Retirement wishes and reality

I am another who had travel plans I was diagnosed with cancer 3months after I retired and oh also began to have poor health but we are still here and have a lovely family so no complaints.

We too had plans to travel - I didn't inter-rail as a student and wanted to do that and also to walk along as much as I could of the Great Wall of China. All on hold now of course.
However we have moved to our beautiful bungalow with a garden that'll keep me busy for a long time. We are on the outskirts of a town with local shops and country walks. So not at all as we planned but very good nonetheless.

Yes health certainly is wealth, Urms. Agree 100%.

Because I choose to

I imagined retirement at 60, we all know where that went. I struggled on to 66. Faced with retirement, I realised I didn't want to and find I enjoy my work more becaus

We did our accounting on the back of an envelope, took early retirement, downsized, lived off our lump sum pensions till our SPs kicked in. We planned in our 50’s for the retirement we hoped for. Bought a small apartment in Malaga. We have been (so far) very fortunate. No savings now, we live solely on our pensions but life is good because health is wealth. If we are lucky in that respect, I hope we can flit between our two little places for many years to come.

My sister retired last year and had plans to move to a very quiet rural area on her own. She doesn't drive and it slowly dawned on her that maybe this wouldn't be a great idea.

She's now planning to move to a busy seaside town with great train links and where she already has a couple of friends. I have to say I'm very relieved.

MawtheMerrier

We were looking forward to spending time with our grandchildren and gentle travelling, perhaps city breaks too , death put paid to that.

So sorry Maw.
I was looking forward to similar but my own ill,health has stepped in.

I’ve had to retire early due to illness. I was always active and find I have to limit my walks now. My husband was made redundant thanks to the covid that ruined a lot of business. I joined aqua at my local leisure centre to meet other people because when you have an illness friends disappear because I haven’t the same energy. I always wanted to spend the winter in sunny Spain but unfortunately financially we can’t do that now

I agree about the health. If you live in the wilds there are no doctors, hospitals or anything else. My little dream house was in a place where there were no GPS, nearest one half an hour drive away and he was overworked and on his own. To get a good hospital you would have to travel up to Melbourne 3 hours away.

I think many retirement plans depend on health. Fortunately, Im near both my GP and hospital, both of which I have needed much more. We did have plans to travel but with Covid and the terrible events in Ukraine, I am very wary of straying far. I feel life has become much more uncertain recently. Im fortunate to have fairly good transport links and can hop on the bus to see family and friends. Yes, 'we make plans and the gods laugh' someone said. You cannot really plan for anything.

Daily beach walk, walking distance from shops, (frequent) bus routes, train station, doctors', dentist and hospital. Ten minutes in the car from vets' and 2 motorways.

I got a job in the area several years before retirement (which meant I could do things to house, find trustworthy people do those things and pay for them) and looked along the coast ten miles in each direction for somewhere to live. (Job was a disaster, I had to find another pronto)

Worked longer than I intended (thanks to Cameron and Osborne re-arranging the SPA timetable), but nowhere near as messed about as millions of others.

It was probably more luck than judgement that landed me here.

With hindsight, I should've planned earlier, and once the kids flew the nest, saved.

Very interesting thread nanna8 Thank you for starting it.

My DH retired 2 years before me and encouraged me to retire early which I did, so we could go for country walks and pub lunches together. Hah, that lasted all of a month and then he was complaining that the weather was never suitable and the pub food not good enough!

We ended up moving to rural Wales, in our early 60s to a big house and garden overlooking the sea which I loved and it was to be our forever home. However 7 years later it became too much work to look after and DH’s health was deteriorating, so we have now downsized and moved to the outskirts of a city where there are doctors, dentists, hospital and shops all within walking distance and a good bus service.
I expected our retirement to be a lot more active than it is, and to do a lot together. The reality is that I have had to make a social life of my own, whilst DH prefers to potter around the house.

We (he, mainly), planned to retire to the Algarve. Two years before planned retirement, he fell in love with a friend of ours, and left. Frankly, I wouldn’t have resettled anyway. .I would have missed my GC terribly.
I am happily single, with all my GC a 5 minute drive away.

