stay or go.

[monalisa12]

I do not like my job. I work in an office. I earn reasonable wages and it allows me to pay bills. Save a little bit and have a holiday and have money for pleasure like going to the cinema or a meal out or to a show or a day out somewhere and buy clothes such as I need them.

I am eligible for early retirement but what I would get from that would in no way cover my living costs and it will be 12 years until I get my state pension. 12 years can go by quite quickly and I know it because I have lived in my current property which is rented for 20 years and I clearly recall the day I moved in. Various people have given me various options from leaving work and taking the retirement and making up the shortfall in wages from temporary work. Others have said stay in your company but see if you can get another job and someone else said take the retirement and try and live a simpler life and if you cannot afford to go on holiday then you just have to accept it. The person who said that also said that due to her financial situation she has not had a holiday for 25 years and it does not bother her. She said why stay in a job you dislike just because of the money and if you do you will become more and more stressed and you will either have a stroke or a heart attack.

Well I'd stay in the hub but I like the niceties in life. What if you can't make the shortfall with temp work / your rent goes up etc.

I also wouldn't count on the state pension for much in 12 years time.

I'd be staying. Is it the company offering early retirement? How long have you been there. If they want you out are they attempting to avoid paying you redundancy?

My company is offering early retirement to those aged 50 or over. Employees of qualifying age can take it or not as they wish. I have worked with the company for 31 years. However, the more you earn, the more early retirement pension you get. As I said before, I can live on my wages but my salary is by no means a very high one. I earn less than £30k. We get our full company pension at age 60 but obviously if you take early retirement then it will be reduced. People without any capital to fall back on are working longer and when they put the state pension up for women to 67 then women are staying in jobs until they are into their 60s. Originally my plan was to work as close to age 67 as I could so that I could take my company pension and my state pension together so that it would bring me enough money to live on but not one without the other. The good thing about renting is that maybe I could opt for housing benefit if your income is too low but I do not know how things would stand now. The last time I was in receipt of housing benefit was 30 years ago when I was unemployed before I joined the company I am in now.

Just googled housing benefit and if you are on a low income you can claim housing benefit but you cannot have more than £16k in savings. If I were to take early retirement then as well as the pension pay, I would get a lump sum of money of about £18k and if I had any other savings then that would be added to it (I only currently have £7k) so that would put me over the limit to qualify for housing benefit and either I would have to spend some of my lump sum or find some other way of paying my way

Then I would definitely stay

Thanks to the responses. My gut feeling is to stay and try and get a transfer and in the meantime I will just have to try and make the best of things. I just need faith and patience