Anyone still working full-tine in their 60’s?

Worked till I was 63, but kept getting chest infections. I still miss it 4 years later.

I’m 62 and work as Reception at a Veterinary Hospital. I’ve worked there for ( years now and I LOVE IT. I have told them that this is my retirement job. What I mean by that is that this will be my last job as I do not plan to leave to work anywhere else. All the staff respect me but consider me a bit like their mum or granny.

stewaris If you have reached retirment age and want to go, go. If the company took a sudden downturn, I doubt your manager would think twice about making you redundant if he thought it necessary for the companies survival.

The biggest mistake people make is thinking they are indespensible to their firm. If the work is too much, your manager can always get someone with your level of knowledge in on contract and either keep them on until your subordinate is experienced enough to do the job, or give the job to another person with the required experience now.

Too many people have made sacrifices for their employer, thinking they are essential and their employer needs them, only to find the moment things change they are out on the road with their P45s.

Hi @Kandinsky (great artist!). I’m 61 and work full-time. Over the Christmas and New Year period it was 60+ hours a week and that did make me very tired, then I caught a cold, which took a while to go etc etc. Usually though I’m fine. I love my job (support worker in residential care homes) as it is something I have a heart for and I believe I have the skills and attributes necessary to do it well. Thus I feel I will be fine doing it until my retirement age of 67. I used to be a secondary school English teacher. No way could I have done that until I get state pension. I found it far too stressful!

My youngest sister worked full time until she got her pension at 66, she ran food banks so was crazy busy once the virus hit. I'm 70 and semi retired, as we run our small family business from home I wonder if I'll ever actually retire - DH can't contemplate it. My hours aren't awful most of the time but we always seem the last ones able to choose holiday dates etc as other family members have school holidays, partner's holidays etc to take into account , and we struggle to be away for more than a week, which as Covid fears subside may be something we'd like to do.
My 70 year old friend who is a senior nurse still does 1 x 12 hour day per week with an hour's journey either end. I'm lucky to be in good health and working from home doesn't involve some awful commute and it does mean we are able to help our kids out financially - which we won't be able to do once we give up. I really feel for anyone not in good health or a job they hate not able to retire when they want.

I would be inclined to say ‘Tough but here’s my notice’ stewaris, if I could afford to do so.

I'm 67 this year and currently working full time - 39hrs. I'm supposed to be working until my trainee is capable of taking over. However, my boss told me last week that he's bringing the whole company together and wants it certificated by the end of Q1 2023 I'm the only Compliance Manager they have. There are 7 companies in the group and I had planned to go down to 4 days a week but that looks unlikely now. The young woman who is my trainee is brilliant but not ready for a job of this size. I just feel I've had enough. By a Friday night I'm out on my feet, recover Saturday, have a really good Sunday and then it all starts again.

Still working at 65 and will be until I get my pension. I think that’s all I’m going to say on the matter. This is a site for politely spoken people (not me).

I worked full time in a Nursing Home until I was 63, I worked part time until I was 68 before I finally retired. Although I did voluntary things with WRVS for a year or two after that.

Well done silvertwigs. That’s more than full time in most people’s books. And little thanks from some you attend I bet.

Well 4 days might be FT? I’m still front line ambulance and do 4 X 12 hour shifts that at least twice a week go to 14 or 15 and at the height of the pandemic were 60+ I’m nearly 66 yrs. but I’m still able to do it and feel I contribute not just to myself and bank balance but to the wider community too.

25 years ago, I was made voluntarily redundant into early retirement in my 50s. The only bit that was 'voluntary' was when I went, not whether. My employer needed to 'lose' half of it's staff, 35,000 of us.

My IT skills were spot on, I went back to university for a year and was prepared to be flexible, but I was a drug on the market. No one was interested in me because of my age and sex, so I joined Age Concern (as it was then) as a volunteer Home Visitor. I did do 6 months paid work for them when I did maternity cover for my manager.

In her 40s DD with a background in the arts and media decided to do an Open University degree in science and technology. In her penultimate year, she was made redundant and even though her degree was incomplete, she had a new job in a Science Research Centre, at a higher salary, within 10 days.

Last summer, at the age of 48, after a few months on furlough, she decided to move on. She had employers queuing up to take her on. They did not give a damn about her age, all they were interested in was her background in the arts and media combined with a degree in science.

She ended up with another huge salary rise and a job with prospects and a promotion plan she is expected to attain. In a year or two, they will pay for her to do a work based M Sc.

Nowadays, it seems that if you have the skills that employers really want and need, neither age or sex is a barrier against employment in jobs with prospects.

I am now officially a pensioner. (Angry waspi) I had to give up physically demanding self-employment due to a very dodgy back at 63. I missed the people but not the work and, looking back, I think I had a bit of a breakdown - I was exhausted.

I’m a stroppy cow and do not work easily for other people so him indoors and me are renovating a house (knackering again, and don’t get me started on trying to get trades in never mind call back). But we are both learning new skills (thank goodness for youtube).

