Retirement

I stopped working for an employer at 60 and went into self employment immediately afterwards. I now run a lifestyle business in antiques so I dont know what retirement is. If it means sitting on my ass watching daytime TV or pottering about in the garden Id rather cut my throat with a rusty saw.

I loved the people I worked with but I didn’t love the exploitation in a not for profit agency where they expected me to manage a fairly large welfare organisation for peanuts. I love retirement even more- really busy with things I want to do ,meeting people I want to meet and organising events I want to organise and be part of.

I loved teaching but after 33 years full time (minimal maternity leave) I was burnt out, stressed, depressed and convinced I wouldn’t last until the conventional retirement age. The decision to retire early with a loss of a quarter of my pension was, then, an easy decision as I didn’t think I would be collecting pension for long.

Thirteen happy years later I haven’t regretted for one minute my decision even though I could have been a lot better off.

The first sixth months when I woke in the morning a wave of euphoria hit me when I remembered that I would never have to go back to a place that was making me ill. Gradually, I got back my equilibrium and now live a happy, busy life with my lovely family nearby. I have a toddler granddaughter I adore and another soon to be born.

I have to be relatively frugal but am quiet and low spending by nature so I do not mind it. Free pleasures like nature and the library keep me amused for little outlay and I walk between five and ten miles a day.

I sometimes see teacher friends and they all feel as I do. We don’t regret our high pressure jobs but we are glad we are out of the fray. We wouldn’t do it again given the modern school climate and our children have chosen other careers having seen what the profession did to us. And, unlike me, the women had eight years or so off to have children whilst the men had wives at home to look after their offspring.

Retirement truly is the gift that goes on giving.

I retired from my full-time job over 20 years ago at the age of 60. I was divorced, living in London and once I had paid off my mortgage I had little savings. I found myself 3 part-time jobs and thoroughly enjoyed my life and managed to save a reasonable amount in case the roof fell in or whatever.

I only stopped working because I had a # dislocation of my ankle which needed surgery. My health has not been the best but I have made the most of life making new friends on GN and we email and meet for coffee.

I really enjoy my life at home, I wish I was 20 years younger. For work, I was up very early and that has been difficult to change but life for me is good.

I retired in 2022, six weeks after I turned 66. I’d taken redundancy from full-time work four years earlier and had been working part-time in a supermarket.

Retirement is wonderful! I do have to get up to let the dogs out, and I walk a friend’s dog each day after breakfast, so no lying in bed until mid-morning. I’m not a “lark” and I’ve always hated getting up before daylight, now I get up at 08.00 and that’s perfect!

I love being retired. Not having to get up at 5.30 and rushing off to work, is heaven.

I’m always busy, helping with gs, meeting friends for lunch. Keeping up with the dreaded housework.

The downside for me was my Dh, being diagnosed with dementia. He’s had it for about 8 years, gradually getting worse. So the joy we should have had, hasn’t happened 😢 I feel this should be a wonderful time In our life, but dementia has taken it.

I desperately want to be retired. I am really but not living the life of a retired person as OH is still working (I don't think he'll ever retire!) and have a teenager to bring up.

I worked for 40 years and I now love being retired with my lovely partner who worked in the same profession and he do miss working either. However, we are both grateful to our profession for giving us the means to enjoy our retirement with no money worries .

I've loved every day of my 25 year retirement and don't miss stresses of work in the slightest. In the early years I did up various properties, and reshaped the gardens too before moving on and now settling down.

I've enjoyed growing fruit, flowers and veg, reading, walking, fostered a couple of dogs, renovated pieces of furniture, some carpentry, enjoyed visiting and watching the [4] grandchildren grow up.

Most of all is being able to plan days around the weather, taking advantage of good days to go out somewhere nice or potter in the garden, and then enjoy rainy, blustery or bitterly cold days indoors doing puzzles, knitting, painting etc. I've a beautiful canary [not caged during the day] who brightens every day no matter what the weather too.

