Advice on early retirement - who's done it?

PaulC70

PaulC70

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Tired, really just tired of life at the moment and looking at early retirement but only 54 (at end of June) and wife is 56.

For those of you that have done it, Im wondering if you went to an independent financial advisor as part of your research or how did you work out what you could afford?
 
I retired early but not that early unfortunately, just at 63 instead of waiting until 66 ( this year )
Definitely worthwhile if you can but it does entirely depend on your circumstances and lifestyle
I think advice from an IFA is essential.
Good luck 🤞
 
We retired at 55, which for me was nearly 9 years ago, best bit of advice I can give is to see a few IFA, find one you can trust, then do your own sums (being pretty pessimistic), then do those sums again. If it looks like you can manage it, great. Secondly decide what you're going to do with your time, what you enjoy doing and if you can do those things with your other half and/or other retirees. Most people your age will be working still and so amusing yourself can get boring. Doing things with retirees that are at least 10 years older might mean you don't have their outlook on life, which can be very limiting. If you're on a budget, keep a track on your figures and look for the best ways to earn interest. The tax man is enemy number one!
As for how much is needed, that's down to what sort of lifestyle you want. You can budget for most household things, as they won't change much. Health insurance can be worthwhile as your 60s can be when health issues start. One way of looking at things is to work out how much you can earn annually. We live off SIPPs and can usually expect a 4% return a year (although the last 2 or 3 years have been awful) and so try to budget for that amount, or less, if possible.
I'm glad we did it, I don't miss the stress or hassle of working but I wish we had done it differently and chosen a different place to live. Good luck.
 
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Stopped at 53, nearly three years ago now!

You’ll know when you’re ready. Sounds like you are!

I’m spending way less than I budgeted for! Not through not trying, actually the opposite is true! 🤪

Did talk to two IFA’s but quickly realised I knew as much if not more than they did! I quite enjoying doing my ‘money work’ once a month… just checking on investments, moving things around, maxing out ISA’s, tax returns etc etc

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I would suggest using the free Guiide pension/retirement planner (or other similar) to play about with figures.
This will give you an approx. guide to what is realistic (or not).
When you have developed a rough plan, it would then be advisable to speak to an IFA.


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We retired early and gave up work at 50. We saw a few IFAs but to be brutally honest we never found one who we felt understood our situation so we just plumped to give up work and give it a go. We had saved over the years in prep for this and don’t regret it, we may have made our money work harder through an IFA but 12 years later we are still doing fine and can live with our decisions.

We did work out how much we felt we could live on and for the first couple of years we regularly reviewed what we were spending in quite a lot of detail.

We have hobbies, and have added to them since giving up work. Motorhoming definitely has helped us enjoy lots of time with like minded folk which has been a bonus.
 
I retired at 55 and Nick at 60, I retired 1 year before him. I’d planned on going at 57 so 1 year after him but revalidation was brought in and I just couldn’t face even more bureaucracy. I was knackered. Staggering it was a really good idea as it meant I established a separate life before he finished. Some people might be happy living in one another’s pockets but it wouldn’t suit us. It’s fine when we’re away in the van but it’s all about balance.

We’re lucky in that we both have good pensions. I can’t believe I’ve been retired 10 years. It’s flown by. Loads of travelling. Bit of a hiccup during Covid of course but no regrets. You’re a long time dead.

We plan on travelling as much as we can for as long as we can , no-one knows what’s round the corner. Not planning on saving for a rainy day, might not make it.
 
We retired a few years early and learnt to live of our two works pensions. Although it was a little tight at times we had managed to pay off the mortgage and we eventually downsized. The big advantage was that when the state pension kicked in it was a real bonus as we weren’t relying on it.
Away from the financial side we had a few years when 3 parents and a very close uncle had deteriorating health, needed increasing care and eventually their estates needed dealing with. We would not have been able to cope with that had we still been working.
 
