After Covid19
 

I have had a long phone call today with a good friend who I have known for many years, we were discussing how things have changed and what will be different.

The thing that surprised me was how we have both decided to take things easier, no more chasing around and not taking what we have for granted.

My friend has also decided he is going to retire early and that was the most surprising thing as he has always been a workaholic. He said we will spend a long time dead and he is correct.

This has been the first time in our working lives either of us have had so much free time and I have to admit I have sort of liked it apart from the worry about lack of money coming in. Luckily the wife has managed to pick up some extra hours working from home so all the bills will get paid.

I will have to look what retiring early means financially. I think the events of the past couple of months will make a lot of people think.

Retiring early is great. I did it in 2003 at age 53 to look after my Mother who was getting frail. I did such a good job that she lived until 2016, aged nearly 99! Money was tight, but the freedom was worth it, and yet now under lockdown, I still don't know how to fit in everything I want to do. Perhaps it is the joy of doing it all at a slower pace, appreciating the things we all take for granted.

I retired just before my 55th birthday and I too had been a workaholic.
Time off recovering from a heart attack changed me, while I was home the sun was warm, grass green and sky blue and I wondered why I was doing it. When I returned to work I went part time.

2 1/2 years ago I took voluntary redundancy so I had a years money to see me through. Two days later I had a zero hour job and earnt £4,670 that year but spent on "myself" £4,188.

It was the best thing I have done for many many years, I have no regrets and don't give the job a second thought. I was worried about money when I left but a pension sees me through.

If you can afford to leave and you have something to occupy your time, give retiring serious consideration. Lockdown has been great for the wife and I as it has given us the thing we seem to lack, time at home.

If it were not for lockdown I would have spent the last weeks helping with DIY at my daughters "new" home and so many jobs at home would not have gotten done.

macafee2

For me, it will be much the same as before. Every job I had since 20 I gave my all to, over quite a range of occupations. It was all within my capacity fortunately so each venture helped the next!

I retired at 50 with a full term pension of the ‘Good Luck, but glad to see the back of you, you old never-satisfied-argumentative-twerp’ variety.

Perhaps I should explain. I was also the in-house Union branch secretary and responsible for helping co-employees through various disciplinary problems. Great fun watching bosses squirm. But always with a smile, of course.

Then, in retirement, I turned my hobby into a business which was the person I grew into at last. And that’s what it’s all about. Retirement, early or otherwise, is another job.

What it isn’t is an armchair refuge from the hustle and bustle. That tempting leather cocoon is a false prophet. It will only serve to take you on the wrong path - if you let it.

Having now been retired for longer than my last ‘job’, the one that gave me my pension, I’ve grown into Me and am amazed how little money we really need.

So, after this enforced departure from socialisation there will be a return to what went before, with a renewed appreciation of our services and communal spirit. Cheers, don’t let your shaking hand spill any!

I have said many times,retirement is when your life starts. doing what you want to do,when you want to do it and had what pace you want it done.:D

After Covid-19 is over & we're back to "normal" if & when that will happen I'm seeing lots of talk from the powers that be that they want us all on bicycles :eek:


They're changing the road infrastructure of towns/cities up & down the country as early as this week up in Newcastle, As no one is using public transport due to covid-19 they're re-purposing bus lanes into cycle lanes, active travel schemes, making pavements wider & culling car parking spaces from London to Scotland & a host cities in between.:eek:


The days of the traditional private motor car are becoming increasingly under threat as never before :eek: and I wonder if these measures will be going back to what they were before as quick :shrug:
These are just a few I've been reading about in the last few days.



https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlton...t#5140f71410df



https://www.transport-network.co.uk/...-schemes/16630


https://airqualitynews.com/2020/05/1...eeable-future/


https://airqualitynews.com/2020/05/0...-here-to-stay/

They also need to stop the amount of air travel that is considered normal. I get it that it is nice to be on a beach 4 hours after leaving the UK but what harm are we doing to the atmosphere for this privilege? Maybe we should pay more or be limited to two or 4 flights a year?

It was air travel that spread the virus worldwide so quickly, and big city public transport like the London underground which guaranteed an exponential infection rate until the lockdown. Paradoxically, car travel is not a significant contributor to viral spread and is so much more convenient in most parts of the UK than public transport. As for everyone going to work on their bikes...not practical for hundreds of thousands of us.
If holiday makers have to quarantine for 14 days at both ends of the trip, a typical family holiday would take that family out of circulation for five to six weeks, so the airline industry is currently royally stuffed with no prospect of returning to pre Covid schedules for the foreseeable future. Few working families can afford six weeks off! We had a flight booked to Spain at the end of the month which was just cancelled. Ryanair is understandably trying to avoid refunds, but hopefully we'll prevail eventually. They might be in a better position if Mike O'Leary hadn't taken £90 million in bonuses recently.

i retied at 55 due to a severe back injury at work,as for coronavirus i dont think it will ever get back to normal i think that social distancing will be apart of the future lets hope our scientists are as good as what they say and produce a vaccine rgds mark

The problem with retiring now is if you have a "cash purchase pension" scheme, that is a pension that is NOT based on final salary.

With the stock market being very low at the moment any returns on your pension pot is likely to be very low too.