To Retire or Not to Retire? That is the Question
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Comments 63
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4 Oct 2020
Good Morning Tricia. As usual lovely start to my Sunday morning...reading your blog. So uplifting positive and thought provoking. Unfortunately i missed your interview with Judy Reith so wondered if there was a replay i could listen to? Thank you Happy Sunday Kind regards Helen
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4 Oct 2020
The Judy Reith interview is on You Tube - just type Tricia Cusden interview Judy Reith and it should come up. Hope you enjoy it! Tx
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4 Oct 2020
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3 Oct 2020
The really important thing is to have a choice. I chose to retire 4 years ago and 4 days ago. I am fortunate that having had a very senior job I have a decent private pension, this affords me lots of opportunities to enjoy things I never had time to do before as well as continuing academic interests through the OU. Really advanced maths has a beauty of its own! I do a lot of voluntary work in the medicolegal sphere which brings deadlines and rsponsibilities, I still struggle to find time to do some things I would like to including keeping as fit as I would like to be. Covid allowing I am off to Everest next year so will have to sort that out. If I am not fit enough I will not climb so that is another deadline. Both my children have their own businesses which thankfully have survived lockdown so I do a lot of legal and finance work for them to make sure the are compliant with all legal requirements. I am as busy as ever and still do not seem able to get as much sleep as I would like! I would advise women need to consider their pension from early age and contribute as much as they can possibly afford, not, as too many do, forget themselves while supporting others. I may have stopped paid work but really do not consider myself retired.Stay as busy as you can it keeps you young. My grandchildren tell me I am not like their other grandma 'she is old'- actually younger then me, though not entirely sure what they think of me.
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20 Sep 2020
Your words have made me think deeply about my youth, middle age and now impending older (!) age - I am 78. I was self employed from the age of 26, looking after a property folio my husband and I accumulated in the days when you could buy property for sensible prices in London! My husband died in 1985, he was much older than I was, but a brilliant man with no thoughts of old age and I then began a new business along with the old one. Changes later and I decAmped with a female friend to live in France where we built yet another business - bought a ruin, did it it up “a la Peter Mayle” and ran a gîtes business there for ten years. Enormous fun but not lounging about in the sunshine - full of new friends many of whom had done the same as us and started yet another life in their retirement years in another country. Grandchildren brought me back to the UK in 2012 and since then I have both indulged in all I had ever wanted to do, along with helping on the management committee of the big estate of new build houses that I live in. If I never learned patience before this last “job” had taught me that - I now know why it takes so long to get anything done when there is a group of you to work it out - I now have sympathy with the government in this crisis!!L Hopefully my attitude is still a young one - I know I am the oldest person in my yoga and pilates classes, and am only sorry I do not have the energy I had twenty years ago, so I have to adapt! I find it interesting and challenging to learn new skills and technology is certainly one of them. Our motto has to be to never give up or give in - sitting in an armchair moaning about “things were not like that in my day” were what old people used to do - aren’t we lucky we can now get up from the chair and still do things?
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17 Sep 2020
I retired at 60, 14 years ago, as the organisation I worked for was going through yet another re-organisation and my job would disappear. As I could retire, I did, and so did my husband, who is the same age as me. Since our retirement, we have bought a house in a very rural but beautiful part of France, which we visit for 3 or 4 weeks at a time, during the spring, summer and autumn. We can go for some wonderful walks, my husband can go for cycle rides without having to deal with city traffic, and in the summer I can go swimming in a lovely outdoor pool at the nearest town. We have also been invited to join a few local groups, which gives us a pleasant social life, as well as the opportunity to go on some of the organised visits they arrange. My A level french has helped a lot and improved as well. But doing the house up was a lot of hard work, mostly by my husband! This year we have just made our first visit to our French house,and are now self-isolating and are debating whether to make our usual final visit in late October. For us, retirement has meant an expansion of our lives, which we were in the fortunate position to do. I did miss the colleagues I worked with, as well as the general public ( I worked in a public library system, with a lot of contact with the public), but didn't miss the meetings, and other admin side of the job. Other social activities, which I had little time for when I worked full-time,with 2 children, have become more important.
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15 Sep 2020
Dear Tricia, I had to retire at the age of 65 as I was a (French) civil servant. So I went from a hectic timetable to zero ... I loved it for nine months, but in spite of all the real advantages you list I feel under-stretched in retirement. I would have love to take on a new project, as you did. So, I am finding new projects - organising trips to England for large parties of people from my historical buildings society, and I have found taken on a role helping political refugees. I need to work outside the home as it enables me to use the skills I developed in my professional life, to retain my identity. We are all different. Retirement gives you the right to choose your activity, and so if one carries on working it is entirely because I enjoy the activity. I think our generation is lucky to have the measure of financial security the state allows them, and I fear for our children at our age. Our generation have, in general, had such a privileged life. A great theme to raise. Best wishes Angela