So many people I know are taking early retirement

[Will!]

1 hour ago, prozac said:

ps huawei reading is toast

Burn after Reading?

[Habeas Domus]

People in the old BT pension scheme can retire at 60 or at 55 with reduced benefits

https://www.btpensions.net/benefits/early-and-late-retirement

Given that the pension scheme is likely to keep getting worse over the next few years, it has a huge deficit - there is some logic in jumping onto the gravy train before it leaves the station.

[winkie]

2 minutes ago, Habeas Domus said:

People in the old BT pension scheme can retire at 60 or at 55 with reduced benefits

https://www.btpensions.net/benefits/early-and-late-retirement

Given that the pension scheme is likely to keep getting worse over the next few years, it has a huge deficit - there is some logic in jumping onto the gravy train before it leaves the station.

Fair comment, once being claimed it is safe, sometimes pensions linked to inflation have been increasing more than pay rises.....so the retired sometimes get better pay rises than the working do.?

[Kosmin]

3 hours ago, prozac said:

I have come across so many people that I know in their mid fifties taking early retirement.

They are putting their house out to rent and going to live in a third world country.

About 4 people from huawei have done this in the past two weeks.

These were South Asians originally, but now even white English members of staff seem to seeing the advantages, one is going to Costa Rico and one of the others Madagascar 

When I clicked this thread I wasn't expecting you to say they retired to 3rd world countries! I know people who retired early, but I don't think any of them left the country. I would have thought most people have to much connection to home (family? children, grandchildren, friends, clubs/associations/church etc.) to move far.

 

Madagascar is one of the more difficult and expensive parts of the world to reach from what I've heard. How often will they go home?

[dpg50000]

3 hours ago, Cryptotrader said:

It's because work & workplaces are so disgustingly shite in UK and these people are old enough to remember when work was at least tolerable.

This. My particular bugbears are 1) staffing levels (i.e. companies deliberately underemploying / making redundancies when there's clearly more work than can be handled by the staff left behind, and then expecting the remaining staff to pick up the slack) and 2) companies that want you to be in the office, often a lengthy commute, when the work can often be done better from home (less distractions, less tiredness from travel).

Coupled with the soaring cost of travel, the ever lengthening travel times and the absence of decent pay rises and progression opportunities, it's no wonder that many are cashing in their chips in order to live a little now before old age makes it less easy to do so.

[winkie]

The big decision is the jacking it all in for now to collect an available pension.....going travelling is not for everyone, more like a retirement gap year.......I would say most people don't venture far away from the UK or Europe.......they say most Americans have never held a passport.

Just because someone has retired early doesn't mean they do not work again, thousands collect both pensions and work, most not full time, at a certain age once have given up the full time in your face job it is very difficult to go back to that with a long commute and 25 days holiday a year.....?

[simvastatin]

17 minutes ago, Kosmin said:

When I clicked this thread I wasn't expecting you to say they retired to 3rd world countries! I know people who retired early, but I don't think any of them left the country. I would have thought most people have to much connection to home (family? children, grandchildren, friends, clubs/associations/church etc.) to move far.

 

Madagascar is one of the more difficult and expensive parts of the world to reach from what I've heard. How often will they go home?

Madagascar is a strange choice, but he helped with the telephone network, and loved the ex-pat lifestyle.

if your biggest cashcows is your house it does make sense to go to a third world country, labour is very cheap, and the rent they are getting goes a lot further 

for some men you can be 55 and pick up a 20 year old local who will love you for your money 

Edited February 11, 2019 by prozac

[spyguy]

1 hour ago, prozac said:

This is huawei staff in canary wharf, all are ex BT so have something coming from that pension pot

ps huawei reading is toast

Ok, ex bt openreach commercially bodies.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-46453425

Yheres no future for any chinese built electronic infrastructure in uk or any 5 eyes or japan or any se asian country.

A memo went round last year. If a country or org is not worried about serious security risk - and tgey should - then ip risk of being sued kit repoed by whoever the chinese ripped the ip off.

[Bruce Banner]

49 minutes ago, winkie said:

Only 8 years....anyone retiring at 55 today would be nearer 12 years before state pension kicked in, that includes free perceptions, travel pass unless live in London everyone get it at 60 there, and all the other benefits tied into being state retired.?

I wasn't 55.

[longgone]

1 hour ago, winkie said:

Do not need to buy abroad.......mid fifties still young, can rent all over the world for very little, if healthy and can sort health insurance why not, go for it.......people rarely regret doing things in life, they regret not doing things...who dares wins.?

Indeed i regret ever finding this website 13 years ago.  how my life would have turned out different with all that Free HPI. 

such is life. 

[spyguy]

9 minutes ago, dpg50000 said:

This. My particular bugbears are 1) staffing levels (i.e. companies deliberately underemploying / making redundancies when there's clearly more work than can be handled by the staff left behind, and then expecting the remaining staff to pick up the slack) and 2) companies that want you to be in the office, often a lengthy commute, when the work can often be done better from home (less distractions, less tiredness from travel).

Coupled with the soaring cost of travel, the ever lengthening travel times and the absence of decent pay rises and progression opportunities, it's no wonder that many are cashing in their chips in order to live a little now before old age makes it less easy to do so.

Well even more so.

If you are skilled and cabn set up as self employed and keep ir35 legal - easy with 2+ clients a year, then contracting is a much better option than FT work.

You are able to pay for travel and accomodation pre tax.

Compared to say a higher tax payer having to pay for a travel pass.

FT employment benefits, esp in the private sector have withered. Loss of DB pension is equiv to 30-50% reduction in benefits.