Yeah, jacked it all in after COVID, aged 55. Not yet accessed my personal pension and live off various incomes. Had paid off mortgage years ago, which obviously helps.
Pretty frugal on the expenditure (Consort PVC excepting!) so don't worry about ££.

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Retired 56, delayed 1 year as COVID lockdowns made retiring pointless, partner was 59, she waited to retire at the same time.
I only saw a financial advise, it as requirement, when cashing out of a (7 year) Final Salary Pension (FSP) from DuPont and cashing out was only approved
because I had 22 year Kodak FSP.
As everyones circumstances are going to be unique you really can only do your own maths and decide.
 
We (me and the wife) did it at 57 and 58.

We didn't use an IFA. We have 2 X work pensions, rental income from a flat and savings which are in investments, ISAs, and cash.

Just sit down and write (or do a spreadsheet) of projected income and your outgoings)

Remember you won't pay national insurance, you won't pay pension contributions (if you were). You probably won't pay as much tax, you won't need to save for the future.

A lot will depend what kind of life you invisage. (Holidays, social life, leisure persists)

Will you have a lump of savings for big ticket items in the future? - replace the car, unforseen bills, house maintenance etc.

Remember , when you hit 67 you will have extra income in form of the state pension. With my savings I am planning for them to last until then and then I know the state pension, in addition to my personal pension will be plenty.

We don' t regret it - basically having a ball!
 
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I’ve just looked at your Chester video, very good. I’m a similar age to you and planning to retire in 2 years. There are some very good online discussions around this topic, especially moneysavingexpert pension forums. Bottom line is you need to know what you spend now, what you’ll spend when not working, and what resources you’ll need to match that, particularly before state pension.
Beyond that I’d go now if I could as each year worked is one less retired.
 
In my case I was lucky enough to find a balance I retired mid 40s got bored to death after a couple of years and started up another business aged 48, retired from it around 54, but again got bored mainly because I love to work, I know it probably sounds mad but I really enjoy working so aged 55 I built up another business which I still work at now aged 61 but now I holiday 6 or 7 months of the year, come home & work for a couple of months or a month here and there but basically I've found a balance between lots of holidays and free time and a little bit of work thrown in here and there, also love a wee bit of wheeling & dealing on the side, I buy stuff usually cars or boats and get a wee turn at them selling them on, doesn't make me a fortune it's more just a hobby and I enjoy it, not sure if your situation allows you to do bit of both but works well for me 🙂
Best of luck with whatever you decide

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Retired at 54 some 6yrs ago never seen any IFA in my life I like to think I can look after my money interests myself it's worked for me so far.
It takes a while to adjust to the change but at 54 you could always go back to earning some money by returning back full or part time if you needed to.
I am glad I did when I did and can't believe it was 6yrs ago, go for it what have you got to lose.
 
Retired at 53, better half at 55. Final salary pensions with lump sum. We overpaid Mortgage and settled it early. Realky enjoying retirement despite looking after elderly in laws. Dont know how we found time to work. I had had enough of my job and NHS had burnt out my better half.
Hardest bit for us is getting used to spending more than our income, having previously been geared up for saving. Bank balance continually shrinking, but fully intend to have spent everything before we die. Kids will get share of the house, unless government takes it to pay for our care.
 
I retired a couple of years ago at 55. My wife, who is 2 years younger, has her own business and is slowly winding that down and is now at a day or two a week and will be finished in a year or two.

We have no children so that has helped us save over the years.

I/we haven’t looked back although we are pretty new in to it!

One piece of advice is… look at your NI record on the .gov website and see how much state pension you’ll receive when you get up that age. If you’ve missed any years since 2006, you may be able to pay and fill them which is very financially beneficial. Have a look at Martin Lewis’s show from last night on ITVX (11/6/24) and that’ll tell you alot about the state pension.

We did see an IFA who we have known for years and years and it helped a bit but mainly gave us confidence that our own calculations were about right.

