I have now retired the redundancy payment has been received, I have also received the lump sum from my pension scheme and the final payment from work including holiday pay. So what do I need to do with it?


I now have this chunk of money to spend but the problem is I don’t have an end date. In all the business planning I have done in the past I have evaluated cost and benefit over a given period but its difficult now because when am I going to stop needing money, basically how long am I going to live and even this is confused because it not only applies to me but also to my wife.


The financial advisor now becomes a necessity.

I made an appointment to see my bank’s advisor who discussed Annuity rates at me, Investment returns, Mortality expectation Government Securities, Redemption Yields, Hedge Funds, Tax Planning, Asset Allocation, Investment risk, Boring Annuities or exciting drawdowns, Private Equity investment etc. and suggested I should consider ISAs and some stock options. He offered me no notes and asked me to return within three months with my conclusions. I had no idea what he was talking about after three minutes.
But fortunately I had recently had some dealing with the Nationwide Building Society in Hull so along I go to see Briony who tells me about her Dad who lives in France and the surprise party she is organizing for him with her Aunts. We discuss the food she is baking, where she is having the party, the family album she has put together, my own family who live in the Bahamas and how nice that must be, when we are next going to see them and how excited we are. Oh and in amongst all that we discuss my financial requirements in language I understand and she comes to the same conclusions as the bank guy but she gives me copies of the notes she made and asks me back the next week when she will present the proposal. I go back the next week find out the party was a great success and talk about her upcoming holiday in Australia, we also look at the presentation, agree with most things, made a couple of adjustments and I am now sorted. Absolutely brilliant a dose of fresh air in a mine field. Thanks Briony you made a difficult job very simple. I recommend anyone to give her a visit and I will visit you soon to see how your Dad’s getting on and to update my financial position.


Now that money's sorted I need to do something with my time.

When planning for my retirement there are some things I sort of forgot to realize. These fall into the category of ‘things I have had so long I thought they were mine’.


First there is the company car, the 2.0 Volvo Sports – leather heated seats, cruise control, air co, satellite navigation, etc. now becomes a Renault Clio although my wife is keen to point out that this is her car and I can only use it when its not required. Then there is the fuel card. Have you any idea of the cost of petrol? When the petrol pump now shows 40GBP to pay it is my own cash from my own bank account! I think petrol cost less than a pound a gallon the last time I bought any.
Then comes the mobile phone, I felt sure this was mine but no. Things continue to get worse: The Laptop has to go even though it has all my personal files on it, the broadband connection at home is no longer to be paid for, the wireless modem also goes, it just goes from bad to worse.

The Company Barclaycard goes and the four times salary life insurance for employees also ceases as of the next day.


I start to replace these by looking at mobile phones. For many years I have had the company mobile which simply makes phone calls but when you set out to buy your own it’s not that easy. Do I want to take pictures? Have colour screens, receive iTunes, have pop songs for ring tones? Do I need a ‘pay as you go’ or a yearly contract? As it’s coming up to Christmas there are lots of offers at all stores, BOGOFs etc and I decide that seeing as my wife already has a mobile phone we will just use hers for a while. Although she does point out that it is her phone and I can only use it when it’s not required.


The surprising thing (or maybe not) is that all my phones calls were business calls and now I am at home all day on a land line the mobile never rings. Three months later I wonder why I thought I needed a mobile in the first place.

It seems to me that there are two different ways to retire.


The first is that you reach 65 years old on a Friday, the big boss, Assistant Credit Controller – Major Accounts – Outer Hebrides, who you have met once at a conference on Network Externalities and The Economics of Universal Access: UK Regulatory Issues comes to make a presentation.
You don’t remember him because you travelled down the night before the conference, met lots of colleagues and consumed an extreme amount of free alcohol and are now trying to keep out of his way while talking loudly to the bottom of the toilet. But on retirement day he’s there to present you with a leaving gift bought with the 17.60GBP plus two buttons that have been collected from your entire building. He thanks you for your contribution to the company over the past thirty years and congratulates you specifically for organizing the collection of the staff coffee money each week to say nothing of arranging the annual Welfare BBQ for the past ten years.


The second way is to be a few years younger with a reasonable pension plan and leave with an excellent redundancy package. This seems to happen to fewer retirees but they seem happier than the others. These people still have the presentation but this time it’s the Credit Manager - Corporate Finance – Head Office who comes along to say nice things. He thanks you for being the First Aid representative, Emergency Evacuation Officer and Welfare Committee Chairman for 14 years. He also remembers you made some contribution to Credit Management by retrieving 1200GBP from the 250kGBP owed by the latest company to go out of business.


Timeline - 03 January 2006

Is one of these ways of retirement better than the other?
You bet, with the redundancy package you leave with a nice wedge of dosh. But even this presents a problem: What do you do with it? Do you invest it or do you just give it to the wife and let her go shopping? One day could do it if she’s like mine. Financial advisors need to be seen quickly.


But for both cases that’s it, come the next week, no work, no structure you are an OAP or as we now like to call them Senior Citizens or TOGs, walking to the shops in your slippers to collect your newspaper and queuing at the post office at 8.30am on a Wednesday for your pension while saving for your next years bus trip holiday to Bournemouth with a lot of other OAPs.


Two major issues need addressing Financial Planning and Time Planning.

I suddenly find myself with time on my hands following redundancy from the company I have been with for 28 years. The change is not easy to deal with so I need to do something to help make the adjustment. Counseling sessions with my local highwayman sorry counselor would probably help but the cost!!!


So I have decided on Retirement Blog. It will be a series of stories, or sessions as I call them, based on my experiences since leaving work - with reflections going back over the years.


I have tried to make them amusing and so to help this along I will never knowing let the truth spoil a good story, although everything is based on some element of fact.


Names have not been changed so I apologize in advance to my wife Christine who appears regularly in these articles along with my daughter Alex who lives in the Bahamas with her husband Dave and the two grandkids Joe and Amber. I also apologise in advance to friends and colleagues and anyone else who gets a mention.


But please remember to protect the innocent and the people still working things may not have been exactly as described.