Turned 50 yesterday, and I'm nowhere near retirement.
Good luck, my tots and pears go out to you...
this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2025
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I'm not 50 until 2040 if I make it that far, and I have no idea how bad the future will get. I'd retire ASAP I hate working.
Doubt I'll ever get to, but I'd choose free time with minimal reasonable savings over more money easily.
Run the numbers, project the life expectancy. It will be pretty personal whether it's sufficient or not.
No pensions, just an RRSP, and these assholes who did away with pensions keep manipulating the market in their favour.
Took me 30 years to barely get into a house before interest rates skyrocketed, and now the ai crash will likely take that from me.
Ill be working till I die, and at this point Ill likely be dead before retirement from stress, war, or both.
And the fun all started when I graduated directly into the dotcom crash.
I'd look to see if there is anything you could do with your experience which would take up less of your time. A side job with retirement income could be better than sticking with your current job.
Also, it depends on what your plan is when you retire. If you don't have an idea about what you'd do with your time, you might want to keep working.
Life expectancy is not rising. it's actually retracting.
If you want to work to death you can do another 20 years at a government office and get 2 pensions.
The world is burning down and humans were not built to toil in an office.
Get the fuck out
A **great ** pension would be index linked...
My shitty state pension would come out to $1600 a month, (assuming I work at least 20 years,) and I'd have to wait to age 63 to take it without a reduction. Based on inflation that wouldn't even pay my rent in retirement. (My retiree health insurance premiums would also come out of my pension.) I have no choice but to keep working when I start collecting my pension.
If social security is still there when I reach retirement, I plan to take it as soon as I can. The amount of stress, and shit healthcare here will absolutely send me to an early grave, so fuck it.
If I enjoyed what I did absolutely. If not I’d still be finding another job/charity/some form of work to supplement or fill the time. People who retire without a purpose tend to mentally decline rapidly regardless of their financial outlook.
I will be retiring next November and I plan to keep working in another organization.
My logic has always been that once you are eligible for that pension you are in essence taking a pay cut by staying in yoru current job.
If your pension is 65,000 a year and you make 180,000. Once you can collect that pension you are working full time for 115,000.
There is a couple of people who work with me who have 40+ years time in service. They would get 80% of their pay just by waking up. They are basically working for 20% of their pay.
The crazy part is they work in IT. They could easily make 75% of their pay working a part time job and collect their 80% pension.
Your pension doesn’t have a COLA increase?
During the pandemic quarantine, I discovered that I will not retire well. I will just get into a hobby, and eventually monetize it, and I'm back in business. I can't just sit and watch daytime TV, I'll always be doing something.
How is that not retirement? You’d be doing whatever you want with no pressure. If monetizing a hobby is what you want, that’s not a job.
I would do the same thing and I can’t wait. I’m 49 and hoping to retire at 55.
Valid.
Weird vision of retirement if you think it means watching TV
It usually means spending days between doctor appointments.
My aunt is in the same vein.
When she says she doesn't know what to do, I look at the project I barely had time to do, but still spent nights and weekends building it.
When I retire sure I'll be bored for a month, but I'll figure it out
I didn't say that, I said I couldn't do that.
My point is, I always monetize my hobbies, even when I swear I won't. That means I'll still be working in my retirement, it will just be working at something I enjoy.
I would retire if the math makes sense. A great pension in the future doesn’t help if you’re too old to enjoy life.
I retired at 35, am now 60..
My only regret not "retiring" earlier.
How?
If you like your work? Keep working. The demographic bubble is gonna burst all over the world and that will indeed make pensions unstable.
As a guy nearing 50 myself, my pride wouldn't let me retire, not to mention finances. I'll probably work until I can't. Especially in this economy.
If it means continuing an/my OK career where I can work from home, I'd probably keep working to a limited extent because:
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I need to keep busy
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The extra money is always nice
If it involves showing up somewhere I hate, then probably not.
I have the same plan. Retire back to my home country where my savings and pension would last longer, then probably get a job in consulting or something low stress and I have control of my time.
Depends on how much you love (or not) what you do.
I mean it depends entirely upon your situation and what kind of work you're doing and how you enjoy it? Though certainly it's a bad time for people with Integrity to be leaving the Judiciary, basically worldwide.
I have been thinking something similar recently for another reason. I think your colleagues have a great point, but if you say that you would be able to live with your pension right now, it might make sense to work few more years, but less than the remaining 16. Here's how I approached the topic.
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Think about how much money you need for living. Including the money for hobbies etc. Many people need more hobby money if they have more spare time.
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Estimate the effects of inflation and other new costs (e.g. needing more health care than currently). I.e. how does the answer to (1) likely change in the upcoming years?
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Estimate your income for the remainder of your expected life. Do you have any stocks? Is there no inflation factor in the pension?
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Enter all of the above to Excel. You will find the spot which will likely allow you to have a comfortable retirement for the remainder of your good years. And if you are pessimistic about inflation or something else, you can easily adjust any buffers in the calculation.
For me that age will be a more than 50, but certainly lower than the average retirement age in my country. The freedom to choose to voluntarily do work or hobbies is a much more preferrable to me than having to go to work every day.
I think my colleagues are also a bit greedy. Our pensions are already way more than generous, to the point where there’s a whole discourse about it & calls (and tries) for reform in our country. For reference, this year the average pension for a judge/prosecutor was around 5000€ net per month.
What hobbies do 65 year old have? Besides Drinking decaf coffee and checking the obituaries for friends? Just a thought.
Every hobby has a shite tonne of expensive gear
Who doesn't own everything they need by 65?
Speaking just for myself, my work-life-balance is currently such that I have one sports hobby outside of work. Basically only a couple of hours of free time per week.
If I had the time, I would watch movies (subscriptions), play games (purchase), do few other sports (memberships), travel regularly (tickets). At least for me, my monthly hobby expense would increase enormously if I had the time. I would imagine I could continue these hobbies well until my 70s, hopefully many until much older age.
Do you have other sources of retirement savings than the pension? What are your desired levels of spending relative to all sources? If you dream of walking around the local park and have a cup of tea looks a bit different from a dream of heading off traveling for 6 months out of the year. Is it possible to scale back to working part time? Change positions to something you want to do more? Retirement planning is a very individual thing as every circumstance is unique.
alot of retirees are still working. even some that retired around 55-60s. it just not enough income on RETIREMENT alone, unless you are RICH or well off, i had some "retired" uncle/aunts in thier 50s-60s that are doing stocks/investments instead carefully.
with the off chance if you someone that is spending beyond thier means, and one other person is the sole breadwinner(like parents, one is overspending and hoarding and the other is apushover , it wont be enough.
If I was in your shoes, I'd wait for some important issue to come up, and then retire in protest. Make it meaningful enough and you might create something of a legacy.
FYI depending on your country and your contract, it can make a big difference whether you are fired or whether you resign. i.e. in some cases if you are fired you get a severance pay and various benefits, whereas if you resign you get nothing.
Where can they take away your pension if you resign though?
In the US most jobs don't do pensions. So the finances really do vary by country and by contract.
I am originally from the US, and I know how rare pensions are. I just don't see how it's relevant to the question OP was asking? Sorry.
Lolz this is turning into a comedy routine.
OP has a pension and works in the judiciary. This whole thread is about their situation. Your comment about other jobs appeared to be a non-sequitur, and I was trying to politely ask in what way it might not be.
If you're not sure, you could go another 5 to fortify your retirement. I obviously don't know how your specific pension is structured, but with early retirees who got their via investing in index funds (e.g. in a 401K) even pushing retirement back a few years can make a really big difference in the numbers.