The freedom is priceless: to get up when I like, do what I like, go where I like and see who I want, in my own timetable, answerable to no one. I feel lucky and my health is good so I feel blessed [so far].

Yes I love being retired too, I was a coach driver, stressful, early mornings, very late nights, all sorts of hours, nice people, grumpy moany people! I do miss using my driving skills and driving a coach but not the job. Happy walking my dog, tia chi, ceilidh dancing playing my accordion, meeting friends for lunch, taking off in the motorhome, helping out at community fundraising events, occasional baby sitting/child minding. What's not to love about retirement, although feels strange being regarded as an oldie!! Mentally 45 & young!

I’m almost 73 and semi retired, we run our small family business from home, DH works full time as does youngest DS, other DS’ partner works part time as do I - unless covering for holidays (or paternity leave earlier this year). My main concession is that I don’t get up early, I’ve always hated that. It’s hard to work out how we will ease ourselves out of it, not that DH wants to yet, although DS takes a lot of the main responsibilities on these day, there’s quite a lot of hands on practical work.

Sweetness1

I retired yesterday at 70.. loved my job. I'm glad to read most seem positive about retirement. I fear the lack of structure at the moment and being bored!

Congratulations sweetness1; I hope you enjoy your retirement as much as I do.
I do volunteer gardening one day a week and have enjoyed being with new friends there as well as learning a lot about my favourite hobby. I really enjoy having time to spend looking after my own garden properly.
That amazing feeling of ‘It’s cold and dark and I don’t have to get up just yet’ is to be treasured!
I did enjoy my job (most of the time!) but have not missed it for even one second.

I just love being retired. I had very few office jobs that I actually enjoyed. Back in the day I had many jobs as I was easily bored. My parents refused to let me go to medical school even though it was free back then. So I became a shorthand touch typist. I still type on a proper keyboard most days as I have several blogs and wrote newspaper columns which I did enjoy. When my son was born aged 37. Me not him, LOL. I needed an income and started an international dating agency, a bit before it became mainstream. Unfortunately a few months after giving birth my husband was sacked by the embassy where he worked due to a Middle East conflict. He was a medical interpreter and had to sign on, meaning the government took all my income so I had to close down. Running your own business isn’t working. It’s doing what you love and getting paid for it and when a couple got married at Gretna Green that was the icing on the cake. I then owned a cattery and set up a baby equipment hire company which was the most lucrative in Spain with people requiring cots and car seats. I’m talking hotels and apartment blocks. I couldn’t get help to put the cots together so had to give up on that one. I have reasonable health in my seventies but a few health issues and just appreciate days when I can just watch daytime tv. Good days I’m on eBay selling stuff we’ve accumulated over the years. I did try volunteering in a local charity shop as I only wanted to sell clothes but was quickly moved to the office and then offered more than I have ever earned to be the Managing Director so the owners could enjoy their retirement. I left immediately.

Love retirement, play bridge, bowls, gym, walks with friends, the week is full and full of enjoyment.

Love being retired! I was a primary schoolteacher, don’t miss work at all, or any of my colleagues. Still get a thrill of waking up with no need to rush out of the house, love my leisurely mornings. Never get bored, never short of things to do.

Although I love reading your messages every day, this is the first time I have been brave enough to post. I retired 2 months ago and don't miss going to work at all. But I have become very lazy. Sleeping in until 8am (which I never did, even on my days off) and not doing any of the things I was so sure I would do. But even though I was getting stressed about it at first I have now stopped feeling guilty and I am taking each day as it comes and enjoying the rest. We have started going for coffee some days when we walk the dogs and I have started to sort through my sewing fabric ready to start sewing again. I took early retirement, so was worried about the loss of wages at first, but we decided that time together was more important.

I absolutely LOVE being retired! Stopped working two and a half years ago. Don’t get my state pension until April next year so it’s been tight financially. But I couldn’t cope with the responsibility and stress any more and decided to put my health first. I haven’t regretted it for a second.

