Pension stuff, how's it all looking ? HAve you prepared ?

[Dodgy69]

I'm gonna get some retirement practice in soon. Finish work on the 21st and having the summer off.

I'll find a bit of a job after that. ☹

[Horse]

Until you can imagine what you'll do . . .

I'm not so sure you can do that. The fact is, once retired you can do what you want to do - at that time - and what you think about now may not be what you think about later. What you will have of course is time to do what you want and when you want.

Planning that sort of shit is impossible because you know full well the plan goes out the window with first contact with the enemy. At best, you'll make up your mind in the evening what you might do tomorrow. Next week? Who the fuck knows what's going to go down!

There was another WWII general who said something like 'planning is essential, plans are worthless'.

I posted a list earlier. How much of it happens, well, as you eloquently phrase it, "Who the fuck knows". That list is a starting point. Actually, the latest starting point, as a couple of other ideas haven't persevered.

But what I don't want to do is wake up every morning thinking 'now what?'

My dad lived to 91, my mum is 95. That could be a lot of long boring days.

[Count Steer]

One more snippet, as a rule of thumb, because of 'fixed' costs two don't live as cheaply as one. Apparently one needs 75% of what two need.

Given the rough £1k+ per month figure that seems typical, my suggestion would be aim for
a minimum of double what your fixed costs are going to be. Then work out how often you can do stuff like holidays, new cars, clothes, house projects, meal out etc etc and keep an emergency fund for unforeseen expenses like roof (car ) repairs. If you can top that up a bit from the monthly incoming then so much the better, that way it doesn't just dwindle and disappear.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

My retirement plan is to do feck all, I'm going to sit round, drink cups of tea and bore anyone daft enough to talk to me with tall tales of how fast I was, so not much different to now really apart from not having to go to work, I might have an easy to ride motorcycle to potter round on when the weather is nice. I've done foreign travel, I've raced motorcycles, I've had adventures, I could die this afternoon and be happy that I've lived a full life, don't wait for retirement to do things, you might not get there.

[Horse]

don't wait for retirement to do things, you might not get there.

Good point.

Everything on my list is stuff I do now or have done before. The difference is that I'll have more time to do more of them, if I want to.

[Potter]

I reckon you know when it’s time to retire and if you don’t feel the pull of it then it’s not time.

Nah, i could happily agree with the idea today.... the bank account disagrees.... if i never went to work when i was 30-40-50 i'd have been fine with it

I'm up and down with it, some days I'm really happy with what I'm doing and other days I feel like packing it in.
I might pack in and then find myself chasing some sort of other business opportunity or big role....or maybe just getting onto a sailing yacht and disappearing for a couple of years.

I'm not a religious man but I feel like the right door will open when it's time, as Mr Jagger said, you don't always get what you want, but if you try real hard...

[Cousin Jack]

After retirement, if you get bored, volunteer!

Lots of things can be interesting, I have done Citizens Advice, Coastwatch, and Trustee of a local Multi Academy Trust, but that is just my choice. Huge range of stuff you can do, ranging from the odd hour every few weeks to pretty well full time, and to suit just about every interest.

[JackyJoll]

I'm not a religious man but I feel like the right door will open when it's time, as Mr Jagger said, you don't always get what you want, but if you try real hard...

When one door shuts, another one closes.

[Yorick]

After retirement, if you get bored, volunteer!

Lots of things can be interesting, I have done Citizens Advice, Coastwatch, and Trustee of a local Multi Academy Trust, but that is just my choice. Huge range of stuff you can do, ranging from the odd hour every few weeks to pretty well full time, and to suit just about every interest.

I volunteered to all the charity shops in Thame. Offering mainly my computer skills. Didn't get 1 answer.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

After retirement, if you get bored, volunteer!

Lots of things can be interesting, I have done Citizens Advice, Coastwatch, and Trustee of a local Multi Academy Trust, but that is just my choice. Huge range of stuff you can do, ranging from the odd hour every few weeks to pretty well full time, and to suit just about every interest.

I volunteered to all the charity shops in Thame. Offering mainly my computer skills. Didn't get 1 answer.

You should have offered to help the old bideys behind the counter with a good stuffing

[Yorick]

After retirement, if you get bored, volunteer!

Lots of things can be interesting, I have done Citizens Advice, Coastwatch, and Trustee of a local Multi Academy Trust, but that is just my choice. Huge range of stuff you can do, ranging from the odd hour every few weeks to pretty well full time, and to suit just about every interest.

I volunteered to all the charity shops in Thame. Offering mainly my computer skills. Didn't get 1 answer.

You should have offered to help the old bideys behind the counter with a good stuffing

Tongueing?

[Pirahna]

After retirement, if you get bored, volunteer!

