A pondering

[hattie43]

I have a healthy SIPP sum which I haven't touched and hadn't intended to until I leave my job , haven't decided when because although not well paid I enjoy it , I am 58.

My pondering is that I have recently lost a colleague at 62 who had retired a year before and it made me realise none of us have a certain future . I don't have dependents and am wondering if I shouldn't start enjoying the money now rather than leave it for a later life I may not have . If it makes a difference my family are relatively long lived .

How do others decide on the spend and enjoy now v the possible medical / care home needs in later life .

I'm 69 - at 50 I was able to access my private pension. It's not a huge amount, a few hundred pounds per month and would have been worth more had I delayed it until my official retirement age of 66, but I've been benefitting from it for 19 years.

Deciding to take it was mainly because I was newly-divorced, recently redundant, and it just seemed a good idea the time! I still think that, and never delve or try and work out how much more it could have been worth had I left it longer.

For you, I expect much depends on your other assets e.g. home, savings, and future earning potential. I do think that we must sometimes live for the day and make life enjoyable.

Lots of people live abstemious lives, scrimping and saving, whilst having a substantial property and/or savings.

I'm in my 60s and waiting to retire (counting the months!)
In my fifties I spent a good deal of money - big money - travelling the world. Serious travelling...trekking through jungles including the Amazon, across Canada, into the Arctic regions, deserts, Jordon, Petra, all sorts of amazing places. I did it over a number of years and have never regretted it.

Someone told me once not to delay doing things until retirement because we never know what life will throw at us. It was wise advice....these days I have several health problems, and I wouldn't be able to do all that traveling now, I haven't the health nor the stamina I had then. But the experiences I had were, in many ways, life-changing: I learned so much, met so many friends across the world and feel I have a better "world view" of life rather than a very provincial one. I would do the same again if I had the choice.

So I guess based on my own experience I would be saying the same....if you can do it now, don't delay, life is too short . If you'll still be OK once you do actually retire, what's stopping you?

OP, you mentioned you have no dependents. Do you have any debts /mortgage / loans ? Do you have enough expected pension income / savings income to cover what your outgoings would be in a typical year of retirement plus a bit extra for emergencies - after you've taken money from your SIPP now ?

If the answer is Yes to the 2 questions above, then I'd suggest you can start thinking about what would you like to spend some of the SIPP money on, which would benefit your life in some way.

It's so tricky OP. Yes it's possible that you will spend your working life saving for retirement and then die young without having made use of it. But it's also possible (more likely?) that you'll live for many more years and will need every penny of that money to fund your retirement adequately. I'm a cautious type so I would want to spend too much and face a future without enough savings to live comfortably.

Thankyou all for your thoughts , all of them helpful .

My mum was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s at 57, I’m 53 and am I hell working for 1 second longer than I absolutely have to financially. Without being reckless, life’s for living