Hello, I'm Shirley Ballas and welcome to Rewirement, the retirement podcast from Legal &; General. This is the series that explores how to reset, re- invent and rewire for the retirement you want. Each episode I'm joined by straight talking, honest retirees and would- be retirees with different experiences, hopes, and
expectations for retirement. My expert panel will be here to help too, with ideas to help you feel confident, comfortable, and financially in control as you approach your own colorful retirement. Today, we're tackling the topic of making the big switch. How do you go from a lifetime of work to your ideal retirement without a bump?
I think men sometimes find it harder than women.
It's about more than money as we'll find out.
If someone asked me to think about what I'd be doing for the next 30 years, I'd have no idea.
Thank you for downloading Rewirement, the retirement podcast from Legal &; General. Here's hoping it brings you one step closer to your dream retirement. Today I'm going to be chatting with Emma Byron from Legal &; General as well as entrepreneur Tricia Cusden of Look Fabulous Forever for their tips on the
transition from full time work. Before that let's check in with our honest, straight talking team of would- be rewirees. Last time I caught up with John. He's retired and a member of his local amateur dramatic society in Sussex. Today, we're going to meet a couple of his fellow group members, Sue, who's retired, and David, who's still working and contemplating how and when to make the move to
retire. Here's what happened when we got together. First, Sue and David told me a little bit about where they are right now.
Well, my situation is that I retired almost 10 years ago, so I'm not working any longer.
Are you enjoying the process of not working?
I am enjoying it. I'm enjoying the process of not working very much indeed.
And what kind of things do you get up to then?
I have an allotment. I have a garden, so I spend a lot of time on them. I've joined the U3A. I'm in four groups with them and one of them I'm learning Latin. I'm in the natural history group. I'm in a walking group, which is sort of long walks. I'm in a natural history walking group as well. I do yoga. The police neighborhood watch coordinator for part of my road. And...
So it's safe to say you don't miss work then?
No, I feel I'm very busy and I have difficulty fitting things in very often.
And you, David?
Well, I'm actually still working. I'm still work full time, traveling up and down to London for my sins. From what Sue's just said, I think, I don't know whether I'm going to look forward to retirement or not. It sounds more hard work than actually working, but no, I mean, I'm actually looking forward to retirement. I'm now conscious of the fact that it's something
that's coming up now. I'm 62 next month and I realize that it is the sort of thing that a lot of my colleagues are retiring or what's something I would like to maybe do look at is maybe working part time. So just continuing for two or three days a week, but then giving myself the option to find things
outside of work to actually deal with. Because I often thought that it was a bit unfair with people who retire, that they just suddenly, one day they're working, the next day they stop.
And do you have things in mind that you want to do?
I do. Yeah. Like Sue, I enjoy gardening, but I'd like to do a bit of traveling, not necessarily abroad, but maybe around the country, because there's so many things in the UK that I haven't seen or I've seen through work, but this best out or maybe a hotel window or something like that. So it'd be nice to just maybe spend a few days in places to go and see them, visit and have a look around these places.
Remember John, from last time?
I'm John, I've been retired about three years. I'm married with two grown up children.
As a bit of a saver, John talked about his dilemma of not being sure about when to enjoy the money he'd set aside and when to continue his careful habits. I asked him about how he approached the leisure side of retirement.
I enjoy being able to do what I want to do when I want to do it without restrictions on what I do, not having to travel up to London, being able to, usually, go out when I want to, without thinking about meetings. And it's a lot more relaxing than when I was working. When I was about to retire, I found that I was aching an awful lot.
Eventually it was decided that I got rheumatoid arthritis, which is very much under control, but it does mean that some of the things I thought I was going to be doing are difficult to do. I think my advice to people would be to think about whether you ought to be retiring when you're younger and, in fact, when you're fitter.
So, John, transitioning from full time work to retirement, how do you feel that's been?
It actually worked out well and not quite so well. So, when I started work, our pension scheme said that I would retire at 60. So, that was certainly the plan. So I was 60 at the end of 2015, but that was when I suddenly started to realize that my health wasn't as good as it might have been because of my arthritis.
