Off Topic To become a gentleman of leisure ?

I'll hopefully be at cold and miserable Caldwell in late February for the first outing of the year with my duc

 

I had my MV round there a couple of times last year....love getting air over the mountain even on a road bike.

Will be worth a run round if I get a new H2

 

Ducati, nice one - I bought a Hypermotard last year and rode round country lanes like a hoolie on it, got rid after doing a 250 mile round trip to BSB at Snetterton - my hoolie machine nearly bust my coccyx, 60 miles from home I seriously pondered getting off, kicking it into a ditch and hitch hiking home !

 

To my mind it's quite a simple equation.

With pensions, lump sums, savings, keeping the Missus hard at it, can I afford to fund the lifestyle I want?

If no, keep working.

If yes, snap bosses hand off.


Also, why not get the advice of an Independent Financial Advisor? Ok, there's a cost involved but good investment advice can pay for itself very quickly.


Or so I'm told by my mate Tony.


Who's an Independent Financial Advisor.

 

If the figures are anything like accurate then yes I can afford to stop....but I think the Mrs would then like to stop too !!

Saying that, if I can get in 10 hours consultancy a month she could probably afford to stop too.....although how we would live together 24/7 when we see each other about 20 waking hours a week at present could be interesting

 

You've lost a lot of goodwill here NFT

Tony's going to steal your money and run off with your mrs Ernie. Hope this helps

 

Some bad, some good.

And so it goes.

 

I've paid in enough for the privilege Chazz, extra contributions for the last 20 years in the hope of a comfortable retirement, which could so easily have ended up in a wheelchair

 

Get yourself off, I did, 10 years ago at 59 and thoroughly recommend retirement. Lots of cycling, walking, trips home and abroad, (plus the KC). The only hiccup was a bad stroke 3 years ago from which I fortunately made a long odds level of recovery, all the more reason for making the most of the opportunity and doing your own thing as early as possible.

 

Exactly. So go and enjoy it.

I was in Dr's yesterday and bumped into an old mate. It was great to see him but al we talked about was some of the lads who either arent around or in bad health. His brother's a great kid, few years older than me, and he's had nowt but poor health for 5 years. He was fit as a fiddle, good footballer, boxer.
Enjoy it while you can

 

Damn this is an easy one. Who the **** wants to work if they don't need to ? Snap their hand off NFT

 

I would definitely take option 2 a lot of my colleagues got the chance to take their pension at 50 with redundancy and they have never looked back. And you could do consultancy work as and when.

 

Option two, consultancy work if and when you want will probably be more than your average salary. So take retirement and recuperation and enjoy some whiskey

 

Retire while your still well enough to do all the things you want to do Mr Ferriby.

Here's to you have many adventures and great time.

 

I had back surgery due to a ruptured disc(L5 S1) in 1983 and re-injured my back(not seriously) a couple of times at work. My work in the corporate sector involved thousands of miles of driving and flying both local and international. In 1986 in my 47th year I retired from work. My wife continued on for another 14 years. For a couple of years after retiring I did about 10 hours of consultancy work a week.

I became a house husband as well as becoming heavily involved in charity and social work and love gardening. My main hobby is bush walking spending many hours a week on this pursuit.. My back is as good as new and the only thing I don't do these days is run/jog(doctors orders!) although from time to time I will cheat and have a little fast run and sprint!

I am now approaching more or less 30 years of retirement and loving every minute. My wife loved her work so much she was worried about how she would cope with retirement but completely changed her tune a couple of years after resigning from her employment. She said she would have stopped at least 10 years earlier if she had known how good and fulfilling retirement was. She is heavily into charity work and embroidery, quilt making etc.

It is obvious what my advice would be to you!

 

The right decision was making those extra contributions, the wrong decision would be wasting the right one.

 

Ferriby,
My thoughts on your question are as follows: I'm sure you will have asked yourself all of what follows, so forgive me if they sound obvious, but I've had a few friends who, in the heat of the moment in similar situations, have not given it enough thought. Pretty well all of the above posts are suggesting the same thing, i.e. take the offer & run. I definitely agree with them if you are over the age of 55 or thereabouts.