I retired at the age of 72. I worked in a school part time so got the school holidays off. I only retired as we moved to be nearer my daughter. I do miss working but not getting up early in the mornings . I have had to go to the hospital recently for a number of things, which would have been difficult to do if I was still working. I miss the companionship of work and I get bored, although I belong to a number of groups. I do go into a school one morning a week to hear children read.

Retired 18 years ago and haven't missed work at all. Found plenty to fill my days. I was so glad to be away from dealing with members of the public in sensitive areas in their lives. Even back tgen local authorities were struggling financially affecting service I was involved in. The stress also affected colleagues who at times were difficult to deal with. Goodness knows what it's like now with even less funds and all the so called "improvements" eg amalgamation with Health and social care, basically to reduce personnel. Reurement for me.

sassenach512

It depends on whether you liked your job and if you need people in your life. I was so glad to leave the tedium of doing the same thing every day and the gossip and back-biting behind. Some people miss the company and chatter of the work place,
I don't miss anyone I worked with and I feel no guilt about doing what I want, when I want to do it and not having to look at the clock all of the time. I've just taken my dogs out on a leisurely walk and I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon reading my book. Retirement is great

With you on that one for sure.

I loathed my last job with a passion. It's all a very long story as to why I had to stick to it until retirement. A large part of that story is the job pension (just as well in the event - as I'm a WASPI woman and couldnt have retired at my retirement age, ie 60, if the State Pension was the only component of it). I had to dig deep into my savings to supplement a job pension based on such low pay and I've no idea how much of my savings vanished to doing that (ie as I was also having to renovate the house I'd moved to).

There's a long list of what was wrong with that job and my employer certainly didn't want me there either - but it was Hobson's Choice and I had to stay. Basically one of the evening cleaners explained that that couple of hours wasn't the only work she had to do to earn money and proceeded to tell me how she did part-time job A here, job B there and I think she had a total of 4 part-time jobs in order to try and make up a full-time job worth and it must have taken her about 12 hours flitting to and fro between those joblets to earn about 8 hours worth of income!!!! She told me she was far from the only one in that position. I'd got visions of that sort of worklife (and no job pension) if I left my office job (and pension). So I clung on very firmly indeed to it.

SUCH a relief to be free of it ...free of the office bullies....free of having to get up to so early of a morning to go to it and no more worries about the security (or otherwise) of my income.

Another thing about retirement that I think many of us find is one's body seems to take a lot longer to maintain than it used to - with time spent trying to keep fit, more time spent getting rid of Illness A, then more time spent getting rid of Illness B and so on and getting rid of an increasing number of illnesses takes up leisuretime one wants for oneself and I can see it would be difficult to do a full-time job, lead one's own life and deal with those extra illnesses and somewhere along the line a "ball would be dropped" and it would probably be one's own life. So retirement does mean that there's just the two things to do - a. Lead one's own life b. Deal with any extra illnesses that come up.

Dreaded retirement as I really liked my job but the day I left I never went back, not even for a leaving party. Not one day have I missed it or regretted leaving work. I'm far too busy to work now.

No regrets from me or DH.

I think it might be harder for people who feel identified by their jobs. Maybe those who lived to work rather than worked to live.
Important to think about retiring well before you do . You need to have some idea of what you might like to do and build up other interests
Make sure you have a good idea of how your finances are placed and how much they will enable you to do.

Lots of discussions were had in our house including how household jobs should be shared. Actually that was the thing that caused most problems !

Retirement is a joy…….no regrets! I worked full time for 32 years and didn’t retire until I was 68 and, on the whole, felt thoroughly satisfied for the career I had……and then moved into retirement with the same mind set! Now in my fourteenth year of retirement it’s still feels like a lovely life!

I am like you. So while I still have the energy at 68, I chose to go back to work Bank and part time. It's been wonderful. I have the best of both worlds.

I retired yesterday at 70.. loved my job. I'm glad to read most seem positive about retirement. I fear the lack of structure at the moment and being bored!