I worked from home for the last six months or so of my employment because when things have moved forward, a lot of my work I could do over the internet. So, that's how I transitioned. And I was very fortunate as well, that when I actually did retire, the arthritis was under control. I've needed a couple of hip replacements because of it. But in fact, that's been fantastic. Been really good.
So now I can move forward and start to enjoy retirement more than I had been. It's something you very much have to take into account that when I was working, I was out of the house for 12 hours a day. Suddenly you find that there's the two of you in the house and you're here together all the time.
I mean, that's a transition just on its own, isn't it?
Ever so much. Ever so much because if you're not careful, you can very easily get the other's nerves. So my wife likes to go out and meet friends for coffee. I go out for lunch with friends of mine and see various people.
And so making sure that we have an active social life, but I think we've always decided, Shirley, that although there were a number of things we wanted to do together, it was very important to have our own lives as well, because otherwise you tend to run out of the things to talk about if you're not careful.
It sounds like you've really made the transition from full time work into retirement amazingly well. And also with your personal life and being with your wife at home full time, sounds like you actually have done extremely well.
Well, the other thing, Shirley, of course it is rather nice is that rather than having to get up a quarter past six in the morning, get down to the train station, getting the train London Bridge every day, so the 45 minute journey. If I want to get up at eight or half past eight now, I can do it, but you have to be careful that you don't spend half the morning in bed.
It sounds like getting the balance right in your relationships and your routine is just as important as making sure you have hobbies and plans to enjoy. David, meanwhile, has worked for the civil service for 42 years. He's confident about the financial side of his move to retirement, but he knows that's not the situation for most these days
With the younger generation, what they tend to do is you say to them, " Have you thought about a pension? Have you thought about this? Have you thought about that?" And they just go, " Oh, I'll think about that in a few years' time."
I asked Sue what advice she give people when making their plans for retirement? Sue seems to be a master of hobbies and is enjoying colorful retirement. But is there anything she might have done differently?
It's very difficult because when I first retired, I retired in the August and I was a bit of a loose end in the winter as the winter came on. And I was actually really quite sort of bored and wondering what to
do. So I hadn't really thought out what I was going to do myself properly, but I would, looking back on it, advise someone to give it some thought as to what they wanted to do and how they were going to set about.
So think about it before you retire?
I think you should do. Yes. Yes. I mean, once that autumn was over and I got to the following year, I started actually doing things. So it was fine, but I think some people who haven't got any interests and I did have a lot of interests, it's just I didn't do anything about them. Some people who haven't got many interests, I think they find themselves a bit of a loose end. I think men sometimes find it harder
than women. I don't know whether this is still so, but in the past, a lot of men retired and all their life was just work and they did nothing else. And quite a lot of them just died after they'd been retired for a few years because I think they must've just got so bored and had nothing to do.
Thanks, Sue. That's something for me to look forward to. Actually, don't you think it's a bit, like you said, just now different people do different things? And some people will plan out what they're going to be doing. Other people will just go, "Well, I'll let it just wash over me
and I'll deal with it as and when it comes." And I think the problem is sometimes it depends on, with your retirement, is it something that you planned or is it something that's unplanned? For example, my father is 87. He's got a condition and I don't know if he's going to sort of how many years he's got, but I mean, it could be that suddenly I'm going to have to suddenly think about, " Okay, well what do I
do now? Do I go part time? Do I retire? What do I do?" So I think sometimes it's how people had the approach that they have with regard to it. And it's sometimes-
Case by case scenario person.
Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. I think everybody has to sort of look at it from their own point of view.
Because I have to say I'm a little bit like you, David. I couldn't even possibly not imagine going to work. And fortunate in my industry, particularly that you can go all the way up to you pop your clogs as they say, because you can teach dance at any age. So I think where yours is gardening, mine can always be still dancing or
teaching or something. I couldn't imagine. But now having listened to you also, Sue, I will be bearing in mind about hobbies and things and starting to get organized with things like that. Cause I don't think I'm overly organized with my retirement because you don't think it's coming, do you?