I dread the thought of us sitting round together watching sh##e mobility aids adverts all fuuuung day. I need to get out more.

I’m 69 this year and am still trying to cut down to 3 days.
I had a bigger business, sold it and started working from home.
I work with clients that I have been seeing for 30/40 years and I love it.
My ideal is to get down to two days.

I worked full time as a teacher until I was 66. Then at 69 was elected as a local councillor. Apart from fixed meetings I can pretty much allocate my time as it suits me for casework etc. Some extra evening and weekend work at the moment leading up to the May elections. After that who knows. If I don’t get re-elected (it’s a marginal seat, I only won by 5 votes) I might be retiring again at 73.

I'm 63 in a few weeks and (drumroll) gave in my notice today, been working here since June 2009 so would have been 13 years this summer. Full time, 9-5.30, I live in NW London and travel to London Bridge every day - up to Covid anyway. We have all been told back in the office full time as of last week and I'm really not looking forward to full trains in rush hour (trains busy now, but still not as rammed as they used to be). I've always worked full time, since I was 17.

I had to sell my home of 21 years due to divorce, with the proceeds I'm buying a teeny tiny place "up North"; can't afford anything anywhere near London that would allow me to continue working, commuting long distances with the prices and my Arthritis isn't feasible. I'm freaking out at not having any income, are there jobs for us 60+'s? Hoping my employer lets me do a little still remotely, but I'm going to be worrying about money for the rest of my life.

I was shielding throughout Covid due to arthritis meds, colleagues have had parents/in-laws my age pass away. I've gone nowhere, done nothing in the last 2 years. Had a TIA watching all my belongings go into storage in September 2021 when the house sold (lost vision in my left eye almost completely while driving back from the storage facility, afternoon in A&E, continuing heart observations at Hospital). I've been living at a neighbours house while trying to find somewhere to live for myself (blessings on their head) and, cherry on the cake, fractured my arm at the end of November 2021, at the shoulder, so no putting it in plaster, absolute agony. And I really feel like I'm done, need a new start, a fresh page, moving on.

Scary times. That I should have retired 3 years ago is something I think about often; that I can't claim a state pension I've paid into over 46+ years for another 3 years, and living off my scant savings till then is something of my nightmares.

Tell me about it!

Retirement age in Denmark was 67 for all of us born before 1955 and is now 69 for our age group and 70 for those younger.

I got out at 65 by losing my job and spent two years on unemployment benefit and having to go on courses all the time.

Neither working full time, nor the unemployment benefit system is fun once you are over 60 as no-one wants to employ you. If you do have a job it is tiring,

Be thankful you can retire at 65 - most people no longer can.

It all depends on your health and circumstances.

If you are financially secure you can retire at any age. There are women of our generation who "retired" when they had their first child in their twenties.

Assuming you have a degree of choice it also depends on what you want to do with your life.

I was fortunate to be reasonably healthy and very much enjoyed my work. I intended to retire at seventy-five but , looking back, I realise I started to slow down from the age of seventy (which I could do as I was self-employed) and so I retired at seventy-three.

We are tending to live longer and longer and the birthrate is falling so working full-time or part-time after the official retirement age should be encouraged.

There should be a serious crackdown on the nonsense of age discrimination which relegates people in their fifties (or even forties) to the scrapheap.

Same with me. I loved my job but retired on December 16 of 2021. And I'll be 80 in March! I think it's great to keep working as long as you love your job and your co-workers.

DH is nearly 80 and still working.

He retired at 60 and almost immediately returned to work as a self employed Offshore Engineer, for the first decade effectively full time. He spent all his 60s and into his 70s flying round the world, mainly to the less salubrious parts of most of the countries he visited.Spending days standing on docksides in blistering hot sunshine or below freezing temperatures or going to sea in supply vessels or tugs towing barges. He was/is obese, has high blood pressure and had incipient Type 2 diabetes.

Now his work is mainly home based, all that travelling became too tiring and demanding.

The thing was, he enjoyed every minute of it.

I worked until I was 64, as a nurse in the NHS, loved it, but was glad to finish. I went back recently on a temporary contract as part of the vaccination programme. Love retirement though, would not swap it.

Worked 3 days a week until I was 68. Sitting down job, so it was great. !

I worked f/t until I was almost 64, then went down to 4 days a week for the last year, and retired just before I was 65. I was a Librarian in a large FE College, so it was quite heavy work (despite all the people who think that working in a library is a nice quiet job..! ? ) as well as requiring excellent IT skills.
And everyone will have to work until their late 60s (at least) soon, so it won't be a question of whether people can - there'll be no option...?

Yes I am at 62. I’d get very bored doing nothing so would have to find something voluntary if I retired. And as I can’t travel to where I’d like I might as well just carry on getting paid. Although if I lose my 93 year old dad I will probably give up one of my two jobs.

I take my hat off to you, mothertrucker.
Great work ethic, and brilliant username.