Early retirement, did people question your choices?

[Floofydawg]

I'm planning on retiring at the end of this year, by which time I'll be 57. Professional, well paid job. I'm just tired of it all. I'll have a fairly comfortable retirement but I won't be rich. My thinking is that you can't get the time back, but I could always earn a bit more money at some point if I felt I needed to.

When I've told friends and family, some of them are questioning my choices quite hard. Family are very money driven and they can't understand why I would give up a well paid job this young.

If you retired early, did you have people questioning you? Did you regret your choice?

I’ve left a full on senior role to take a step down and work at a junior level part time in another sector. So far I am very pleased with my decision although having to economise

I've been able to have a career I feel proud of, but I see my retirement as the gift I've saved up for to give myself, to have the freedom I had as a teenager, but with the added independence. If we're lucky, and it isn't a given, we'll have some time to follow our noses. I don't want to be busy with lots of hobbies. I may watch the sun how it travels through the leaves in a tree, but I do like to live simply, and I look forward ard to my early retirement.

Just retiring at 55. Turns out I have enough in funds to maintain current lifestyle and not run out up to age 100 and thats before I pull any house equity. Loads of other stuff to do so I am taking the opportunity to enjoy life.

Jealous! Planning to retire at 60, would be earlier if we’d had kids younger (this is when youngest will be 21 and hopefully through uni and off our hands) We are planning the gap year we never got at 18

Those of us on here who have retired aren't stupid. We know what we need to live comfortably. I made a spreadsheet showing the impact of taking my pension and lump sum early on a month by month basis and planned my retirement date based on those figures. When we reach 67, our income will increase thanks to the state pension.

There is no shortfall.

Agree with this, and see it played out amongst many people I know, and have known.

I've retired early and we've been travelling quite a lot. Mainly UK but a couple of trips abroad

the freedom I had as a teenager, but with the added independence

Love this!

I'm planning retirement-lite. I work 30 hours pw, DH doesn't want to cut his hours (it's not that he's defined by his job - he just loves it) but is going to purchase extra holiday time so we can have more holidays but there's a limit to how many I want to do.

Both my parents died young but that doesn't make me want to give up a job I enjoy (I'm probably the only one on this thread who doesn't have a high flying career!). Good luck to those who want to and I have no doubt you've done your sums.

By the time I get to state pension age DH and I will be on more money than we are now because of multiple defined benefit pensions. Not everyone needs to keep slogging. I will retire in 3 years(at 61) because that’s when DD finishes uni. It’s not luck, it’s having the sense at 21 to choose jobs with good pension schemes . I watched my mum miss out on that so it was a driver.

I wish my current role could be done part time, say 3 days a week, but it can't. I'd love to slow down a bit maybe for a year, to eke out work a bit longer. I'm just fed up of the full time slog, constant pressure. It's very full-on. I've done my sums and I'm not stupid. Why on earth would I keep putting myself through this if I didn't need to?

It’s not luck, it’s having the sense at 21 to choose jobs with good pension schemes

Of course some of its luck. Do those pension schemes have the same terms for people entering the schemes now?

My husband and I retired two years early. I was more cautious than my husband. I spent ages making financial spread sheets and worrying I was ‘betraying’ the team I led. One of my daughters left me in no doubt that retirement was the right decision. She simply asked what a year of my life was worth. Others worried we would be bored and have no ‘identity’. We have now been retired for over ten years. It’s been absolutely fantastic. If you can afford it, do it. You will not regret it at all.

I’m not sure what the article from Retirement Solutions is supposed to add. Of course there is a pensions shortfall across the population. But that doesn’t mean that some people have planned their retirement carefully for years and saved enough.

The PLSA standards aren’t necessarily that helpful - much better to go through your own spending history to find out how you actually spend than rely on those quite broad brush definitions. You can analyse how they build up their budget spreadsheets and a lot of the spending bears no resemblance to my priorities and spending patterns.

We plan to retire at 55-ish. No plans to ‘sit at home’ though…

I am 63 and would love to retire but can’t afford to
in fact I can’t think of anyone I know who would choose to work a day longer if they could afford not to

I think the thing here is just to try and not discuss it too much, it's totally your business. I think 57 is a perfect age to retire - I plan to do the same hopefully.

this is giving me food for thought as dh is older than me and in 7 years time will be even more unfit

The PLSA standards aren’t necessarily that helpful

They are based on a tiny sample (a mere 47 people, IIRC), some of whom aren't even retired and are asked to simply guess how much they expect to spend in retirement.