No, and it's there and you're in it and you've just got to grab hold of it with both hands and get on.
I think if people can gradually go into retirement that helps them to get more used to it and have these hobbies building up around them. So that when the one that when the day comes where they no longer have to work or they retire, it is difficult for people if they haven't got anything else apart from the day to day work and they just got their state pension.
That's why for them probably planning is the most important than pensions perhaps. So they have something when they retire are important. The trouble is that people think about it when it's too late, a little bit.
When it's actually happened and they're there.
Sue, tell me about how you made the decision to move from full time work to retirement and what influenced the timings for you. And what about your partner? How did he feel?
About me retiring? No, he was happy for me to retire with him. He'd retired. He's three years older than me. He'd retired two years before I retired. The reason I retired when I did is because the firm I was working for in Haywards Heath, which was a very nice, friendly, local brokerage was taken over by a much larger
company. The whole working ethos was very different and I sort of hung on for two years till, and put my state pension off for two years so that I got more when I got that, and just hung on then until I was 62 and then left with a great deal of relief.
Did you miss the structure and the routine of going to work every day?
Yes, I think I did. I mean, I was pleased to get out because of the circumstances, but I did miss the routine of it all.
I think when you've been in a job for so many years, did you find it a little frightening to suddenly going to retire and how you're going to manage and what are your finances now?
And also when you're married and you retire, you wonder how you're both going to get on when you're in the house? Yes, yes. I thought, " How will we get on if we're forced into each other's company every day?"
Because it's one thing seeing each other for half an hour in the morning and a little bit evening from five o'clock. There's another thing, 24/ 7 with your partner.
Yes, but no, it worked out very well because my husband was doing a whole lot of things. He's always been very much into music, so that was fine because he did that and I did my own thing and it works out very well.
I love that. What about you, David?
Well, I'm going to be on my own, which is a bit frightening.
Don't you like your own company then?
I pretty much do enjoy my own company. I enjoyed gardening as I said, but I do belong to other groups. I belong to a local amateur dramatic group. I'm a belonged to a choir. So I'm sure I will find other things to do. I can fortunately drive so I can get out and about. I just cannot imagine myself sitting indoors all the time, doing nothing, but I'm a sort of pretty active type of person who wants to do
things. But it's interesting what Sue was saying about work. Various colleagues that have left and without fail, all of them say, " I don't miss the work, but I will miss the company and I will miss the people that I work with." And I think that's an important thing because really you're with these people, well for about seven or eight hours a day and you get to know them. They get
to know you. And then all of a sudden when you retire, you're sort of, as Sue said, you cast a drift a bit and you're sort of "What do I do now?" And then you've got to build up sort of a group of friends as well.
A new set of friends. New friends, new hobbies, and a whole new dynamic to the relationship with your partner. No wonder our guests had so much to say about making the leap from work to retirement. We'll be catching up with them next time. Joining me now, or two
people with some great insights to share. Emma Byron is the managing director for Legal &; General retirement income, which specializes in products to help people provide an income in their retirement, and Tricia Cusden became an entrepreneur and business owner in her rewirement years. She's the founder of Look Fabulous Forever, which provides beauty and cosmetic products, especially for mature skin.
Hello.
Hi.
Thank you for joining me. Tricia, tell me about your journey to starting a business in your retirement years. Was beauty always a passion of yours?
