Retirement

[BBMmk2]

I feel as though I am retired these days. No trouble in filling my days though. The trouble is, the afternoon, I need to take a short nap, as fatigue generally sets in, after lunch. All part and parcel.

[EdgeleyRob]

I feel as though I am retired these days. No trouble in filling my days though. The trouble is, the afternoon, I need to take a short nap, as fatigue generally sets in, after lunch. All part and parcel.

I can't get through the day without an afternoon kip,mind you it was the same in the last couple of years of my working life

[Dave2002]

a very good article in the Guardian here, which addresses a lot of key issues.

Indeed it is rather good, though I wish journalists wouldn't introduce individual cases as "sob stories". Yep - some people will have 7 children, and fall ill - and yep - it's sad - but they don't all have to do that. Many people do manage to control their affairs more "reasonably".

There are people who do genuinely plan ahead, and who still get caught out "through no fault of their own ...(maybe)", but often people seem to choose an unsustainable life style, and not discover that they've done that till later, and then claim that it was their "human right" to behave as they did. People are to some extent encouraged, or at least not discouraged, by looking at other people's behaviour.

[teamsaint]

More bad economic news for the young.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/jul/19/state-pension-age-to-increase-seven-years-earlier-than-planned

and rather unsurprisingly, the rise in life expectancy has begun to level off.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/18/rise-in-life-expectancy-has-stalled-since-2010-research-shows

Still, 20 and 30 somethings are so busy trying to find the rent, or save a 20% deposit for a house on flat incomes, that they are way too busy to worry about what happens when they are 67 or 68 I guess, so that's alright.

[Bryn]

More bad economic news for the young.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/jul/19/state-pension-age-to-increase-seven-years-earlier-than-planned

and rather unsurprisingly, the rise in life expectancy has begun to level off.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/18/rise-in-life-expectancy-has-stalled-since-2010-research-shows

Still, 20 and 30 somethings are so busy trying to find the rent, or save a 20% deposit for a house on flat incomes, that they are way too busy to worry about what happens when they are 67 or 68 I guess, so that's alright.

Not taking my state pension yet, four and a quarter years after I could. Since I am still working, albeit part time, I am letting it accumulate, so that when I do stop working the higher rate will be of more use.

[teamsaint]

Not taking my state pension yet, four and a quarter years after I could. Since I am still working, albeit part time, I am letting it accumulate, so that when I do stop working the higher rate will be of more use.

Of purely academic interest to me, how much does it build up PA ?

[ardcarp]

Not taking my state pension yet, four and a quarter years after I could. Since I am still working, albeit part time, I am letting it accumulate, so that when I do stop working the higher rate will be of more use.

They always try to get people to defer taking the state pension, and quote the higher figure you could be getting. However, think of all those payments you haven't had? I guess you've done the figures, Bryn, but having taken some advice, I took my state pension bang on the age of 65 even though I'm still working and likely to be doing so for some time.

[teamsaint]

They always try to get people to defer taking the state pension, and quote the higher figure you could be getting. However, think of all those payments you haven't had? I guess you've done the figures, Bryn, but having taken some advice, I took my state pension bang on the age of 65 even though I'm still working and likely to be doing so for some time.

Lots of teachers are taking their pensions at 55. There is plenty of upside to taking the cash while you can, and before somebody changes the rules again, as they did on my modest personal pension fund about 7 years ago.

Flexibility, both personally and in the pension rules is a pretty good formula IMO.
Ther is a good deal of evidence that plenty of people don't want to just stop work at a certain age, but are happy or at least content to gradually wind down their working life.thats certainly what I am aiming for, more out of necessity than anything, but might as well make a virtue out of the situation.

[Bryn]

I have indeed, and did not want to lose 20% in tax, of what I got in state pension. Also, when I do eventually find the need to stop remunerative work, I will need all I can get. I do not especially want to have to take in a lodger to supplement a meagre state pension (due to time spent in higher education as a mature student, and the loss of what civil service pension I would have got when I left the scientific civil service (being non-contributory, you just lose it). I only have a few years of work related pension to top up the state one. That work one is also deferred. Fortunately the house was fully paid for when I inherited it, and I live fairly frugally.

[zola]

An article in next week's Radio Times by Paul Lewis ( the financial broadcaster not the pianist ) fairly firmly says "don't defer your pension". Might be worth nipping into WH Smiths and having a quick read, it is towards the back of the magazine.

[ardcarp]

There is a good deal of evidence that plenty of people don't want to just stop work at a certain age, but are happy or at least content to gradually wind down their working life. That's certainly what I am aiming for, more out of necessity than anything, but might as well make a virtue out of the situation.

That describes my situation too...pretty exactly....except that 'winding down' isn't as easy as it sounds!

[french frank]

An article in next week's Radio Times by Paul Lewis ( the financial broadcaster not the pianist ) fairly firmly says "don't defer your pension". Might be worth nipping into WH Smiths and having a quick read, it is towards the back of the magazine.

http://www.radiotimes.com/money/news/should-you-defer-your-state-pension/64043.html

[VodkaDilc]

Lots of teachers are taking their pensions at 55. There is plenty of upside to taking the cash while you can, and before somebody changes the rules again, as they did on my modest personal pension fund about 7 years ago.

A course of action I can thoroughly recommend, having done exactly that. As long as the pension is not on health grounds (when all manner of conditions come into force which restrict further teaching work), it is then possible to do as much part-time teaching as necessary - and for as long as it is still enjoyable. I gave it all up three years ago, which, by chance, coincided with my state pension age.

(My reply to the frequent question from friends is "No, I don't miss it in the slightest.")

[Bryn]

http://www.radiotimes.com/money/news...ion/64043.html

Very misleading. If one reached retirement age before April 6 2016 the deferral rate of increase is still 1% for every 5 weeks. That is the what applies in my case.

See: https://www.gov.uk/deferring-state-pension/what-you-get

[ahinton]

Very misleading. If one reached retirement age before April 6 2016 the deferral rate of increase is still 1% for every 5 weeks. That is the what applies in my case.

See: https://www.gov.uk/deferring-state-pension/what-you-get

I cannot imagine how much longer the government of the day (of whatever hue it might be) will be able to maintain this myth of a "pension" (which isn't a pension and never has been one) under the guise of a so-called "state retirement benefit" (which it also isn't to the extent that increasing numbers of people entitled to receive it are not actually "retired", either from choice or necessity or both); it's funded from people's NI taxes just as are all other state benefits and there's no investment involved so that "pensioners" have any opportunity to benefit from "pensions" in which an investment pot has built up over decades. It's a government taxpeyer-funded Ponzi scheme in all but name and has always been such, its once much-vaunted cliché of "ninepence for fourpence" having from its very outset been a something-for-nothing phenomenon. Governments are not best qualified to provide investment products, stll less advice thereon, so they ought to be honest about this and stop pretending to do so.