Jim Haysom | This Is Your Life an internet professional in digital advertising

Selecting a Retirement Age when I’m 65

Today I received in the post my latest Pensions Update, the second edition of the member newsletter from my pension plan provider. Not too sure why it's Summer 2009, the postal strike hasn't been that bad has it? Anyway, surprisingly I have given this single sheet of pension news 10 minutes of my evening.

The pretty graph showing Pound Cost Averaging was surely a tease, in this period of financial markets doom and gloom. Of course when the unit price is high, you would expect to purchase fewer than when the unit price is high, when you'd knock yourself out. And hopefully this averaging nets a healthy gain when markets pick up and you ate holding more units. Investing regular monthly payments seems to have some positive benefits then.

But the more shocking news I got was not about optimal performance of my pension fund, but the issues of selecting my retirement age!

I believe I have selected the default of 65 years, but didn't realise that under current rules you can take your pension between 50 and 75. 75, WTF?

The cheek of them assuming I would be hanging up the work boots at 50. Even if this changes to 55 from 6 April 2010, this is still 10 years earlier than the default age. And to rub it in, it goes on saying that although I am entitled to take my pension between ages stated, I don't have to stop work!

Just imagine that, aged 75 and still working because the pension pot is not maintaining the lifestyle I would be accustomed to. I dread to think what type of employers are still going to be employing people at this age.

Wouldn't it be nice to retire early though. Interestingly, the closer you are to the selected retirement age, the possibility that funds are moved to different investments to protect your money from volatility in markets and losing a stack of cash just before that final payment on the around the world cruise is due.

It does make you think doesn't it. First challenge is paying off the damn mortgage. Biggest regret is not starting to contribute into a pension early enough, but hey, same can be said for many things. Whether I start to think about retirement age more in my 30's, 40's or 50's, this simple newsletter has prompted me to at least give it some thought.