Makeup was always a passion of mine and, but I knew nothing about the beauty industry and in fact was very much an outsider to the beauty industry when I had the idea to start the business. It grew out of what was basically a very challenging year for me. So I started the business when I was 65, but the year before that, when I was 64, my daughter had given birth
to a baby who was very sick. And I found myself really needed for practically every day during that year for one thing or another. When India, the baby, did eventually get discharged from hospital, which was when she was about 10 months old, Susie hired a special needs nanny because the baby has special needs. And I kind of
didn't have a life to resume almost. I felt very low and very in need of a new challenge, let's put it that way. I was making sort of dates every day with a television. I was thinking, " Oh, I must get back because Countdowns go back to Stowe," which was not a very good use of my time. And I kept thinking, " I might live for another 30 years. I'm 65, but
I could well live into my nineties. What on earth am I going to do with the rest of my life?" So I actually thought, what do I love? What do I enjoy? What do I miss? What would I love to have in my life right now? I was also quite exercised about the fact that the beauty industry could only talk to me through the language of anti-
aging, which made me very cross. So I put all those things together and I thought, " Well, I love business. I love makeup. I'd love to do something different within the makeup arena for older women." And so I just decided to do it and set up the business.
Wow. That's simply amazing. How is running a business at this age different to the career you had when you were younger?
I think the thing about running a business when you're a lot older and you've got a huge amount of experience, is anything that crops up you've usually met before along the way. And that helps enormously. I mean, there is no question that by the time you reach 65, you're going to be extremely experienced in a huge number of ways.
And I've what I feel quite strongly about Look Fabulous Forever is that it brings together everything that I have done into one very neat package. So for instance, we make videos for YouTube and they have been part of the sort of bedrock of the success of our business,
especially initially. So making a video for YouTube would have been daunting for some people, but because I used video a lot in my life as a management trainer, I was perfectly comfortable being on video and also things to do with actually running a business, keeping an eye on cash flow and understanding how everything's sort of meshed and work together, was something that I'd experienced before. And I
think the big difference was to do with risk. I've always been quite entrepreneurial, but when you're 65, you cannot risk the roof over your head. At the age of 65, when we needed extra money to help the business to grow, I knew that the solution to that was to go outside and ask other people for money, which is what we did. And fortunately the business was very
attractive. So we raised money very easily, but it's very important, I think, if you're older and you're going to start a business venture that you do so within certain limits.
Boy, what a story. Our rewirees talked about the transition in their relationships. How have yours changed in retirement?
I think what's interesting. I now work with my two daughters. So what happened was I started the business and six months later, my older daughter, Anna rang me up. She was working as a PR consultant and she rang me up and she said, " Mum, this business is really interesting.
And it's obviously doing brilliantly. Can I come and join you because there's a great story to tell here?" So I just said, " Well, there's no job and there's no money, but you can come if you like." So I didn't exactly incentivize her to join me, but she did join me. It was lovely because she came with a
fresh pair of eyes. We then had to find a way to make that work for us because I'm still her mum and we still have to relate as mother and daughter. But at the same time, we were running quite a serious business together. And then my other daughter, the mother of India, the sick baby, she said, " You and Anna seem to be having a lot of fun. Can I come and join now?" We all have a
good relationship with each other. We're good at talking out problems and stuff like that. And it's just been the most amazing fun. So instead of having less contact with them, I actually now have more contact with them and the five grandchildren that I've got, they live quite near to me. So I get to see them as well. And we've got an absolute iron rule that when I'm
there, we don't talk about the business. So when I'm in their homes, the business is off limits.
I couldn't think of anything more special actually, to be honest, listening to your story. It's really, for me, it's quite captivating. So congratulations on all you've done for sure. Hello, Emma.
Hi.
Hi, darling. What are the steps people should be considering before they retire?
Well, I think, as Tricia mentioned, it can be quite a daunting prospect to look at the next 30 years of your life and work out what you're going to do and what money you're going to use and so on. So I think people should really just try to break it down a little bit and start with thinking about how they see themselves spending their life in the next five or so years. So will you be working? Maybe you
want to carry on part time working. Maybe you want to volunteer. What hobbies will you take up and so on. So I think it's really important to just try and picture what your lifestyle will be like and have a bit of fun with it. Try to really imagine yourself enjoying
your time not working and how'll you spend that. So I would say that's the first step for people to really think about rather than diving into straight to think about the finances, which can be quite scary for people. So I'd say start with the fun bit first.