Public sector, with DB pensions and low to zero chance of layoffs have, despite the hoohaa, have done well with Browns almost doubling of wages. 

 

[winkie]

1 minute ago, Bruce Banner said:

I wasn't 55.

My point was referring to the OP about retiring mid 50s.......not that long ago the minimum age to collect a pension for most people was 50......working later, retiring later.....fewer jobs for life and very few left of the old style pensions with best cover and benefits.?

[winkie]

8 minutes ago, longgone said:

Indeed i regret ever finding this website 13 years ago.  how my life would have turned out different with all that Free HPI. 

such is life. 

Should have bought some bitcoin.?

[longgone]

1 minute ago, winkie said:

Should have bought some bitcoin.?

 

Hindsight hey. 

could of loaded up on gold in 2006 sold it and loaded up on debt 2012 on a big mortgage and loaded up on Bitcoin in 2012 ride the wave of Bitcoin and HPI.   Buy my own island ? install commune of girls 18-24. 

[simvastatin]

20 minutes ago, longgone said:

Indeed i regret ever finding this website 13 years ago.  how my life would have turned out different with all that Free HPI. 

such is life. 

If you had not found this website, would you have purchased a property?

[longgone]

1 minute ago, prozac said:

If you had not found this website, would you have purchased a property?

To be fair i had my reservations before finding this place.  After HTB was announced the writing was on the wall for any crash. 

I think my comment was targeted at bothering to question things in life when the majority just seem to go with the flow and end up on top. But then they probably look at things more optimistically than me so have more of an inclusive outlook. ?

[thewig]

They made their own luck I guess

[thewig]

44 minutes ago, longgone said:

 

Hindsight hey. 

could of loaded up on gold in 2006 sold it and loaded up on debt 2012 on a big mortgage and loaded up on Bitcoin in 2012 ride the wave of Bitcoin and HPI.   Buy my own island ? install commune of girls 18-24. 

Bit sexist mate

[longgone]

12 minutes ago, thewig said:

Bit sexist mate

better than ageist 

[Bluestone59]

3 hours ago, Cryptotrader said:

It's because work & workplaces are so disgustingly shite in UK and these people are old enough to remember when work was at least tolerable.

+ A lot more than1

 I literally had to quote you on this. 25 + years ago a British university carried out a survey in maybe a dozen countries - basically how much do you like your job and which country in the world do you imagine is best to work in.

The % of surveyed workers in Britain who were happy in their job was  - and this is a real toughie - the lowest in the world, lower even than in some then Balkan war zones and basketcase African states. The Americans wouldn't want to work anywhere else on earth than USA, easily top in both categories. 

UK actually managed to score bottom by miles in both questions, although I assumed that long before I got there. I guess this is why it was made so much harder to claim dole money over the years, no sane person here would ever work if they could avoid it, unless for themselves. 

By 1994 I'd had enough. I was redundant, out of work and had been seriously trying to get any job that would pay the bills. Having come second in several shortlistings I developed the habit of telling a firm exactly what I thought of it, not because it had turned me down but the way it went about it and I was often very rude. The HR persons on two occasions agreed with me, one even said she was going to pick her moment to jack it in and that I had been a factor in the decision.

One kept putting off any decision which I only followed up on because the agency which had already done so, thought it would show I was keen. The phone call ended with my saying that if they messed people about who weren't even on the payroll whatever would they be like if they were paying me? 

Since then I haven't done a single job I didn't feel like doing. True, I accepted some minimal wages but the satisfaction was out of this world.

I actually like working but somewhat on my terms. If I were at home I'd get bored in no time even though I have quite a few hobbies.

I'm deeply sorry that I can't recall the figures in those surveys. As for the time things were better, in 1967 a guy nearing retirement told me he'd worked in several countries post war and this was the worst by far because British employers just hate paying out on wages. Every other country in his experience they regarded workers as the people who helped them make money. Here they are the b*st**rds that insist on being paid. (His exact words: RIP Mr Parker unless you are 118 years old).

Things were only ever better in the past if you got lucky.

 

[Bruce Banner]

1 hour ago, longgone said:

To be fair i had my reservations before finding this place.  After HTB was announced the writing was on the wall for any crash. 

I think my comment was targeted at bothering to question things in life when the majority just seem to go with the flow and end up on top. But then they probably look at things more optimistically than me so have more of an inclusive outlook. ?

HTB was the tip of the iceberg on top of FLS, TFS, stamp duty changes, all on top of rock bottom IRs and QE.... Oh yes, Cameron and Osborne took Labour's housing bubble to a whole new level.

[longgone]

2 hours ago, Bruce Banner said:

HTB was the tip of the iceberg on top of FLS, TFS, stamp duty changes, all on top of rock bottom IRs and QE.... Oh yes, Cameron and Osborne took Labour's housing bubble to a whole new level.

I don`t disagree with that however HTB was like having a turbo charger fitted to prices near me when it was brought in.  

i will never vote tory just for that policy ever again. 

[MarkG]

9 hours ago, winkie said:

As an independent country again, they were talking about now having to invest more into building up our army, our defence..... perhaps, but I hope not they will bringing back national service......that should keep a few more in work.?

In a sane world we'd go back to a militia system. But the British government will never accept men putting military guns over their mantelpiece, they way they did a century ago.

[simvastatin]

3 hours ago, MarkG said:

In a sane world we'd go back to a militia system. But the British government will never accept men putting military guns over their mantelpiece, they way they did a century ago.

Would you trust the sane world that told you to go over the top, like at the Somme 

[North London Rent Girl]

11 hours ago, thewig said:

Bit sexist mate

well said