’ve done a lot of volunteering over the years and know that I can find it quite frustrating (IME anything voluntary tends to be fairly inefficient and brings out my worst Type A traits and I think this will go double for DH).
• I worry about being over-involved in my children’s lives if I don’t have enough going on in mine.

@CatOnTheCarpet they're legitimate concerns, but they're easy to deal with!

Re intellectual/mental stimulation, stuff like having time to read the paper each day (as opposed to just consuming news through headlines/listening to the radio/watching TV) is good - i.e. you have the time to read more detailed analyses of stories.

Crosswords/sudoku etc are also good - and have been cited as important aids in helping with/deferring ailments like dementia see this piece here

I've been learning Mandarin for some time now, but actually have the mental space as well as much more available time, to focus on it - which is also good for my brain.

I wondered if we would be bored, but so far that hasn't happened! DH and I do make the effort to go out and do different stuff - things we never had time for when we were working, e.g. a visit to an exhibition, a walk along the canal, going out for lunch etc.

We also have a few friends who are retired, and spend time with them - it's great to be able to plan things during the week, rather than having to have everything happen at the weekend! We've done a few of these Mystery Guides with them, including a recent trip/overnight stay in Edinburgh.

DH goes out running 6 days out of 7, I go to the gym/for a swim. Off-peak membership is also cheaper.

In other words - there's plenty that will occupy you!

@NightLightHalfLight don't you get bored doing that type of thing 7 days a week 52 weeks a year? Or say 42 weeks assuming you break it up with holidays away etc.

I cannot imagine that sort of life. I fully intend to keep working part time in some sort of capacity for as long as possible. Keeps my brain active, gives some structure to the week and a sense of achievement.

@BIWI DH and I work full time but still manage to go to exhibitions, for walks, meet friends, pursue hobbies, exercise, sit and read the papers etc etc. Admittedly we don't work long hours and our employers aren't clock watchers as long as the job gets done.

Now the DCs are older teens and very independent a huge amount of time has been freed up to spend as we wish. I honestly don't understand people who have no time for fun things whilst working if DCs are older/grown up.

Well, I had a very full-on job, which saw me working 12 hour days quite frequently, with a lot of travel (UK and international) thrown in. So does that help you to understand why there was simply not enough time for anything else?

And - it's very different being able to do any/all of those things at your leisure - taking your time and not having to rush them. As well as being able to do any of those things spontaneously.

Not RTFT but from a skim has no one said the key thing:

do you have enough money?

and that’s not enough to leave your active, happy retirement. Sorry.

ifs enough to find high quality care in your final years of life.

most people don’t go from active happy retirement to dead.

Now most people have a period of several years of declining health where you’ll need good quality care and support.

i just looked into this for my in laws who aged 80 have gone from active happy retirement to frail, multiple health issues (mobility following an accident, cancer, heart condition between them in less than two years)

high quality care costs £50,000 per person per year.

can you afford THAT if you start spending your pot so early?

as a poster on another thread said today, state provided / funded social care is horrible and scary.

if you don’t want a bad few years at the end you need a lot.

I would literally never be able to retire if I had to think about having 100 grand a year for dh and I for end of life care!
Lots of people never require being in a home toward the end of their lives. What percentage of people have that sort of money.
I'm just hoping not to work myself into an early grave. Stress levels way too high.

I honestly don't understand people who have no time for fun things whilst working if DCs are older/grown up.

Do you genuinely have no understanding that other people might have different working lives from you @Amboseli?!

... despite the fact that you have admitted:

we don't work long hours and our employers aren't clock watchers as long as the job gets done.

Sorry, no pitfalls. Retired at 58. Need to budget realistically as many more opportunities to travel etc and you don't want to be stuck at home with no money to enjoy yourself . Worth realising that you will have additional income when the state pension kicks in at 66/67.

There are most definitely jobs that are all consuming especially at the senior levels that people are at the point when they consider retiring. I have always only done full on jobs. My plan is to take a 9-5 job like Amboseli's but as part of my step down into retirement (with consequent reduction in pay but that is fine because it is on the way to retiring).