The Which? figures are slightly better, being based on actual spending of a considerably larger sample who are all actually retired. Still only a rough guide, though, because everyone has different priorities. For example I like a good hotel when I travel so spend freely on that, but even the basic level Which? figures allow for far more house redecorating and car replacement than I'll ever need.

Honestly Floofy, some of what is being said here is really odd. I don't know why people are trying to put you off.

I felt I was being ground into dust by my job. Eat, sleep, commute (train and tube, ugh), work. Endless meetings to make decisions which could have been done by a few emails. Office politics.

I left. Did something else for a couple of years to tide me over, then took my pension and lump sum. Absolutely the best thing I ever did. The good work friends I made I still see. I get out and about. Volunteer. Go on holiday. But I also just "be", if that makes sense.

Early retirement won't suit everyone, as comments on this thread have made clear, but the joy is that if it doesn't appeal to you, you don't have to do it!

The other point delending on your workplace is you may be replaced, I was replaced and someone much younger than me got a job. So whilst maybe some may be hacked off they can’t retire young it also frees up a job. DH wasn’t as he accepted voluntary redundancy.

@CharlotteCChapel We had 3 trips away in our Motorhome that we bought with DH redundancy money. In total 6 weeks, would have been longer but DH spent 6 weeks caring for MIL we have spent more money in the last year than ever before. We are still enjoying paying tax on our pensions though obviously nowhere near as much as when we were working.

I'm 55 and not planning on retiring until I'm 59 or 60. I enjoy my job and it's not demanding or tiring and very flexible.

After years of saving and investing I think I'm going to struggle with spending without a paycheck coming in every month. We have one tiny DB pension and the rest is a DC pot.

It's really hard to know how much is enough to last us the rest of our lives. I do track our expenses and know what we need as a bare minimum, but how do we know what prices will do in the future? We've had huge price rises in recent years in energy, food, water bills etc, how do we know there won't be further big price hikes in the future?

How do you know that you've got enough saved to last you for 30-40 years?

Before I retired most of my family were pushing me to give up work for a few years before (I was 63 when I did stop ). The timing ended up being quite fortuitous as my DFs health suddenly took a nosedive and me being retired meant I was able to shoulder my share of his care with my DSis who had been keeping an eye on him for the past few years.

However there were two things I hadn’t expected. My DCs who had been pushing me to retire suddenly started making lots of pointed comments about me ‘living the life of Riley’ if I had the temerity to say I was a bit tired after spending hours/days in A&E with Dad, or after they’d all visited for a weekend (with young DGCs) or if I’d said I’d had a nice day out somewhere. When challenged, then I was told not to be so sensitive as ‘they were only joking’.

The other thing which I hadn’t expected was the sense of feeling unsettled for around a year. I was certainly busy (although not always with activities I took much pleasure in), and I was surprised how long it took me to finally feel more grounded and comfortable no longer having a job, to relax about using my savings for big ticket expenses and realise I still had personal agency to arrange my days for me (not necessarily what others decided I should be doing).

I don’t regret retiring earlier than SP age. I was in good health and could afford it. I don’t miss my old job and wasn’t surprised that most colleagues don’t keep in touch. But I’ve had time for me, my DH and family, and friends and hobbies.

OP, if you can afford to stop work I’d say go for it. Our health declines as we age so make the most of your good years; none of know what’s round the corner. Just make sure you have enough finance in place for your older years. Once you need support and care, your outgoings rapidly increase.

Don’t forget you will have state pension coming in when you are 67.

Yes the state pension will be a big help. But if we retire at around 60 which for me is 20230, we won't get that until 2035 and 2037.

As things are now with both of us working we are very comfortable, don't have to think twice about eating out or booking a holiday etc.

I don't know what size pot we'd need to have that same freedom in retirement.

I think we'd need about £45kpa net in today's money in retirement, so what size pot do we need to achieve, that given inflation means that this will need to increase every year.

We would like to do lots of travelling in our 60s but once we're in our 70s I think we wouldn't need as much. Probably more like net £35kpa.

On the question of how do you know how much you need.

What we did was put down all the expenses we had over a 12 month period. Then we worked out what will still be needed in retirement and then add more for contingency. We then front loaded the first 10 years of retirement stating we would need several thousand extra to do all the things we wanted to while we had good health.

Then we went to our IFA and they modelled several scenarios to see how our investments and savings would last if we spent x amount and took out a certain percentage in drawdown. We also made a decision to downsize our house to release more equity to fund those early years because what is the point of sitting on an asset that you cannot use and only costs money.