Our big splurge is a Consort Oslo coming in 3 weeks but we thought we’d been saving for a long time so why not! At least it’s not a Lamborghini which a lot of papers were saying pensioners would be buying when pension freedoms came along 🤣

Hope this helps.
 
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We are similar ages to yourselves as I’m 56 and Lorr has just turned 55, we will be retiring in the next month or two. Lorr has just had a knee op and is paid for 6 months while off so retirement will be worked round her recovery, no point going while getting paid. I have been off work since Jan, initially on sick leave due to minor health issues and have told work I’ll not be back. I’m now on gardening leave while still on full pay, I have a meeting with them next month to decide my future. Only thing to decide is when the stop paying me then I’ll retire, hopefully this will coincide with Lorr recovery.
We’re not wealthy by any means but have worked hard to build up a nice little nest egg, we plan on living off savings for the first 4 or 5 years. After this we will have Lorr’s NHS pension which isn’t massive as she worked part time while our daughter was at school, on top of this I have my pension pot from over 30 years at ICI/DuPont. This is when a IFA came in handy as I needed help to withdraw my pot when the finished the final salary scheme.

Jez1966 which Dupont site did you work at?
 
We retired more or less at 56 and 55. I think you can only decide yourself if it's the right thing to do. We did our sums and saw a financial adviser to confirm them as we don't have occupational pensions and knew we wouldn't go back to earning the same amount if we ran out of money. So far 8 years on its been fine. As others have said it hard to get used to your savings reducing over time we really ought to do the sums again to see where we're at. We just took off the equivalent of the state pension for the number of years to get it and divided the rest into equal amounts until the age of 100. We then added that amount to the state pension and thought it was an amount we could live off fairly well. It assumes we can get an increase in our savings equal to inflation but no higher which I think over the years will be a pessimistic approach. I would beware of people saying that they can get some huge amount of interest allowing retirement on a smaller amount big returns come with increased risk.

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I took early retirement at 57 that was 6 years ago to look after my partner who had 12 months of gruelling cancer treatment .
We both had a good pot savings as well as money from my late parents estate so we took advice from my FA and have invested our cash where it gives us the best returns .
Told the two daughters that they'll get the house but nothing else once were gone
 
PaulC70 said:
Tired, really just tired of life at the moment and looking at early retirement but only 54 (at end of June) and wife is 56.

For those of you that have done it, Im wondering if you went to an independent financial advisor as part of your research or how did you work out what you could afford?
Click to expand...
I retired at 53 - 1 year ago . I did a major spreadsheet for planing and then spoke to my pension / financial advisor from SJP (whom I’ve know for several years) . And he looked at the options and whilst not “loaded “ we had wiggle room “ - which we have .

1 year on and my financial planning , whilst not perfect isn’t a mile off - cars , helping kids , earning interest etc. and as of yesterday the FA has come up with a scheduled draw down of my private pension fund that should give us the basis for a decent monthly (wage) tax free and not reducing the capital in the pension fund . - can you do it ? Don’t know your circumstances so can’t comment - BUT don’t assume you have to retire when old , check it out . In the past year we have had 12 weeks abroad ,
 
Forgot to say the older you get the less you will spend, my dad is 84 in 6 weeks and hardly spends more than his state pension. He still goes to the pub 3 times a week and travels 80 miles every Saturday to watch his football team, I keep telling him to spend more but he says he’s doing fine.
 
PaulC70 said:
Tired, really just tired of life at the moment and looking at early retirement but only 54 (at end of June) and wife is 56.

