What are your retirement plans?

[jamesbrown]

A lot of it depends on future health. It's amazing how the mind and body plummets in terms of ability over the age of 50.

You might be lucky, but pulling the hours, learning all the new stuff, and taking on the challenges of IT loses its appeal very rapidly, and you gotta have an exit plan, trust me.

It ain't no fun in IT and it certainly ain't no fun old and knackered in IT.

It's easy to develop the mindset of "I hate work, but at least I've got retirement to look forward to", which is completely backwards. If you aren't enjoying life now, while working, then it's probably a lack of imagination or aversion to change (e.g., to find work that you do enjoy), so you probably won't enjoy retirement much either. Spend it while you can, enjoy it while you can, nothing is going to get better as you get older - young people that enjoy life become old people that enjoy life

[ladymuck]

I wonder how many people thought they'd retire in Europe and now can't cos they couldn't find an Irish relative?

[DealorNoDeal]

It's easy to develop the mindset of "I hate work, but at least I've got retirement to look forward to", which is completely backwards. If you aren't enjoying life now, while working, then it's probably a lack of imagination or aversion to change (e.g., to find work that you do enjoy), so you probably won't enjoy retirement much either. Spend it while you can, enjoy it while you can, nothing is going to get better as you get older - young people that enjoy life become old people that enjoy life

Retirement, and especially early retirement, isn't always what it's cracked up to be. There's usually a honeymoon period of several months, or a year or two, then people can often feel a bit lost. Rates of depression are high.

People think it's all about having enough money but that's only part of it. It's a good idea to know, before you retire, how you're going to spend the time eg. I'm going to just piss my life away in CUK General.

[Scorp1]

I've heard many if the same old retirement cliché s, and the same old question is , what will you do when they retire .... Answer....Gonna catch up on some reading

[_V_]

Retirement for me.

Pursue some other business plans (not IT contractor related), side hustles as they say in the US.
Exercise!, lots of time for running, cycling, walking and gym
Hobbies such as landscape gardening, improving my French and piano skills
Continue and put more time into investing and crypto crap trading, passive income growth
Actually have time to tidy up and clean the house properly! DIY jobs list that gets ever longer
Travel around the UK, loads of it I hardly know
Cooking, lots of time for more adventurous cooking and eating
Learning, there a tonnes of technical areas I would like to learn, but my current IT career doesn't cover. AI, machine learning for example
Volunteer for outside work related to climate change, pollution, wildlife preservation
Sleep! More time for good quality sleep!

And that's just the start. So excited to not wast 8+ hrs per day doing dull, big client, IT work


FREEDOM!

If it's warm and sunny, go out all day! If it's cold and raining, work on my indoor hobbies. TOTAL FREEDOM!

[northernladuk]

I plan to take a part time CUK Mod position

I thought you wanted to end your career on a high, not in the pits of despair and failure?

[_V_]

No more meetings with cretins
No more listening to cretins at client companies
No more dealing with idiot cretin agencies, idiot cretin HR depts, idiot cretin permie hiring managers.
No more IR35 cretinism
No more Teams online cretin calls
No more "we are cutting all contractor rate" cretin emails to read
No more "we want you to train up your replacements from InfoSys, Tata consulting, <insert useless offshore cretins here>"
No more agile cretinism

[eek]

I wonder how many people thought they'd retire in Europe and now can't cos they couldn't find an Irish relative?

Most parts of Europe don't care provided you buy an expensive enough property and pay some tax there..

[_V_]

Live by the sea, watch the sea, walk on the beach, when I want, any day of the week, whenever I feel like it!

[_V_]

You lot can enjoy being called back to the office next year, and commute on a freezing cold, dark, icy, foggy, February morning, to spend 3 hours on a rammed motorway because it is closed due to an accident, to get in late for a 3 hour meeting, where some spotty faced permie, Tory voting snotty nosed "manager" will ask why you are late, just to talk down to you, for you to then spend 1 hour commuting back home, to get ready to do it all again, over and over and over, whilst HMRC send you letters about IR35 investigations.

ENJOY being owned by THE MAN!



Retirement === whatever you want it to be, doing whatever your heart desires on that day.