Next year I’m turning 50 & also become eligible for retirement. Retirement age in my country for the general population (men) is 65, but the judiciary has separate rules. I’m seriously considering retirement but I have older colleagues who are still working because they say with the life expectancy rising who knows how much that great pension in the present will be worth in the future, so why not keep it going for an additional source of income?
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?
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.
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.
If you like your work? Keep working. The demographic bubble is gonna burst all over the world and that will indeed make pensions unstable.
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.
Depends on if the pension is pegged to CPI and increases accordingly.
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.
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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 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.
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.
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.
Every hobby has a shite tonne of expensive gear
Who doesn’t own everything they need by 65?
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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.