So making a decision, what you want to do in the next five years, keep it on a short term plan.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think if someone asked me to think about what I'd be doing for the next 30 years, I'd have no idea. I'd hardly have an idea beyond the next year, I'd say. So really, really think about the shorter term and how you'll live because of course people's lives over retirement will change significantly.
Would you agree that a happy retirement is about a lot more than just getting the numbers right?
Yeah, definitely. I mean, as I said, thinking what you're doing with your life, how you're going to spend your time is really the most important thing you know about retirement. Finances, of course, are a critical enabler for how much fun you're going to be able to have in your retirement, so you do need to also take stock of your
finances. Think about all of the assets that you have. What assets do you have that are going to provide you with some form of income? What other assets have you got that you might want to tap into in later retirement? So maybe your home and so on? What benefits will you receive? What state pension will you get? You need to really sit down and take stock of all of those financial assets.
Tricia, did you have it all figured out when you retired?
Absolutely not. In fact, I think if India hadn't been born when she was in the way that she was, I suspect that I would just have slid into retirement in a way I'd just done slightly less and less of the kind of work that I was doing. And I don't think I would have had that moment, that I did have of almost existential crisis, which I definitely did
experience because we're not often confronted with that. Although I suppose for some people ending their working life can create a kind of crisis because you have to let go of all that structure and time filling that work gives you, but in a good way. The kind of advice that I would give to somebody who is retiring or about to be retired is to give yourself lots and lots
of space to explore all kinds of different possibilities. And sometimes asking those really challenging and difficult questions is a way to start to get clear about just what we want to do achieve, definitely giving yourself space, time, and not beating yourself up about not coming up with amazing ideas immediately. I think things will evolve. I'm in touch
with a huge, huge group of older women. And I am staggered every day at just how brilliant they are and how brilliantly they are creating interesting lives for themselves in this, what I think of, as the last great adventure.
What other creative ways have you heard of people making an extra income in their retirement? So all these amazing women that you spoke to in their late sixties or what have you, what have you heard from them?
Well, one of the most inspiring is somebody who has always been very creative, but she'd never had time to sort of realize her true creativity. And she did a silversmithing course, which she absolutely loved, and started to make amazing jewelry, really beautiful jewelry. And she now makes and sells jewelry. I just think that's lovely.
A lot of people miss the social life when they finish work, which is a big part of their identity. Do either of you have advice on how you can make that transition a bit gentler?
I tell you what, one of the things that strikes me about a lot of the women that I talk to is that they are very sociable beings and they join a lot of clubs. So they join choirs and they join book clubs and they go to Zumba and they've got the most amazing social lives.
Yeah. I mean, I guess, as Tricia says, it's about finding the things that you enjoy that are going to keep you occupied and make you feel that sense purpose. But I think it's also really important not to see retirement as this sort of big event where your life overnight changes. It's really a sort of transition that will take, for many people, a number of years, if they choose to slow down work and
kind of gradually retire. So I think in the run up to retirement, if people are sort of daunted by what they're going to be spending their time doing, it's worthwhile looking at picking up new hobbies, volunteering, doing things that maybe you haven't had time to do before and starting to do those, those as you work your way up to retirement. I think volunteering is proven to be great for improving
people's health and wellbeing. So it's a fantastic thing for a lot of people to do in retirement. And many, many do because they have that time to give back to society.
Sue made an observation that she thought men can find it harder to make the transition to retirement. Do you think there are differences between the sexes in the way they approach this time?
I do think there's a difference between the sexes. I think men find it a lot more difficult and challenging to be domestically based, let's put it that way. They really do miss, in a way that I don't think I particularly missed, just getting out there and bestriding the world as a Colossus kind of thing. I also think that men attach a huge amount to their status within a job in
a way that women tend not to. But then I've got friends who are married to men who are incredibly happy to be retired and really have had enough of the corporate life and are more than ready for the next chapter. So I think it's very individual to a large extent.
