How much do you put in your pension?

[DonkeyRhubarb]

Sorry this is a bit OT.

Is conventional retirement such a good thing? I semi-retired in 2004 (early forties) and stopped contracting altogether 2 years later.

I don't regret it for one minute. The IT work itself was alright but I was sick of all the other BS that came with working for corporates, even as a contractor. (Some of you will know what I mean)

I was lucky because retiring relatively young meant I wasn't totally institutionalised. I can't imagine what it would be like if you retired after working for 30+ years.

It won't suit everyone though. I know of many people who've retired and have ended up feeling lost, with no purpose in life. Maybe, for some, it would be better to find an alternative, more lifestyle oriented way of continuing working, than retiring.

Many people dream of retiring on a decent pension but it's not always what it's cracked up to be.

[Fred Bloggs]

You're very fortunate, DR. I have been out of work since December 14 so I'm kind of semi retired but not by choice. However, I certainly do not need anything to fill my time or anything like that, even though I am job hunting.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

You're very fortunate, DR. I have been out of work since December 14 so I'm kind of semi retired but not by choice. However, I certainly do not need anything to fill my time or anything like that, even though I am job hunting.

I'm sorry to hear that, and hope you get fixed up soon.

Trust me, the last thing most people would describe my lifestyle as is "fortunate". Meagre would probably be more fitting. It only works, for me, because I've never had much interest in material possessions and the things I like doing cost virtually nothing.

[ChimpMaster]

Sorry this is a bit OT.

Is conventional retirement such a good thing? I semi-retired in 2004 (early forties) and stopped contracting altogether 2 years later.

I don't regret it for one minute. The IT work itself was alright but I was sick of all the other BS that came with working for corporates, even as a contractor. (Some of you will know what I mean)

I was lucky because retiring relatively young meant I wasn't totally institutionalised. I can't imagine what it would be like if you retired after working for 30+ years.

It won't suit everyone though. I know of many people who've retired and have ended up feeling lost, with no purpose in life. Maybe, for some, it would be better to find an alternative, more lifestyle oriented way of continuing working, than retiring.

Many people dream of retiring on a decent pension but it's not always what it's cracked up to be.

It's great if you have the means to 'retire' early so that you can then work as and when you like and more importantly do what you really want to do, or at least have a choice in the matter.

So a term commonly banded about is 'financial freedom' i.e. how much money you need (say each month) to get by, as in pay the bills, have some to spend and therefore not have to worry about the 9 - 5 job too much. If you can achieve FF early then you reach a sweet spot in your life where you can choose what to do next, rather than having to stick to a job you hate.

Everyone's threshold of FF will be different. It's easy if you're single, harder if you're divorced or married and much more difficult if you have kids!

[siouxchief]

Sorry this is a bit OT.

Is conventional retirement such a good thing? I semi-retired in 2004 (early forties) and stopped contracting altogether 2 years later.

I don't regret it for one minute. The IT work itself was alright but I was sick of all the other BS that came with working for corporates, even as a contractor. (Some of you will know what I mean)

I was lucky because retiring relatively young meant I wasn't totally institutionalised. I can't imagine what it would be like if you retired after working for 30+ years.

It won't suit everyone though. I know of many people who've retired and have ended up feeling lost, with no purpose in life. Maybe, for some, it would be better to find an alternative, more lifestyle oriented way of continuing working, than retiring.

Many people dream of retiring on a decent pension but it's not always what it's cracked up to be.

Just curious but do you have loads of hobbies to keep you going?
My father retired early but then ended up wanting to get another job as he felt a bit lost as you suggested.

[CloudWalker]

"putting away 1-2k a month!"
If I could afford that much I'd get a buy to let mortgage on a second home and sell it when I hit 60 as it would be worth a darn site more!

[Fred Bloggs]

I'm sorry to hear that, and hope you get fixed up soon.

Trust me, the last thing most people would describe my lifestyle as is "fortunate". Meagre would probably be more fitting. It only works, for me, because I've never had much interest in material possessions and the things I like doing cost virtually nothing.

Thanks and good luck to you. The work you seem to do on the tax avoidance schemes deserves you a medal.

[TheFaQQer]

We all have our positions, and mine at this time is that I can 'retire' in my mid-40s (i.e. do what I want, not sit in my slippers with a pipe!) with an income of around £7k/month hopefully. But I am open to the idea of deferred tax pension investments, hence why I am here.

If you can retire in your mid-40s on £84k a year, then I probably wouldn't bother with a pension plan to be honest.

[DonkeyRhubarb]

Just curious but do you have loads of hobbies to keep you going?
My father retired early but then ended up wanting to get another job as he felt a bit lost as you suggested.

Some hobbies but also responsibilities. We've got quite a few outside animals and land that needs managing. I spend a couple of hours every day just walking the dogs. I spend a bit of time most days on NTRT, mainly helping out on our private forum. I don't do much to earn money but I do things which save us money, like growing/producing stuff and doing things which we used to pay other people to do.

The problem for many people, who work all their lives, is they don't have enough outside of work to fall back on when they retire.

[d000hg]

So my situation is:

- my wife earns an OK salary (~32k) as a teacher and is on the teaching pension scheme, which as I understand it though not as gold-plated as it once was still beats any private pension.

- I tend to work (by choice) part time, say 3 days a week, at slightly over £300/day, so I don't have the situation I can max out my lower-rate tax allowance and still have loads left over in the company that I need to do something with. Roughly speaking, I have to choose whether to put money in a pension or take it out as dividends

- I have company funded pension with about £5k in - I set it up and never really used it

- We have collective savings of ~£40k (we're both in our mid-thirties)
- I've recently come into all the inheritance I'm ever going to receive, since my ancestors are all now deceased. About £500k (it's going to be a few months at least for probate)

I'm trying to figure out how this might be best played out investment-wise. We're able to plough ~£20k into savings each year IIRC but the lump-sum we've received potentially turns everything on its head... should we invest that and carry on as if it's not there, or radically change our pension/saving strategy since we've effectively now got a substantial ready-made savings pot?

We will discuss this with a trusted IFA but since we're on the subject of pensions I wondered what anyone thought?