Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Being paid to breathe

Indeed difficult to answer and despite getting good financial consultations provided by my employer Goodyear Tyres I was still nervous stepping into the employment free world !!!


Assuming everything paid off (houses,kids university fees,toys etc) I have more than enough on 50% of final salary.

I am lucky enough to have a good company pension plan and could exist easily on that amount...when the Government Pension came in at 65 I considered myself "well off" to the point where although being a Yorkshireman and hate wasting money I can buy what I want without checking the price,

In conclusion as a Baby Boomer I consider myself very lucky !!

You may be surprised how little you need to have a good life without wanting for anything.

Step out and enjoy life !!!

As someone said to me when I retired, the only problem with retirement is that from now on you never get a day off!! :-)

We got shafted by HM Government on retirement age. My wife stopped at 60, being a nurse was just to physical. We both retire at 66 despite the contract we had with HM Gov. That means we loose out on 6 years at £8k plus another £2k for me as I was contracted out at one stage. The pension provider therefore cuts my pension that I can take at 62 by £2k for the year 65 to 66 on the basis HM Gov should pay the higher state pension.

No doubt future governments will twist / change all the rules.

But yes we are in a good place.

We were lucky in some of our pensions, not so lucky in others - and then with the state pension rule changes. I decided not to look at any of that and just consider what I ended up with - which is plenty enough for my needs and a few of my wants.

Good luck John, I have been out of harness for 24 years, ( yes I started early ) and all I can say is it has been and continues to be bloody brilliant. In addition to playing with silly cars, I learnt to operate a railway steam engine, looked after a traction engine for years, went sailing, became a Wherry Skipper and did a circumnavigation of the world on a cargo ship amongst many other things.
With the time, and hopefully continued good health, there are so many opportunities out there in the big wide world. You just have to put yourself out there, accept that it wont always workout but keep on keeping on!!

No need to retire when you do what the hell you want everyday and no one can tell you what to do...…………..self employed.

Speak for yourself Dean. I've almost always been self employed, and it's never stopped from telling me what to do.

You'd have to be careful saying that after a couple of beers!

One of the main reasons I retired after many years of self-employment was that I couldn't be arsed to do the more stupid things my clients were asking me to do. There comes a point where the money just isn't worth the grief. I lost count of scenarios like this:

Year 1:
Client: "Tim, can you do X please?"
Tim: "Yes I can, but in a year's time we'll have to do Y anyway. Why not do Y now and save time and costs?"
Client: "Do X"
Tim: "OK"
Year 2:
Client: "Tim, can you do Y please? It's urgent and we haven't got much money left so can you do it on the cheap please?"
Tim: <sigh>

2/3 of that proportion of your income that you were using