I used to love my work, but over the last couple of years it's all got so serious! I used to do good work and have a chat and go to the pub a couple of lunchtimes a week. Not any more - even having lunch away from your desk seems to be frowned upon these days. Does this ring a bell with anyone else?
Too right it does. Take an hour for lunch here (even sat at your desk) or head off home at 5.30 and you'll get looked at as if you have just pulled your strides down and walked across the office on your hands with a lit sparkler protruding from your backside.
Like others my age, I feel really lucky to have been born when I was. We are the golden generation who have had it all and boy do I appreciate it when I see the struggle others are having and will have, including my own children. I took early retirement 16 months ago at the age of 58 and was fortunate enough to have worked nearly 40 years with the same employer and to have built up a good pension. With some of that money I was able to pay off all my credit cards and other debts and now have a lovely life without either. My wife goes out to work and I look after the home, which I consider a very fair arrangement, and I've also found myself an undemanding part-time job nearby which I really enjoy and which supplements my pension. I never get bored - there's just too much to do, too many places to go, too many people to see. I have re-established contact with lost relatives, redecorated my house and just completed my first novel. My only restriction comes from still having two young children (it's my second marriage) but now I'm based at home we have no childcare costs, which were becoming exorbitant, I get to spend lots of quality time with my great kids and we have no worries about who's going to look after them during the school holidays. Life couldn't get a lot better!
Sometimes we make a rod for our own back without knowing it and then suffer the consequences. The recession has changed things for a lot of people, especially those that took more risks along the way. On the other hand, those that took the more 'safe' approach throughout the years will probably be less impacted as they approach retirement.
No chance of retirement for me. I'm 35, divorced with a daugther and life is a huge struggle just to make ends meet. Had to give up my car and I've had 1 holiday in the last 16 years. I just get on with it and accept I have to work my balls off just like my parents did.
Just hope I meet a rich woman or win the lottery. Bearing in mind I'm so skint and hardly go out anymore, there's more chance me winning the Euromillions than there is me meeting a woman full stop.
Internet dating sites for you. One of my mates has outstanding success & I don't know how he does it.
lol... I'm a veteran of internet dating these days.
No chance of retirement for me. I'm 35, divorced with a daugther and life is a huge struggle just to make ends meet. Had to give up my car and I've had 1 holiday in the last 16 years. I just get on with it and accept I have to work my balls off just like my parents did.
Just hope I meet a rich woman or win the lottery. Bearing in mind I'm so skint and hardly go out anymore, there's more chance me winning the Euromillions than there is me meeting a woman full stop.
if you work out of the uk for a large number of years, can you still get a uk state pension?
how does it work?
You only get out what you put in so if you want the full benefit you can elect to continue to contribute to the National Pension while you're working abroad. When you retire it's totally based on what you've contributed over the years. I believe that's the way it works but don't know the ins and outs.
When i was younger I always thought people who had pensions , had been to University , foreign holidays , and a season ticket in the west stand were middle class. :-0
When i was younger I always thought people who had pensions , had been to University , foreign holidays , and a season ticket in the west stand were middle class. :-0
if you work out of the uk for a large number of years, can you still get a uk state pension?
how does it work?
You only get out what you put in so if you want the full benefit you can elect to continue to contribute to the National Pension while you're working abroad. When you retire it's totally based on what you've contributed over the years. I believe that's the way it works but don't know the ins and outs.
sooooo.... how does one go about contributing?
and how do you compare it to putting into a private pension
I want to retire at 40. I have three years and nine months to go and am ahead of schedule, re: corporate value, but in the field I'm in, one bad acquisition, too many dud films and the clock resets.
32 years old and love my job. No pension to speak of bar bits and bobs from previous employers, because the company don't do anything (yet) and I don't quite earn enough (yet) to contribute myself. Hopefully I still enjoy work this much in 30 years time because I'll be struggling to afford retirement unless my ship comes in. Not helped by the fact that all my wife talks about is having more children.......
When i was younger I always thought people who had pensions , had been to University , foreign holidays , and a season ticket in the west stand were middle class. :-0
You were right!
I think there are some middle class folk in the East Stand also.
I'll be retiring (receiving a pension) on Feb 29 aged 65, but I'll still be working until the end of April as my employers haven't found a replacement for me yet.
I don't to want to stop work completely, and they've agreed to let me continue to do the 15-20% of my job that interests me the most. At the moment that seems like the best of all possible worlds!
There are an impressive number of people on this thread who have either already retired early or feel that they will be able to.
I am truly amazed at the same. It's odd because some of those very same people are among the first to get all hot and bothered whenever the subject of public sector pensions comes up and start banging on about gold plated pensions and everybody retiring early.
As a public sector worker already with more than 25 years in, I am absolutely 100% certain that even if I manage to keep my job there is no way on earth I will be retiring before another 25 years have passed. Then if my genetics run true to form I’ll die within two years. Triffic…
I see the LGA has announced today another year of the pay freeze (i.e a pay cut) hence that’ll add further to the time I’ll have to work before I can afford to retire.
[sobs quietly to himself…]
Truly feel your pain mate. I've been working in the public sector for the last fifteen years. Eight years for the NHS, prison service for the last seven and I have no positivity for the future and my retirement. I joined the service when you could still retire at sixty but feel that will be scuppered and I'll be rolling around the landings with some horrible little scrote young enough to be my grandson when I'm sixty-five. Then I can retire on a pension worth far less than promised which we've paid more for.
Armed with the knowledge that screws, on average, survive for eighteen months after finishing work then I'll probably be dead before I retire.
Not certain why it's eighteen months on average, maybe something to do with being on a constant state of alert so stress build up? It appears true though because I know from experience of three lads who died within that timeframe, two others diagnosed with cancer from my prison alone. Sadly we lost a cracking bloke in January. Dropped down dead with a massive heart attack two shifts away from retiring.
Don't think it's anything to do with ex-cons tracking ex screws down though I have to say there's been a few who I pray to God never find out where I live.
I'm 24 and I've not even thought about a pension yet. I'm too busy worrying about getting my degree and wondering if I'll ever be able to afford to live in London by myself.
Comments
Feeble minded culture.
how does it work?
and how do you compare it to putting into a private pension
I can honesty say I've never thought about my retirement date. Just take each day as it comes and don't stress yourself to an early grave.
This thread is an odd mixture of people moaning that the government will never "let" them retire and folk that jacked it in, in their 40s
Not sure if it'll happen, but gotta have a goal!
I don't to want to stop work completely, and they've agreed to let me continue to do the 15-20% of my job that interests me the most. At the moment that seems like the best of all possible worlds!
Armed with the knowledge that screws, on average, survive for eighteen months after finishing work then I'll probably be dead before I retire.
Still, mustn't grumble eh.
Do the ex-inmates hunt them down or something?
What gives there?
It appears true though because I know from experience of three lads who died within that timeframe, two others diagnosed with cancer from my prison alone.
Sadly we lost a cracking bloke in January. Dropped down dead with a massive heart attack two shifts away from retiring.
Don't think it's anything to do with ex-cons tracking ex screws down though I have to say there's been a few who I pray to God never find out where I live.
I'm too busy worrying about getting my degree and wondering if I'll ever be able to afford to live in London by myself.