The thing with retirement is that it exactly what you make it. That's more exciting than any job ever was for me and I loved my work.

My friends did this, early and mid fifties, and I’d say she really loves it, but I think it’s really problematic for him.

he is starting to develop a thing of not wanting to do anything. I actually think he might be getting depressed. She loves it, but she spends a lot of time watching tv. And I mean A lot.

I think he retired too early.its difficult to see the life force drain out of him. No one says anything but I noticed another male friend trying to convince him to take a job he was offered, so I think everyone has noticed it.

their world has become very small and insular. From being very outgoing sociable people, they are just no longer those people.

its a cautionary tale. I think uou can retire with the best of intentions, but for some people, waking up every single day with no specific purpose can be very detrimental. There are only so many holidays you can afford, or pub lunches or walks you can do before you get bored and the days all merge into one. You need to ensure you are on the same page. Or one of you will be sitting watching telly whilst the other goes for two hour walks on their own.

have you looked up the stats on that?

most people do need care support in the last few years.

yes £50k is good quality in the south east.

but when you can climb the stairs / in and out of the bath / have the energy and capacity to shop and cook - then what?

if you haven’t looked into the care options, what they cost around you, whether you could find them, no you haven’t earned enough to retire.

if you’re retiring early you need to have even more as you’re going to run down your pot for longer (or the level of payouts is lower as you stop paying in and start taking out earlier).

do some research, do some maths, then see.

’can I afford a decent active life in good health’ is the wrong question!

@BIWI even when I had a more demanding less flexible job I still had time for friends, hobbies, art galleries, weekends away, reading etc etc. The biggest restriction on doing what I wanted was the time taken up with DCs weekend activities, bedtime, needing a babysitter etc.

Now they're virtually independent we go out all the time, don't need to drive them anywhere, supervise homework etc etc etc.

... and I didn't.

https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/sites/default/files/2017-01/social-care-hospital-use-report-web-final.pdf

in this study 40% of older people accessed local authority social care in the 12 months before death.

so I assume that doesn’t include the group using private social care.

so your chances of needed help are more than 50/50

You're saying no one without what, half a million for a couple ready to spend on care in the final years will be able to retire? I will have a (public sector) pension, no "pot" other than that.
If I can't manage the stairs, we would get a stairlift. If I had to go into a home, dh would still be allowed to keep our house - if we both had to, then the house would indeed be sold to fund our care.
There's a lot to think about financially, and I won't get to retire before 60+, but life cannot be "sweated from birth until life closes" and I can't work into my 80s (if I'm spared) because I don't have half a million in the bank.

...but social care (eg carers coming in to your own home) are free. I said I'd known a lot of elderly people who hadn't gone into homes, not that they hadn't needed some support.

We retired at 58. No pitfalls but we both have hobbies and love to travel and can afford it. The people I know who retired early and are unhappy are either bored as they have no hobbies or pastimes or lack the funds to go out and about. So make sure you are open to new hobbies and interests and financially can afford to retire.

No they are paid for by the state.

but not easy to get. Lots of threads on here about applying for care help and how hard it is.

and given the rising numbers of older people and the lack of change (more taxes on boomers with assets and final salary pensions) there will be even less tax payer funds to pay for them.

to count on them staying ‘free’ 20-30 years from now is spectacularly naïve

you have to at least consider that they won’t be, and do some maths on whether you could afford at least a modest standard of precise funded care for say three years at the end of your life, when considering whether you can afford to retire early.

what I am saying is if you don’t have half a million in the bank you can’t afford to retire early!

work until your late 60s and you won’t need that much.

Some scare mongering on this thread, about 15 percent of people go into care homes in the uk.85 percent do not.

in England it is now capped at no one pays more than 86 grand . I think it’s wrong to say everyone should have this money saved up before they retire. Just in case they are the one in ten who needs it.