Debanking

[Cousin Jack]

Also I've no desire to live past 80, I don't want to be kept alive to make a profit for an old people's home.

Careful what you wish for. I have <3 years to go, and I have no plans to pop my clogs yet, nor have I any plans to move into an old people's home.

Au contraire, I am off to the Pyrenees on a bike next month, and I am toying with the idea of riding the Karakorum Highway in 2024.

Old is just a number.

[Count Steer]

You'll be too old

He better have a massive pension

Sadly not the case, I'll have enough to live nicely on, but there will be no fancy holidays in retirement for me, but once you've retired what are you having a holiday from?

It's a good question. Having retired people seemed to be constantly asking 'Where are you going on holiday?' To which my reply was 'I am on holiday'.

[Count Steer]

I don't think I'm going to hanker after much in full retirement that I don't already have, but I'm not inclined to paint myself into a corner with limited choices either. I'm sure I'd feel claustrophobic. I think having a break from your everyday routine is good for the soul.
A break from the weather, or the same old scenery.

Two weeks living out of a suitcase in a hotel in some bling tourist place doesn't appeal to me...

For a while, not standing around at airports and living out of a suitcase in hotels etc was a break from routine.

Went on lots of residential courses in some v nice places in the UK doing stuff I'd not had time for before. Still do but not as often as when I first retired. I suppose that's 'holidays'. Currently thinking about doing a course based in Pau. There are quite a few people running arts based courses in France, on Greek islands etc so you can combine the holibob vibe with learning/doing stuff.

[Skub]

Y'all must bore easily. I stopped full time 'proper' work when I was 38,which is now (fuck me) 30 years ago and I've never felt the need to go looking for a new hobby or things to fill my day.

[DefTrap]

I plan to hit the local tech college for everything going, a welding course will be first, then whatever else they have.
I'm hoping for a general machining type course as well, I've got a well provisioned workshop and if I can get up to a level where I can make some money from stuff then I can do small fabrications for people as a paying hobby, currently I can use my lathe/mill but I'm not great and I can weld but dreadfully.

I'll do similar. Holidays are for doing fook all but I'm over it in a week. Give me a week in the sun every 3-4 months and I'll be happy as Larry.

I'll happily use the rest of the time learning useful skills for the shed. And if people want to drop me a few quid as an odd jobber, that works too.

[Hoonercat]

I semi-retired at 49 and moved to Bulgaria. I've had 4 offers from 3 UK companies to work remotely, salary between £250 and £300 per day, but the idea of sitting in front of a Mac for 9 hours per day while getting fat and unhealthy didn't appeal to me. Instead, I'm working as a building labourer for £22 per day (yeah, take the piss ). Some might think I'm completely mad, but that £22 per day covers all weekly expenses for me and 10 dogs, leaving me with only the yearly one-off expenses to worry about (car and bike taxes/insurance, winter heating etc). I'm almost entirely working within a few minutes of home, 6 hours a day and finish by 2pm (1pm on Fridays). But most important, it's keeping me fit and I'm picking up skills I really should have known long ago which I'll be putting to good use on my own house come Autumn.
It took 4 years but I did eventually get bored with retirement.

[weeksy]

As I said we're all different, these tales of minimalist living are smashing if that's your thing, but it wouldn't work for me.

Yesterday I got a call off my lad asking what I'm doing next weekend because he's off for three days, I'm on the other side of the world but life is short and I like hanging out with him, so a quick chat with the wife, some plans rearranged, two business flights booked, hotel rooms in London (and about twelve grand later) and we'll be spending it with my lad having fish & chips in The Ivy if I can swing a table. When I get back our middle daughter and her husband want us to spend three days in the Maldives with them, so that's yet to be planned.

Admittedly stuff like that is not every weekend, sometimes I sit around in old ripped Asda shorts and eat peanut butter on toast, sometimes I'm in the garage covered in oil, sometimes I'm gardening or cleaning gutters, but sometimes I actually might want to charter a yacht in the Maldives with my daughter or blow twelve large on a weekend with my lad.
If I didn't have the freedom to do what I want, when I want, then it would piss me off.

Like I said, vive la difference, but I'm probably not going to win in a reverse snobbery "look at how cheap I can do retirement living" competition.

You'll be winning next weeks Friday thread though

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

I did have a glass of beer earlier with breakfast though.

I thought you were from Stoke, not Hamburg.

[JackyJoll]

I did have a glass of beer earlier with breakfast though.

I thought you were from Stoke, not Hamburg.

He put Brasso in it.

[Mr. Dazzle]

(and about twelve grand later) .

The polluters must pay, they must pay.

I'll just be glad if I can afford enough textured insect protein.

[asmethurst99]

We are in the process of buying a lovely but slightly crumbly house and the child has just f@cked up his A levels so that’s moved retirement slightly further away and anyway we still need to,pay airfares to Japan once a year (the polluters must pay MLSP)
I might reduce hours a bit .
My colleague’s parent are retired and in their seventies and keep going on cruises- the latest being one of those 3 month ones- not for me but they seem to love it.
Her dad has properties he rents out so he’s not completely retired but he’s 77 and always doing stuff.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

I know I couldn't do a year on a cruise ship, I like being at home, eating out for every meal would wear thin after a week, but if other people enjoy it, good for them.

[Mussels]

I did a couple of six month cruises in the RN and several shorter ones, if I ever went on another cruise I'd feel compelled to spend every waking hour drunk to numb the pain. I can never work out why people pay to spend time in a floating prison.

[JackyJoll]

I did a couple of six month cruises in the RN and several shorter ones, if I ever went on another cruise I'd feel compelled to spend every waking hour drunk to numb the pain. I can never work out why people pay to spend time in a floating prison.

It’s jail, with a chance of drowning.

[DefTrap]

If I ever fecking pay for the right to spend weeks on end trapped in a floating caravan full of geriatrics gorging themselves on mediocre food, then just kill me.

Each to their own, natch'.

[Dodgy69]

I fancy a European river cruise.

[Cousin Jack]

I fancy a European river cruise.

I've done one, they are hard work! So many bloody castles and cathedrals to visit. After a few days we just noted the time we were due back and mooched off to do our own thing.

[Wossname]

I fancy a European river cruise.

We did Amsterdam to Budapest a few years ago - excellent and interesting. And the next bit, Budapest to Bucharest, a few weeks ago - don’t bother. Not much to see, and what was, marginally, was a 2/3 hour coach trip away.

[Cousin Jack]

The cruises I really enjoyed were small (120 pax) ship adventure cruises, with trips out in a RIB usually twice a day. I have done 2, one in Alaska and one in the Hebrides. Expensive, but IMO worth it.

[Count Steer]

If I ever fecking pay for the right to spend weeks on end trapped in a floating caravan full of geriatrics gorging themselves on mediocre food, then just kill me.

Each to their own, natch'.

I've watched a couple of cruise programs on TV. They're the sort of thing that you don't intend to watch all the way through but end up transfixed in a sort of 'the horror, the horror' way.

I guess once upon a time it was quite a sophisticated and expensive affair but it looks like they've crammed Butlins and Pontins onto floating prison ships. Then, as part of prisoner rehabilitation they dump you ashore at intervals for a 4 hour 'cultural visit' while the ship dumps a few thousand gallons of sewage and distributes diesel combustion products.

The least said about the customers, the better. *shudder*. On the plus side, while they're on board, they aren't anywhere else.