Retirement (or Last of the Summer Wine)

Well good morning everyone its been awhile but I can gladly say that I have now retired having worked since I was 14yrs old my first job was a grave digger then went on to become a horticulturist there is nothing that feels good than knowing that you can afford not to work again I wish everyone a happy life and sit back and enjoy IT

Welcome to the club, paulsadler - may your retirement be long and enjoyable

Hi Paulsadler, Take it easy, one step at a time.

Hi all, it's me again INVESTMENTS ****************** In life, usually it's folk that are doing a job that are best informed. Teachers on the other hand who are teaching a theoretical practice, are by nature nearly always lagging behind. So much legislation has hit our banking industry in the last decade that banking has changed out of all recognition. Investment banking must be separate from commercial banking, most of us are now aware of that, but did you know that a banker can no longer give investment advice? Also, if you go to an investment bank, they can no longer give investment advice either, we have to go to an independent advisor. Someone who is not directly attached to a bank. An analogy of this is like watching a skilled bricklayer, but you must not ask him to show you how, you need to go to a teacher that may not have laid a brick in years. We will all pay a heavy price for this here in the UK, I believe. This state of affairs has come about as a result of our recent banking crisis, itself brought about by greed amongst traders, posturing with our banks. The traders who caused the issue are hardly touched, it's you & me who are losing out. So, I have to consult friends privately to discuss monetary investments, friends that I count dear happily, but that is only because of my financial background. All in all, a very sad state of affairs, where ordinary folk like you & me lose out because of a lack of understanding. The financial standards authority are behind most of this, but can they be trusted to get anything right? After all, in spite of warnings from financial auditors for months, the FSA missed the banking crisis, even when in full view of it. All very sad.

Hi All, The independent Money Advice Service has a Pension Calculator which will help you calculate what your pension is likely to be in retirement, without trying to sell you something. My philosophy is that any interest/gain on investments will keep up with inflation and to put as much money aside as you can. Either in a pension (which you can't get at until you're 55) or in ISAs or other savings. If you have a pension scheme that your employer will pay into, then maximise their contribution if possible as it is "free" money. My other suggestion is to keep track of your expenditure so you have a rough idea of how much money you will need in retirement. What will you be doing less of (petrol to work) and what will the things you want to do instead cost? Best wishes to all those approaching freedom from work. Peter. I am not a financial advisor. The value of shares can go up and down. I don't know what will happen in the future and neither does anybody else.

Hi all & thank you for that Peter. Some issues are more to do with investments that folks have been sold previously, from the advice of a bank advisor when that was in fashion. So, choosing which one to cash or not is fraught with choices. Is it an ISA, a tied or protected ISA? An investment with a maturing date? So cashing early might lose a full term bonus, but if the customer is not au fait with the small print, they might not be aware of the details, just as I am not au fait with the technical spec of my motorcar engine settings, or even of my PC. It's that kind of advice that is now missing. The ups & downs of the stock market, which as you say, I would be a millionaire ten times over if I could forecast that. In times past, it was in our bank manager's interest to give his customers the most accurate & most lucrative investments to the best of his knowledge. Even receiving a financial reward in line with the product performance that the customer had signed up to. So much is to do with minimising risk or knowing what to risk.

Ah, retirement, I don't know how I ever found time to go to work - and I thought that after working for 48 yrs, paying my taxes and pension I could take it easy, but not a hope, within a week I was bored of housework, and cooking, him indoors was complaining he was putting on too much weight! So I decided, like some I would do voluntary work, always a dog lover I picked guide dogs and have now been puppy walking, boarding puppies and fund raising for 3 yrs, I also have 2 dogs of my own, both rescued mini Schnauzers, so lots of walking, house cleaning, gardening and generally living life to the full, I just wish I could have retired when I was 20, and enjoyed retirement for longer. The only downside is that as we get older, we see so many old friends and family, pass away. For everyone, retired or not, I hope, like me you make the most of every day tell your family and friends you love them, and most of all be happy.

Good on you Covgirl. Keep plodding on, I do, whether it's up stepladders or digging, whatever. I too have a little Maltese and he only has three legs now and he is as lively as ever and sets a good example so I tell him as well as the family how much they are loved, AND I am happy.

Thank you for that lovely post. Thank you for your dog walk volunteering too. Brill!

Only three months to go now (not that I'm counting) I didn't realise how complicated retiring was going to be. There is now no compulsory retirement age so at work I've had to hand in my notice as it's treated the same way as leaving. They are sorting my company pension out for me though. My government pension is more complicated. I went online to claim it, as it is no longer automatic (I'm sure most of you know this), got my Government Gateway ID, began to apply and got the message "Service Unavailable". I eventually got through to them on the telephone to be told it wasn't working and was a national problem but would be tomorrow (this was two weeks ago), but of course it wasn't. Since then every time I try I get the same message and they now appear to have stopped answering the phone altogether. As a last resort I've printed off the application form and am going to try the good old-fashioned method of the post, I'll let you know how I get on. Is the theory they're working on that we'll all give up or drop dead so they don't have to pay us anything?

