Are you going to retire at 66

It does yep, 20% from me, and 7% from employer,

I'll be 68 in May, absolutely love retirement but you must have something to get up in the morning for, a hobby, interest or part time job. Don't do what my grandfather did, a civil servant, retired at 65 no interests at all, got up sat on the sofa until lunch, ate his lunch & went & sat back on the sofa. He was dead a year later, atrophy of the brain they said.

To wake up in the morning & say to yourself what will I do today is priceless, enjoy your retirement gents.

You will need something put away for contingencies. If something goes wrong, with a roof, with your health, you don't have the capacity to work or borrow to pay for it.

I hope to be long retired by 66. Target at the moment is 60, which means 18 more years. That sounds manageable.

I might work to 61, just to reach 30 years employment with my current company. But that will be the end of my professional career.

I look forward to waking up, deciding to go for a dip in the sea. Go for a walk. Grab a coffee. Wherever the day takes me.

Also hope I'll be able to do some volunteering, or pick up some part time hours working in something that provides value to the community. Be it groundskeeping in a public park. Lollipop man, who knows.

Then, a couple of years later the wife will hit retirement age. Probably a good time to let her know that I too, am retired

Just remember that if you are eligible for OAP either contributory or non-contributory if you are still earning a wage you will be eligible for PAYE on the combined totals less your tax allowance

Are you going to have health insurance?

For sure.

The demise of the defined Benefit pensions means even those that have a pension will not have anything like the retirement provision their parents had.I think we are the last generation that in general don't look at selling our major asset ,ie our house and trading down to supplement our pensions.You sell in Dublin now for 600k and buy apartment for 400k and thats 15k per annum until your 80.

Retiring early say 60 for example is dependent on whether my DC pension fund gets wiped out or not 😆😆

I will be very happy retiring at 60 and campervan-ing around southern Europe in winter.

I will also be very happy if I can work 3 days a week from 60 onwards. Tax free pension contributions up to 40% of salary is very tempting to keep on working in my 60s.

When I work in Oz I observed a well established cycle of people hitting retirement, selling the house and contents, buying a massive RV and living in it until they get bored driving around the continent. Then they sell the RV on to the next set of new retirees and settle into a downsized retirement development, etc…

It's a matured cycle that been going for decades and Australia is better set up for long term RV living, but I reckon it's something that probably already happens a lot on the continent but we don't hear about it much as we're so caught up in the anglosphere media bubble.

I remember driving around Sicily years ago and there seemed to be loads of north European campervan overnighting in Lidl and Aldi carparks. They even had plug in slots for campervans!

I don't how I'd feel about driving around Europe in my sixties, driving a car in Sicily in my 30s was one of the most nerve racking experiences ever!! I'd probably just eurorail for a few months at a time and do it in comfort.