For those of you that have done it, Im wondering if you went to an independent financial advisor as part of your research or how did you work out what you could afford?
Click to expand...
I count myself very fortunate indeed. My wife retired after an injury at work at 46 and I retired at 52 we both had decent public sector pensions (and in case anyone wants to ask we paid in handsomely for them) the sale of a largish house we no longer needed gave us enough to buy another smaller one and have change to buy an A class motorhome new. We were able to travel in Europe for four months of the year and and other month or so in the UK until covid hit and have stayed in the UK since then. When the state pensions kick in it made things even better. As I said we are very fortunate indeed although we worked hard for what he have. On early retirement I would say you should decide what you want to do with your time and then work out if you can afford it bearing in mind any lump sum and pension you may receive, we were able to do that without the services and fees of a financial advisor . If you can do it, go for it. You only live once and you should spend as much of your life getting the most out of every day. We did just that knowing that as we got older health issues may arise which has proved t one the case. No regrets and we are grateful for what we were able to do. Dont look back later and wish you had done something you now cannot. Good luck to you I hope it all works out well.
 
I am 59 now and ready to retire.

I don’t feel the need for any bullshit from an IFA.

It’s not hard after all is it?

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PaulC70 said:
Tired, really just tired of life at the moment and looking at early retirement but only 54 (at end of June) and wife is 56.

For those of you that have done it, Im wondering if you went to an independent financial advisor as part of your research or how did you work out what you could afford?
Click to expand...
Be very careful when you cash pensions, especially after 4 July…….
 
Called it a day 2 years back at 58. Was planning to work to 60 or 61 , but after working through Covid I'd had enough.
Did my own sums regarding how much we would need and then ran the figures through a couple of IFAs. We found an IFA we get on with and I reckon he has saved us significantly more than we pay him.
I planned our funds managing on what we were living on when working. However I was paying over 50% of my salary into a pension and still saving another £10k-£15k a year. We have found that we don't need near as much as we thought we would do and have reduced how much we are drawing down.
 
PaulC70 said:
Tired, really just tired of life at the moment and looking at early retirement but only 54 (at end of June) and wife is 56.

For those of you that have done it, Im wondering if you went to an independent financial advisor as part of your research or how did you work out what you could afford?
Click to expand...
This is what we did. We have been thinking about retirement for 5 or 6 years, planning, saving and investing. We did talk to an IFA at the very start and considered it again but probably won't bother. You may need a IFA depending on the complexity of your pensions and understanding of investments and tax etc. It could make a huge difference to your decision even if it just gives you confidence. We found the FIRE (Fincial Independance Retire Early) community online which taught us some great financial basics, and attended webinars and group chats a long time ago to meet similar minded people.

We did sign up to an online course earlier this year, from a guy called Pete Matthews, he does some great videos on youtube and has a retirement academy course which just reinforced we kind of knew what we were doing. It also gave us access to Voyantgo planning software which has taken over from our spreadsheet as it provides alot more detail around tax, investment returns and the impact of inflation on your money. We can also play around with different scenarios like taking a pension early, using flexible draw down, having an anuity or saving for another year. It did give us a lot of confidence.

Key thing is to know what you want to do to have a rewarding and purposful life in retirement and that's harder for us to work out than the money side of things :)

I think we can retire (once we sell the house) by the middle of next year (we are 49 + 54). Good luck whatever you do.
 
I was lucky enough to retire aged 54yrs. Now, 22yrs later I have loved every minute of it.

Mrs Maison and I both have good private pensions which means that we have been able to fully enjoy retirement. We have visited countries on four continents, toured almost every country in Europe and spent a total of 8 years living in France. We have our motorhome, a large touring caravan, (bought second hand but in as new condition), on a permanent pitch in North Wales and fly off for a holiday about every three months, returning from Mallorca this afternoon.

I “fiddle” with woodwork in my shed, have two Classic motorbikes that I ride and fettle and I belong to a Classic Bike Club.

If you have money, your health and some hobbies you will love retirement, if you lack any one of them then you may find it more difficult.

It helps enormously if your partner, (if you have one), shares some of your hobbies. My wife supports and takes part in all of mine except the woodworking.

The only real answer is that you will never know whether it is right for you until you try it.

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