Retirement at 50?

[Otins]

Would you retire aged 50 if you could?

I am currently working it through with an IFA and I think I can afford to do it.

I have no children. I am in a relationship but financially independent and not married.

I had always planned to retire at 60 when my mortgage was paid off, but a recent inheritance means i am mortgage free now.

Would you retire this early if you could?

i have joked in the past that retirement is wasted on the old, and I could have 10 years now having fun, and I felt funds were getting a bit tight , i could go back to work aged 60.

My monthly 'retirement' income would
be around the same as my average monthly jncome over the last 10 years (self employed so it fluctuates) This wouldn't allow for luxury world cruises but a couple of holidays a year, plenty of eating out and culture, and some leeway for the occasional splurge seems plenty.

I could keep earning and have 'more' but it seems wasteful if I don't need more, and time is our most precious commodity.

Yeah. Sack that right off!

But at least you could do 6 months ‘retirement’ and if it got boring/ you needed a little extra you’ve got your self employed thing to do as and when.

I only say this as my friend’s dad had 3 years ‘retirement’ and then went back consulting/on the job/other as and when a few old contacts twisted his arm for another 10 years! (If lovely holidays/family events permitted). Sounded great to me!

Life is too short to work a job you hate if you don’t have to!

Yes, almost¹ the only times I can remember being bored involve work - meetings and mindnumbing tasks that I have to do because I'm being paid for them. If I were ever in similarly dull situations outside work I could either have a podcast on to entertain me or simply not do whatever it was.

And I've never derived my identity or status from work. It's something I do, not who I am.

¹ the only exceptuons involve being too ill to move, read, or listen to anything.

I'd love to know what you've all done so I can advise my kids!

If it's advice for your children, @Needanewjobsoon, you probably want to avoid advising them to bump off a parent. And 'be born in the 1980s or earlier' isn't really practical. So that leaves understanding money early, and putting it to work as soon as you can.

I've saved for as long as I can remember, and was switching accounts for new customer incentives before I'd started primary school. Admittedly the rewards were certificates, pencil cases and piggy banks rather than a financial return, but it's a good habit to get into checking you have the best rates and rewards.

I started investing rather than just saving at 14. From my monthly allowance, 20% went straight into a 10-year investment plan that gave me enough for a house deposit (timing of birth was a factor in this step) when it matured. The rest was a personal budget thay had to cover anything I wanted other than board & lodging and school uniform. So by the time I went to university I was used to living within a finite income, and didn't go mad and blow a whole term's worth of money in fresher's week.

Being used to regular investment meant that once the first 10-year investment matured it was easy to divert those payments into a pension (the sooner you start one of those, the more you benefit from even tiny payments) and mortgage overpayment.

Carefully choosing a house and location that would increase in value, finding a partner who'd taken a similar path, and then moving to a lower cost area, meant we had no mortgage by the time I was 30 despite neither of us choosing especially high flying careers.

Add 20 years of further investment, a job with a solid pension scheme, no children, and an inheritance that took a decade off the plan.

I am doing this at the end of the year.

Having worked since I was 16 I am ready to retire and just want to get off the rat run.

We have calculated our expenses and the IFA has validated that we can do it but also plan to downsize to put a bit more in the pot for fun money as well as future proofing the area for older age.

I can't wait and the last months I plan to do paid work is going very slowly.

So yes I can retire at early 50s and will be doing so.

I think you need to be careful about cognitive decline. I have two relatives who retired very early and they have both developed dementia. Other elderly relatives who worked longer didn't.

I think people really need to think about finances aswell before jumping ship . If I had gone at 50 that's 17 years I would have to self fund before state pension . Ime everything is so expensive and I do socialise a lot because I'm single . I spend far more away from work than I do at work I certainly would not give up work to sit at home with a tin of beans .

@Hiker50 yes just read this yesterday

www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/mentally-stimulating-jobs-linked-to-lower-risk-of-dementia-in-old-age/

I am out this summer at 52 (48 working days to go, not that I'm counting down or anything....) I say I'm retiring but it may just be a break while I recover from the horror of being a teacher in the current data-obsessed system.
I can't wait. It's good to have this thread as I can't talk about it at school as everyone else is understandably jealous and I don't want to rub their noses in it.

Honestly my professional career job might be 'mentally stimulating' but it is also mentally stressful and physically limiting being sat at a desk all day.

Retiring early for me doesn't mean sitting in a chair and waiting to die.

And although studies might suggest we should all work until we can't you need to weigh that up with all the people who have died whilst working never to see retirement or those only having a very short healthy life when they do. It's a personal choice though and I am fortunate to be able to choose to go early or not.

And I am taking the view that I am retiring early whilst I have my physical and mental health.

I am still in awe of you and would say go for it.

I will be working til retirement I am sure as life hasn't gone quite so smoothly, but I fully support anyone retiring early who can!

