This week I have sent in my application forms to claim my occupational and state pensions. At times it feels a bit scary, at others I can't wait to retire - the NHS is no place for old biddies or dinosaurs like me. It's all cut and thrust driven by youth and government targets, neither of which realise that they're reinventing wheels which didn't work last time or the one before. I suppose in my time I wanted to save the world too, now I just want to get off and do my own thing, tired of people who are too stupid to know that when they are in a hole, the best course is to stop digging.
Officially, I retire at the end of July and I gave my notice in at the end of January so they can replace me. Using the old method of measuring how much I shall be missed - you fill a bucket with water, roll up sleeve insert hand and arm into bucket and then withdraw, the hole left indicates how much you'll be missed - I suspect I'll be forgotten before I receive my first pension payment. I'll only be semi-retired in that I'll still work for myself up to three days per week.
I was impressed by the department of pensions who sent me the application form without my requesting it, doubly so as in red ink on the return envelope was an instruction for it to be passed on to a particular department who deal with us weirdos who change sex rather than be opened at the mail sorting office. Actually if they're like the tax office, they're actually very tactful about things. Talking of which, in the same delivery as my pension form, I received a note from some high up in the tax office telling me that I can send my tax return online instead of paper. I suspect she doesn't know that I used to do so, or my accountant did, until I changed my gender legally amended birth certificate etc., and was informed for reasons of confidentiality, the HMRC assign the affairs of those accepted by the Gender Recognition Panel, to a specialist department who only accept paper returns. I'm tempted to write back to the Director General, Personal Tax ( I only get fan mail from the most elite) pointing out her error.
The other thing that seems to be happening this week is I've had three watches die even after new batteries were inserted. So I've had to treat myself to a new one, an Accurist with a metal bracelet in stainless steel with rose gold inlays and the figures and hands are also in the gold. It's rather nice, was on special offer 42% off, and the staff at H Samuels were really nice. So I'm quite pleased with myself.
Comments
Pretty watch...
But can you read the time on it? Oops NO that question is only for those Apple thingies.
I hope you enjoy your "retirement". I mean, I truly hope you are able to do all the things you WANT to do.
with love,
HER
Once in a while I bare my soul, more often my soles bear me.
I can read the time
even without glasses, the date thingy is a bit more challenging. Thank you for your kind wishes.
Angharad
It's a lovely watch.
I was looking at a similar watch a while back, but have done nothing.
On my 50th birthday, an uncaring younger person told me that 50 was the time when we reach maximum competence and after that itit is all down hill. (I'm having computer issues just now, sorry).
I'd been workning very hard and taking 3200 motrin and some vicoden to keep working when I got mercilessly chewed out one afternoon. After my boss finished, I literally just gave up. The next morning I was seeing my Doctor who had been telling me to stop working or I'd be in a wheel chair soon. He wrote me a letter sayg that I was not to puck up more than 20lbs.
Within a few years of stopping work, I was pain free, unless I tried to resume work again.
Good luck in retirment.
Gwen
Beautiful watch, and good luck.
I can't wear watches. I've only had one in my entire life that didn't fry itself within the first week or so of wearing it; for some reason me and my mom just don't react well with watches. Mechanical fares better than digital, at least, but they still tend to get melt-y and corrode-y within a few days of either of us starting to wear them.
Melanie E.
You're obviously
meant to be timeless, Mel. Now get back to PFH the novel!
Angharad
I have a similar problem. I
I have a similar problem. I fry them. The best luck I had was with the $10-20 "10 year battery" plastic watches. Replace the band with a nylon strap band, and it would last about a year before I ate the battery.
You haven't seen fun until you've seen a wind up watch electrocuted - by yourself.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Easing Up, Retirement
Hope you enjoy the retirement, and you get to do all the things you want. Now where did I put the bike.
Hugs
Francesca
- Formerly Turnabout Girl
Retirement date?
Now how do the powers that be work out the date you are eligible for your State Pension? Do you go by the women's date - currently a complex calculation requiring a master's degree in maths - or by the men's date?
I would not be surprised if some tightwad decided that you had to serve the full 65 years, with no time off for good behaviour.
PS I'm about a month behind you, but regrettably I'm doing things the old fashioned way. Still, I stopped working in 2006 when I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, so I have had to wait a long time to get anything back from the state.
Penny
I have math degree...
But I can't calculate even my vacation or medical leave payments :-)
They know that they can justify any date so they use random number generators tk determine vacation payments, medical leave benefits or retirement dates and payments :-)
But the state does not make
But the state does not make mistakes!
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
I once knew a guy who killed watches...
... by wearing them. Mechanicals just stopped after couple of days. Electronic or quartz stopped or blanked out after about a week of wearing by that guy. Some of the watches restarted on their own after couple of weeks apart from that guy. Also he managed to break into halves rear beam of his new car's suspension on level straight road... :-)
Good luck with your retirement!
If your health holds out it will be the best time of your life!