You need to ask yourself a number of critical questions.

1) Will the package being offered be enough for you & your good wife to live comfortably for your estimated life expectancies and would you be satisfied with that level of comfort ?

2) Will that level of package be offered again by your employer in the future should similar conditions occur again ( not that anyone would wish a repeat of your recent injuries of course) ? Many companies are feeling the pinch, reducing staff and being less generous with such packages because of changing economic conditions. Is that a possible scenario at the company you work for ? Current management of the company will likely change, bringing with it new ideas which may be detrimental to their present human resources attitudes. I've seen that happen far too often in the last 20 years.

3) Will you benefit significantly (i.e make enough difference to your level of comfort) from a pension point of view if you stay until your normal retirement date ? The older we get, it seems, the more stressful the job becomes as we slow down but the demands & expectations from management never do. New management tends to be younger - their respect for knowledge of experienced older employees is often diluted. Will the higher pension compensate for those extra years of toil & the potential impact it may have on your health and hence your ability to enjoy your retirement to the full several years later ?

4) Probably the most important question to ask yourself is will the wife be happy with the decision you make ? This aspect is not to be underestimated.

As many have said above, peace of mind and your state of health are paramount to an enjoyable retirement. With the offer of potential ad hoc consultancy, that would give you choices if the financial situation needs modifying. Should you retire early and take the offer before you (option 2), you could always buy a few books, if need be, on financial management of your money in retirement.

Good luck with your decision.

One additional thought.
It's amazing how many people don't consider the impact if unexpected sickness or debilitating health problems rear their ugly heads. That can have a major impact on a family budget - hospitalization, care costs etc etc. Those possibilities should be considered when making major decisions like this. If you are under some sort of health/medical plan with your company, make sure you don't lose it if you accept their offer. If you don't have such a plan, consider the needs and costs involved in getting appropriate insurance coverage.

 

With respect to 'your mate Tony', Financial Advisers here in Oz are on commission. They will advise you to go where they get the most commission - not saying 'your mate Tony' would do this to you of course. When I went to pick my superannuation up they had all the forms made out for an Allocated Pension where I would give them the money and they would give me a pension until the money ran out in 16 years time. This worked out at the equivalent of approx 4% of my investment each week. I gave them the 'big-finger' and demanded the money in a lump sum which I invested in a term deposit which has fluctuated from 6-3.5% over the years. My investment has almost doubled in that time whereas it would have shrunk to about a quarter of the original amount should I have taken an Allocated Pension.
My point is that my wife (23 years my junior) will have no problems after I have gone as the money is still there. She would have nothing if I had taken an Allocated Pension.
I understand that interest rates in the UK are almost non-existent so you probably couldn't do this but most of you will be in a Trade Union and you will have access to their solicitors advice at no cost to you. They will give you advice that will benefit you and not financial advisers.

P.S. Was at the Doctors last week and he told me that I have the perfect measurements for a man eleven foot two! I really must go on a diet!

 

Are you sure it was your girth he was referring to , Roo; or should we call you Tripod?

 

Will the package being offered be enough for you & your good wife to live comfortably for your estimated life expectancies and would you be satisfied with that level of comfort ?

That's the big conundrum TC isn't it? Most of the advice on this thread is well meaning but estimated life expectancy is an insurance company statement that to me means nothing at all. There is one thing I have come to realise reaching the age in life that I have and that is there is no logic in life at all. A life where kids get cancer whereas old guys smoke and drink in their 70's, where I have lost friends in their 40's and 50 yet see old folk on the tele taking dips in ice cold rivers. It seems from NFT's published pension figures his retirement seems comfortably assured for an area like Hull so I reitetate what I have already said take what's on offer then sit back and contemplate your future, of which none of us can say how long that will be. If I can just quote a line from a recently deceased celebrity, Joan Rivers, it went something like this: 'This is not a trial run you can't come back and decide to do things a bit different the next time this is it the main show' it sure is.