Lots of things can be interesting, I have done Citizens Advice, Coastwatch, and Trustee of a local Multi Academy Trust, but that is just my choice. Huge range of stuff you can do, ranging from the odd hour every few weeks to pretty well full time, and to suit just about every interest.

I volunteered to all the charity shops in Thame. Offering mainly my computer skills. Didn't get 1 answer.

Wifey volunteers at the charity shop in the village. The clientele are mostly old Spanish ladies with nothing to do so they pop in for a chat, it has to be the best way to learn Spanish ever.

[Couchy]

Council tax, utilities, tv, food that’s the essentials and at the moment that costs us under £600 at the moment. Cars bikes holidays eating out are all extra so £1500-£2k a month is enough assuming you’re happy with a simple lifestyle. I’d be happy with my mtb, cheap car and a few weekends away and lots of mtb riding.

[Tricky]

After retirement, if you get bored, volunteer!

Lots of things can be interesting, I have done Citizens Advice, Coastwatch, and Trustee of a local Multi Academy Trust, but that is just my choice. Huge range of stuff you can do, ranging from the odd hour every few weeks to pretty well full time, and to suit just about every interest.

I volunteered to all the charity shops in Thame. Offering mainly my computer skills. Didn't get 1 answer.

[Potter]

Council tax, utilities, tv, food that’s the essentials and at the moment that costs us under £600 at the moment.

That's low, I estimated our bills at a grand, but it's more - our council tax is £300pm, utilities £500 a month (gas/electric/water), internet £55, and we rarely spend less than £250 a time at the supermarket and that's three times a month, we don't drink alcohol at all, or it would be more.
There are then the odds and sods like TV license, tax and insurance on three cars, petrol/diesel, a tenner a day at the convenience store for bread, milk, bacon butty, coffee, etc. Even fish & chips on a Friday night is a tenner each.

There are obviously some bills that we can reduce, so we could drop the above quite a lot by being careful, but even with the above I reckon £2-2.5k a month in my hand would be plenty, and that's including a couple of weekend out, so I think we could do it on what you suggested, but £1.5k a month would be right on the edge, I think the aforementioned £30k a year plus a lump sum to dip into for special occasions still stands as a decent aiming spot for that comfy life.

[Mr Moofo]

We could spend a lot less if I didn't have access to the internet to keep on buying stuff.
The converse being that in the next 15 years probably one of us will be dead , so you mights as well have what you want, whilst you are here.

I buying thrill is certainly helped by using Amazon and the ability to return stuff easily

In real terms we - the household account is a 1500 GBP per month and that is currently enough for food and all bills , other than council tax. Never get away from a supermarket with a. bill less than 180 GBP (and normally significantly more). We run two cars, which we don't need - but I like mine clean and the wife runs round in a car that looks like Stig of the Dump lives in it. Then there is the three motorbikes ...

Totting this all up the other day, the dog is surprisingly expensive to run.

[Couchy]

Council tax, utilities, tv, food that’s the essentials and at the moment that costs us under £600 at the moment.

That's low, I estimated our bills at a grand, but it's more - our council tax is £300pm, utilities £500 a month (gas/electric/water), internet £55, and we rarely spend less than £250 a time at the supermarket and that's three times a month, we don't drink alcohol at all, or it would be more.
There are then the odds and sods like TV license, tax and insurance on three cars, petrol/diesel, a tenner a day at the convenience store for bread, milk, bacon butty, coffee, etc. Even fish & chips on a Friday night is a tenner each.

There are obviously some bills that we can reduce, so we could drop the above quite a lot by being careful, but even with the above I reckon £2-2.5k a month in my hand would be plenty, and that's including a couple of weekend out, so I think we could do it on what you suggested, but £1.5k a month would be right on the edge, I think the aforementioned £30k a year plus a lump sum to dip into for special occasions still stands as a decent aiming spot for that comfy life.

It’s low but it’s not estimated it’s our actual bills, ctax £180 utilities £170, TV £14, insurance £15, the rest is food. I may be £50-£100 off on the food as some spend is cash when we just stop by the shops. Our energy cost has gone up from £80 to £160 though so it was cheaper. I haven’t included broadband or virgin TV as they aren’t essentials but TV licence is there.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Seems the key to happy retirement is to live in a house whcih actually has windows and roof insulation. £500pcm on utilities!

BTW - I've just done a quick mental sum. I reckon if we stopped paying for school and mortgage and changed nothing else our monthly bills would be ~£1700pcm. I'm clearly the last of the big spenders

[weeksy]

Seems the key to happy retirement is to live in a house whcih actually has windows and roof insulation. £500pcm on utilities!

To some on here it seems it's to live with as little as possible

I'm a simple boy, but £14 on TV package and no broadband... well that's crazy talk.

[cheb]

Broadband yes, TV subscriptions no.