This article says this - "People with mentally stimulating jobs have a lower risk of dementia in old age than those with non-stimulating jobs"

It's not having a job that prevents cognitive decline, it's having a stimulated, active mind.

If you are stuck in a job that no longer holds your interest or challenges you then you might be as badly off as someone who retires and sits in a chair.

Retirement, if stuffed with learning, people, volunteering, challenges, physical activity and a mind that is fascinated by the world around you, can be as stimulating if not more so than a job.

One thing I notice having retired early and been very physically active almost all day every day during the past 10 years (hill walking, sea swimming, yoga, cycling, gardening, renovating my house, volunteering in a manual role) is that I am fitter and stronger than the friends I made at work who are still spending 8 - 10 hours a day sitting at a desk and 3 in a car or train.

But that is the whole point of the OP's post and many of the replies (including mine).
If finances are good and pension, investments, savings etc allow you to maintain the same (or similar) standard of living, why carry on working?
No one is suggesting that you should retire early and then live on a tin of beans but if you can live a full and active life free of financial worries, why not?

Its true you need to keep your brain active. You should but do it in a way that you want to.

There's some assumption retirement means putting your feet up. After one year, mines not like that! My days are full and one day I'll drop the 2 days a week part time work and I'm sure they will fill up just as quickly.

Exactly. The divide isn't job/no job but mentally stimulated/unstimulated (plus possible confounding of cause and effect - people in the very early statges of dementia, long before diagnosable symptoms, will be more likely to stop work or move to simpler roles than people without any cognitive decline).

And we know physical activity can help reduce some dementia risks. It's much easier to be active if not tied to a desk 8 hours a day.

My mum retired at 60, took up a new sport to quite a high level (coaching and umpiring as well as playing) and a very physically demanding hobby that required a lot of research into an area she had nonpreviois experience of.

My dad retired at 55 and took up a hobby/freelance career that involved international travel, historical research and keeping up with details of the latest tech in the field (not just using it but publicising and explaining it to others).

The signs of my physical fitness declining are a significant factor in my decision to stop. My plans include several forms of both social and solo exercise and plenty of things that will keep my brain active (including 6 languages to learn, covering 5 alphabets; and a hobby that needs both a lot of historical research and keeping up to date with complex and frequently changing legislation). And there are a few postgraduate qualifications I have my eye on.

And no one has any proof that the same thing would not have happened had your relatives not retired early. There are other ways to keep the brain active, then being at work all day long!

I don’t think that poster said it was work or nothing - just that you have to be careful to avoid cognitive decline. I agree with that - it’s important to keep your body and mind active but it can be easy to lose cognitive function if you don’t have outside interests that keep your brain stimulated once you retire.

@JadeSeahorse Thank you!

@Churchview The article specifically says

Cognitive stimulation is assumed to prevent or postpone the onset of dementia. But trial results have varied and most recent long term studies have suggested that leisure time cognitive activity does not reduce risk of dementia.

I need to actually read the full research however they seem to imply here they compared stimulating leisure activity with cognitive stimulation from work.

So if that's the case then 'keeping mentally active ' through leisure is not not reducing the risk of dementia. People often like to brag that they are keeping mentally active but dipping into the odd volunteering activity isn't probably enough.

Would you have enough money to cover all of the extra things you would want to do while not working? Whenever I’ve had periods of not working I find myself spending so much more because I’m always out and about.

We're thinking about .... mid 50s. I work four days a week and enjoy it, it isn't stressful and it's mostly at home. One day in office.

DH is self employed in a very physical job and hates it, it's exhausting at his age.

We've recently had an inheritance which obv gives us new options. Both DCs have left home, they're renting and we want to give them a big deposit to get onto the housing ladder. Then we'll decide how we can manage the rest of it, with or without work.

We both love to travel and also love eating out so that needs a lot of cash.

Obviously dementia is truly awful but at an individual level, I don't think many people can motivate themselves to work for years in a time consuming, potentially stressful or depressing role for money they don't need, with the sole purpose to reduce their risk of it.

Quite, @Chewbecca. Especially when doing so may well increase the risk of other conditions.

There are varying degrees and natures of leisure time activity.

A half day of accounts per month for bowling club would be very different from studying for a degree, volunteering to help others with literary skills or running an animal sanctuary. Many retirees (in my experience) have a life made up of such a mixed bag of stimulating activities - running hobby businesses for beer money, learning new skills and sports, two or three different voluntary jobs, formal education.

It would be interesting to see how different retirement activities impact on cognitive function.

It's also true that not all work provides cognitive stimulation. Some is repetitive and mindless.

So far on this thread there have been very few people that retired young and haven’t said it’s great.

I doubt they would. People who choose to retire early want to do so, presumably have some peers/friends/partners who are also retired do have company, and have the income (for one reason or another) to do so. It’s an active choice.