Always in writing when it's official, with copies, they have no excuses then and you have copies to prove it. The Pensions Office in Newcastle who I have to deal with have been very good with me and no problems over the past 42 years. Even when my husband passed away, I had a letter of condolence. Having said that I hope their good service continues. Good luck with yours, OL, I have a feeling you will be more successful through the post.

I had similar experience contacting HMRC when they sent me a wrong tax calculation: they don't have email, the phone number is an expensive way to drain your phone battery while listening to low fidelity music on hold, and if you write, it's a non-geographic BX9 postcode which only the post office know where it really goes. I've read it can take weeks to get to the correct place.

Thanks mcsporran you've really cheered me up At one stage I had the phone on speaker on my desk at work and gave up after forty minutes, so we shall see

Hi all Getting Old Well, if ever there was a subject to depress us, this must be it when reading that article. The last day of the current year, radio & television programmes are littered with reflections of the current year, the good, the bad & everything in between as each & everyone of us gets older. Parliament struggles to juggle the finances to afford the cost of old age which if we think that it is bad now, a prediction is that by the middle of the current century it will more than double the problem. I picked on that article from Wiki as being mid-stream objective, as opposed to some of the not-so-kind journalism that has been in the press of late, like the "old being a burden on society" that I read recently. When the negative journalism is in full swing, I wonder what thought is being given to the huge numbers of grey folk who are fully engaged in volunteer activity. That does have its rewards, to the volunteer (as I have made comment before on here), which in my case it forces me to be out & about, walking exercise & being mentally active. My Pam, nearly a year older than me, is still working, be it part-time. In spite of all of the political uncertainty of this last year, today the stock-market is booming, but at the expense of those with fixed deposits, where interest rates are nearly zero. So, what for the future? I actually believe that the old age well-off bubble is coming to an end. Oh yes, there are still those who can afford the cruise lifestyle, just as they always have, but the mid-stream well-off bubble may be wavering. The Shearings holiday brochure came through our door this week, the last minute offers still reasonable, but the summer holiday costs are rising. So much so that I could travel by train to Somerset, stay 6 nights B&B with evening meal at a lower cost than Shearings' four night accommodation. That was not the case just five years ago. Their business, based on high turnover, is contracting, which means that their costs are rising. I have looked at their accounts. To join their coaches now, it's a motorway join, their depot at Longford long gone as they need to cut costs. The sad fact is though that even in my current bubble era as a seventy year old, I know of neighbours here who struggle to make ends meet, just for basic living. My last thought is very hard to predict, but since the current house outright ownership is in the majority hands of those over fifty, at some point, there is going to be a boom in houses becoming empty. Supply & demand will dictate the house prices. Only a thought.

Hi all What right do I have to feel sorry for myself or have a touch of the POMS, "poor old me's"? Yet that is how I feel just now, stuck indoors with a cough & cold. The answer is an honest none, even though this is the second in six weeks. Nearly everyone that I speak to has had it, or knows someone that has had it, so I am hardly unique! The casualties include missing my bacon butty last Wednesday & a regular Costa meeting with friends this morning. How stupid for me to think like that, when eating a bacon butty last Wednesday, would have made me heave as indeed it would now. Ok, so Pam has grounded me, but what a small price to pay. I live in a centrally heated home, the larder is bursting at the seams, I actually ate a hard boiled egg this morning, which is quite an improvement on eating nothing since Tuesday. So, with the subject of comfort & food dealt with, is it that I have nothing that I can do? What a load rubbish. Most of you know of my hobbies, music & railways. More sampled organs than most ladies have pairs of shoes. I am partway through assembling a single deck bus kit, so I have at least painted the brown interior, before it all goes together. I will leave the gloss red bodywork painting until I am steadier with my hands, as sloppy gloss painting can ruin the whole model. There is not much forgiveness with high gloss, compared to applying matt. My Midland Red double deck was a hand gloss paint job, which took over a fortnight just to paint. The single deck version is just as problematic. So, what else can I do. Type on here for one thing, now that my vision is behaving a bit better, sorry about that! Why on earth did we spend a small fortune on state of the art smart tele, where Pam & I, (yes Pam) have just watched an hour & a half of the latest Penny Steam YouTube downloads. There are over six billion folk in this world, most of whom would swap places with me right now just for points one & two. That does not ease my cough & cold but it does make me see sense. My best wishes to all our members who are suffering ill-health, get well soon.