Off Topic To become a gentleman of leisure ?

Early retirement has become a great indulgence of the baby boomer generation. Your grandparents worked to 65 and your children will work to 67/68. When discussing your final salary pensions, lengthy service to one company, and early retirement packages please remember how lucky your generation has been.

 

You can take option 2 but don't have to actually 'retire' -- I took the plunge last summer and haven't regretted it. Just trained in something else which has come good. My pension was half my salary but with all the deductions I'm not paying any more, the 'take home' is 2/3rds and my outgoings have been slashed. Calculate how much of your redundo you'd need to use each year to top up the early pension. If that then takes you through to OAP pension, you're laughing.

 

This assertion grates on me as I can tell you OM that many of my friends will not see a penny of retirement money they paid into for many years because they are dead. Us baby boomers still had to work and had to endure many of the massive cock up from the governments of the day, you think recession, banking or whatever crisis are only happening now? I had winters on building sites where nothing could be done due to weather then government cut backs, yes we had them, hit the building trade hard. Repossessions were rife house prices collapsed for a while, so we had it easy? Yes some people did do well, just like they do today but don't think that everyone was in a feather bedded environment as you assume we had sh*t time galore and some of us didn't survive, my friends amongst them.

 

And then invest the rest in an Indian stock market and/or biotech fund until they go tits up, or buy tracker funds on dips and sell on highs.

 

Take the money.

Just because you are 'retired' and drawing a pension does not mean you cannot still work and earn an income. You just need to make sure you do it tax efficiently and keep under the higher rate tax threshold of 40K ish per year.

You can even still pay into a private pension up to £2880 per year and get 25% tax relief from the gov taking the contributions up to £3600 per annum - free money - and still avoid the recycling rules. 12 years contributions at a modest 5% pa return will give you a pot of around £60k - tax free lump sum of £15k and a pension of around £2.5k per year. Add to that when you reach state pension age of 66 / 67 when you will get £8k per year state pension. You can even defer your state pension and receive 10% increase each year you do.

So all in all I'd say you're in a pretty sweet situation to have secured your future and with the new tax rules on pensions, your wife should do pretty well to once you shuffle off.

Good luck to you and enjoy your life - you've earned it.

 

I couldn't agree with you more Ref. Perhaps I should have excluded Insurance Company speak, as you say, lifespan is a crap shoot, impossible to predict.
The facts NFT presented make the offer seem very good indeed. I would find it hard to say that if NFT was 45 years old or younger, too many years ahead to survive on a reduced pension with all those unpredictable factors possibly coming into play. If NFT is 55 + & he and his family feel the reduced pension & lump sum settlement amount is what they could be happy with, then it's a no-brainer. Go for it.

 

Take the money and retire m8. If I was offered the figures you have I wouldn't hesitate.

 

No able-bodied man should not work. A life of self-indulgence destroys character. The best thing you can do for yourself is go back to the job you love. You'll be a happier man for it.

 

Take the money, buy the bike, enjoy yourself. Life is not a rehersal.

 

If you get the new H2 please take it, just so I can sit and look at it for an hour, I saw the full blown version run on the dyno at motorcycle live this year and it was epic!

 

I was at the NEC on the Sunday when they ran it to the redline - I have all four minutes of it saved on my phone !