Yeah, I guess I'd probably sit more on the side of the men that Tricia decided that'd be quite daunting to the prospect of being domestic all the time, but I won't admit to being attached to my job title though. I think it's going to be different for different people. Some people adapt more easily. Some people respond to change better
and that's male or female. So I'm not sure it's specifically men that would find it harder to transition into retirement.
Has coronavirus changed any of this?
I guess for those at the point of retirement today, it must feel like a sort of very strange situation to be trying to make long lasting decisions. There's a huge amount of economic uncertainty across the world. So really, it's very hard for people to be thinking about making longterm decisions, but I think it's still very, very important that people try to get to grips with what they've got
in terms of their retirement savings. Make sure they're aware of how their funds have performed and the extent to which any fall in the stock markets hit their pension funds. I mean, it may be that some people want to defer retiring if they have had losses on their pension funds, that they want to give them time to recover. But for some people it won't be possible. They will
want to still continue and proceed with retirement. So I think people should look online, use the tools that are available such as Pension Wise, which is the government's guidance service. And then people should really think about ensuring they can meet their basic expenses and their necessities. That might
come from their state pension. It might come from a defined benefit pension, or they could use defined contribution pensions to buy fixed income sources, such as annuities. Annuities provide people with a guaranteed income for life. Interest rates are pretty low at the moment. So that does have a knock on impact on the annuity rates, which could make people
hesitant. So an alternative to a lifetime annuity is also a fixed term annuity, where instead of taking the annuity for the rest of your life, you take it for a fixed period of time. So you could choose to just lock that in for three years, five years so that you can reassess things later on. The main message really to people, not to panic at the moment in the
current situation. Retirement's a marathon, not a sprint. So any decisions you make now, you can always look to change those in the future.
What are the other things you think people should be considering?
So we talked about earlier, obviously thinking about your sort of aspirations and needs and goals for retirement. But I think then really we do need to turn to the finances and the best place to start is to build yourself a financial retirement plan, which I know might sound scary to some people. But again, I think breaking these things down into chunks is a good way to manage what might
seem like a daunting task. So the first thing to start with is your basic needs. How much do you spend on food each week? What are your gas, electric bills and so on? Rent, if you have it, or any other household costs. You really want to make sure that you were guaranteed to be able to cover those for the rest of your life. For some people, the state pension might be sufficient to cover those basic needs.
For others, what they consider to be essential spend might be greater than that. And therefore they'd want to look at other fixed income sources, a defined benefit pension, rental properties, which could provide you with that income source. Or you may want to look to convert some of your defined contribution pensions into an annuity or a fixed term
annuity. So an annuity is a product whereby the insurer will promise to pay you a fixed amount of money, which you can have increasing with inflation or not for the rest of your life. So it provides you with that real assurance that you'd always, always be able to
meet that essential spend. I think then, again going back to thinking of things in chunks, think about what you're going to do for that for the next three to five years. How many holidays are you going to have? What's the sort of aspirational items that you're going to need to spend money on? And I think there are, you're going to want a
bit more flexibility. You may want to have some of your money in an income drawdown, put out where you can choose how much you take each time, but do remember with those products that once the money's gone, the money's gone so you will need to sort of make sure you bring some aside for later years as well.
Amazing insight. Thank you, Emma. And thank you Tricia for sharing your inspiring story with me. I love that you're using your new start to make everyone else's so much more fabulous. You can find out more about retirement planning legalandgeneral. com/ retirement. Next time we'll be talking about approaching retirement as a single person and possibly having a smaller pension pot
than you would as a couple. How is it different and what does it mean for the plans and provisions you make before you get there?
I think it might have been nice to have the option of thinking about reducing hours and I haven't got that option and I still got a daughter at university. So my salary is the salary.
If you press the subscribe button on your podcast listening platform, you'll get it on your device as soon as it's available. I'll be back with our rewirees and Legal &; General's Chris Knight will be sharing his advice along with behavioral psychologist, Joe Hemmings. Thanks for listening. I'm Shirley Ballas and I'll catch you next time.