At what age do you plan to retire?

[chris79]

Assuming all is good and you've done your maths, what age do you plan to hang up your boots and sit back?

[Cyberman]

June 5th 2010 !!

[Mich the Tester]

I'm not going to retire. I'm going to turn into a wizened old hippy geology professor, happily taking government subsidies to laze about looking at volcanoes in Italy.

[chris79]

Just noticed I left out 50-55.

[ChimpMaster]

Ah the age old question again.

I would like to be financially free by 40 and then p1ss around doing whatever takes my fancy. I would absolutely love to do something meaningful for the country and for the world and not have to simply chase the ever increasing money supply.

[Andy2]

I'm not going to retire. I'm going to turn into a wizened old hippy geology professor, happily taking government subsidies to laze about looking at volcanoes in Italy.

where do I sign up ?

[chris79]

Ah the age old question again.

I would like to be financially free by 40 and then p1ss around doing whatever takes my fancy. I would absolutely love to do something meaningful for the country and for the world and not have to simply chase the ever increasing money supply.

Yup, contributing to society in some meaningful way not driven by money is also my goal once financially free.

[Mich the Tester]

Ah the age old question again.

I would like to be financially free by 40 and then p1ss around doing whatever takes my fancy. I would absolutely love to do something meaningful for the country and for the world and not have to simply chase the ever increasing money supply.

Precisely, and if you can do that and enjoy it, why retire?

[Mich the Tester]

where do I sign up ?

www.open.ac.uk

Start by doing a bachelors in Geosciences, at least a 2:1 with hons, preferably a first, then MSc; Open University’s an option, but Bologna’s geology department or Waikato are the places to be if you can move already. This will all take about 7 years in total if you’re doing it alongside work, although luckily I have some exemptions for previous study. Don’t assume it’s like an MBA where they think they’re made to work hard. Science is really difficult, much more difficult than making up sentences like ‘we are leveraging our human capital to integrate our competitive synergies bla bla bla.’ Then apply for a research grant to do a PhD. This will take a couple more years. Along the way, you need to learn Italian. Good excuse for holidays in Italy. About 9 years down the line, you’ll need to either apply for a job with one of the University of Bologna’s centres for Geology, conveniently placed in Naples, Sicily and Sardinia or persuade a foreign university to send you on detachment. Seeing as it’s not a field with huge numbers of people you’ll be in with a chance. Alternatively, the municipalities of those areas provide research grants if you’re working on volcano prediction techniques.

If I can get my PhD about 5 years from now, I'm off.

[_V_]

If you guys are all retiring, who's paying back the £1 trillion pound the government owe in debt?

I think you are in for a shock.

Minimum retirement age to collect a pension will be raised to 115.