Louise
HMRC et al
Ang, dear, some of us (myself only marginally) have worked bloody hard to get these changes in place. I am gratified to see how it has worked out. I know the real movers and shakers here: I will pass on your smiles to them.
Watches and their demise on me
I don't wear a watch these days. Well I haven't since around 1976. I was given a nice watch by my father for getting a degree. It was a Sekonda. I wore it for a couple of weeks then it stopped.
I took it back to where it was brought from. They could find nowt wrong with it. Two weeks later it stopped. My dad wore it for several months without problem so I let him have it. I bought an Acurist. One month later it just stopped. Same issues.
I consulted a watch and clock repairer who told me that some people just can't wear watches. Their bodies electromagnetic field just makes them stop.
I can't help wondering if you are like me here?
Even battery powered watched stop after a few weeks. Leave them off for a few days and they start working again.
I now carry a Full Hunter watch on a chain. Very retro. It works and does not stop! Fits in a pocket or purse very nicely. Looks like a mini powder compact! Also pretty cheap to buy.
New ones can come in for less than 100GBP.
Good luck with the retirement. I'm a just over three years away from getting my state pension even though I'll probably retire in a year or so.
Best
Anghrarad, it is nice to know that a lifetime of hard work and stress is come to an end. In my case I'm 50 and know that I'll have to work until I'm 70 or I drop dead before I can retire. To many wasted years as well as money pissed away on stupid things. Best of luck in your time of retirement. No matter the amount of red tape in the end it will be done and over with for good.
As for the watch, I really admire it. I was fortunate to find a very nice stainless Seiko used in a jewelry shop. It looks very similar to your Accurist to be honest. Mind you they had to find lots of extension pieces to make it fit my Sasquatch sized wrist but it is very cute. The old person I was never was without a watch but I've not worn one since 2010 so now I have one again, it feels so weird to have it on. I only wear it as an accessory now to compliment my other jewelry or outfit.
Best of luck to you in the many years ahead as a free person from the slave pit called work.
Dahlia
Oh, no!
If you think "a lifetime of hard work and stress is come to an end" when you retire, I have a bridge you might be interested in.
Unless you are OCD organized then you will find that, even though you no longer have to work, you have less time to do everything you need to.
Trust me, if you aren't extremely busy once you retire, you've forgotten to do something.
Penny
Retirment
I've set April 28, 2017 as my last day to work. I'm quite looking forward too it, which surprises me no end. When I was fifty, I thought I'd never retire. I couldn't see the point. However, I find my gender expression, and my desire to work changing in opposite directions. Desire to work going down and desire to express my feminine nature going up. So, in just over two years, I'll quit pushing big rigs around and not bother to disguise myself as masculine five days a week.
The eighth of this month I received my first Social Security payment. At age 70, I'm able to receive maximum payment and still earn an unlimited amount without any penalty. So as a coworker puts it, I'm double dipping for the next two years.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Hi Patricia,
Hi Patricia,
All I can say is "Oooooh, I hate that term "double dipping" when it is about any funds EARNED by a person.
I was always told by co-workers I would be "triple dipping" because I would be getting a State Retirement, Social Security and an Air Force Retirement check.
Would love to see their faces now, if I told them that I now also get a VA disability check for issues that I contracted in Vietnam.
Hey, I didn't ask for them, any more than any other Veteran of that war or any war for that matter.
As the old saying goes "if you do the crime, be prepared to do the time."
Well, conversely the same applies to retirements. "If a person does the time, then they should see the monetary return."
Congratulations on your forth coming retirement in 2017.
As a now 14 year retiree, I can leave you with this one very true tidbit.
What you put off during your working years, will be waiting for you the very first day of your retirement.
BUT IT IS WORTH IT.
Hugs, Janice
well
that's that retirement gift out the window!
Hope to see you around 'retirement' time
Hugs
Mad
(who according to current legislation won't retire for another 15 years! grr)
Madeline Anafrid Bell
Retirement
you can retire whenever you like but there are restrictions on when you can draw a pension. What is changing is the age when you get (in the UK) your state pension. I reach that age in 2018 but I will more then likely retire a bit early. Thankfully I have a decent pension to draw on.
For a lot of people the biggest problem is adjusting living on a vastly reduced monthly income. If you can do that then there is nothing to stop you from retiring once you reach the ripe old age of 55.
The recent changes to Pensions in the UK has made it all a lot/bit more complicated.
i doubt
if I, and many more of my age will ever truly be able to stop work. I did have a great works pension but a certain Scots PM as chancellor stole most of it leaving my private pension pot quite bare.
The outlook is grim, so I don't look forward to retirement these days - I won't be able to afford to do anything after all!
Madeline Anafrid Bell
Another one here.
A long period without any pay rise, followed by five years of pay cuts in numerical as well as real terms, accompanied by reductions in my pension and massive increases in private rental costs, mean that I will never be able to retire.