It's nice to have had the dream, even if life had other plans in store.

MissAdventure

A cottage by the coast, roses around the door; the whole shebang.
It hasn't and won't happen.

Me too MissA but DH had a stroke and we have at least 2 days childcare sometimes more - in August 2 out of 3 will be at school but it has been a delight watching them grow. We have good neighbours, near a bus stop and shops and doctor so are happy to stay where we are.

We are happy in a our little village, which is growing fairly rapidly. We are an equal distance from two small towns and 20 miles from Oxford and big shops and the railway station. We each have a car and drive. There is a bus service in the village but it’s pretty c**p. We’ve thought about moving every now and then and nearby villages are very attractive. Too expensive though! The three children all currently live in London, so that’s not too far away. I made a list of all the things I wanted to do when I retired, and I’m doing them. COVID hasn’t helped obviously, but things are picking up slowly. Sadly OH always refused to look into activities for his retirement. He had two hobbies, and one of those he’s had to give up for health reasons. Because he worked abroad a lot, he doesn’t know many people locally. If you aren’t retired yet, encourage your partner to find some hobbies, both outdoor and indoor!

On a train on the Settle Carlisle route, DH pointed to a solitary cottage in the back end of nowhere and said that was the sort of place he wanted to live in when we retired. Fine, I said, as long as he’d be happy living in it on his own!

He’d have hated it just as much as I would. He’s one of the most outgoing people I know and loves being busy and involved in everything that’s going on around us.

For myself, I’d really like to live by the sea, as I did growing up. But I’d only do it if all the family would come with us! I feel so lucky that we see them all the time and nothing would make up for not having that.

House right in a favourite little seaside town, short walk from the beach, staggering distance from favourite pub, etc.

I still wouldn’t entirely say no, but will never be able to drag Dh from London, plus we’d be too far now from Gdcs. Didn’t have any, and TBH weren’t expecting any, when I first dreamt of it.
1 hr 15-30 mins is enough of a drive, esp. in emergencies - which do happen now and then.

I have been retired for nearly 20 years now. I was brought up in the middle of nowhere and I had no desire to live anywhere the bus ran weekly if I was lucky. I live in a suburb of London and have no intention of moving.

I retired earlier than my husband and we had lots of plans sadly he became ill within a few weeks of retiring and died 3 yrs later. We had a few UK trips in that time but the bigger plans went out the window.

We moved from a large town to the countryside in our 30s. We bought a cottage in Wales and it was bliss.
I have moved to a flat in the same area now I am alone. It is very rural but not too far from all the things that become more necessary as we get older.

tobyandsocks

Enjoy your life now and don't put off things until retirement.....
My husband had to finish work at 62 due to Parkinsons Disease and recently had a stroke.I retired last year but our hopes and dreams for retirement have sadly not been able to happen.These things we would never have thought would happen....so my advice is do not put off for retirement what you can do today...enjoy your life as none of us know what life has in store for us.. ??? Be happy !!

Parkinsons also put paid to our retirement hopes of a bit of peace and bit of travel in Europe and around UK. From the day he retired I was looking after him and then he went to nursing home and died.

Now I am on my own I had hoped I might do some of these things myself. No such luck - pain and mobility problems socked me in the eye. I am only 73 and am facing perpetual pain. It's a bugger.

Carpe diem if you can.

We lived in the middle of nowhere in Devon and had planned to stay there till we died, surrounded by rolling hills and sheep. It was a 10 mile drive to the nearest supermarket, 2 miles to nearest shop for a pint of milk. Very quiet and peaceful.
I became a widow at 65 and and had to sell the house. Now I live in a busy town by the Irish sea, with library, post office, GP, chemist, supermarket, train station and bus stop all 3 minutes away, and I absolutely love it!

We moved from the country to town on retirement and although it means a drive out to enjoy greenery we haven't regretted it. We holidayed a lot at the beginning of retirement and are so pleased we did now.