Facing retirement.

[King Herald]

toon10 said:

....I have a good pension and my partner has an even better one (still on final salary) so we should be very comfortable when we do retire. Unfortunately, that day is a long way off.

It is a good feeling knowing you'll have something when you need it. I worried for years that I might end up in a tiny bedsit, back in the UK, on the state minimum pension, because I had planned nothing.

Another thing, what about income tax? I get paid from the USA, into a US bank, I live in the Philippines and the only 'contact' with the UK is a rental house there. Am I supposed to pay income tax on my pension, to the UK?? I haven't paid any income tax there since 1989 due to seaman's law, being out of the country all the time, and all that, but does that change now I am no longer working offshore?

I do a tax return every year, so I guess I'll ask my 'tax lady' in a month or two.

[King Herald]

5potTurbo said:

Best to check but, AFAIK, your tax residency won't be the UK, unless you make the mistake of spending >90 days there in any tax year, as a UK citizen, which I believe you are.
I left the UK 18 years ago, and even when I had rental properties, I wasn't paying income tax on the rent as my tax residency was (and still is) Luxembourg, and HMRC, at the time, knew that.
I do have to be careful how much time I spend in the UK as my too common business travel to Laaandon was pushing me towards the 90 days limit where I'd be liable for UK income tax on Luxembourg paid income.

ETA: have you started a thread about the Healey replica? I'm interested to leanr about that, please!

I doubt I'll spend more than a week a year on average in the UK, unless we move back there, so I should be okay i guess. Not actually sure where my tax residency is, as I've lived in the PI six years now, and worked in the USA.

I think I'd rather move to France or Spain if ever we do head in the direction of Europe.

May put a thread together for the Healey, but it has sat untouched for a year or so now since I did a bunch of work on it.

[King Herald]

Kenty said:

Retirement is not about filling you time and finding what to do, it is all about doing what you want to do!

I've been telling myself that, if I want to PS4 all day, then I'll bloody well PS4 all day.

But I get bored of that after a while. I think I'll find a balance soon, doing busy work when I feel busy, and just relaxing when I feel like it.

[King Herald]

bigbob77 said:

Some people are just no good at being retired. I know a couple of people like that, who just got more and more stressed out until they finally caved in and took another full-time job - crap low paying jobs but it makes them happy!

I see that as a very sad way to be happy. There has to be more to life than just working to keep happy, surely? Work to live, NOT live to work. Is that all their lives amount too?

Bosses must LOVE people like that.

Xaero said:

I retired at 23 and just went travelling....

I did the same at 29, just sort of left, stopped work, but two years later the coffers were empty so I started again.

To be honest, I was in Phuket, living the dream, but you still need SOME money to do that. A tenner a day would have been enough, but I had nothing left, nada.

I'd been a party animal for a long time, but quietened down at the same rate the bank emptied. Towards the end I was happy to get up late, zombie out on the beach all day, eat local Thai food, chill with a few beers in the evening etc. How many years/months more I could have done that for was questionable though.....