Early Retirement
 

Finally, I made the decision to take early retirement, actually just a few months before my official retirement date. Bottom line is I always find myself sorting out problems for other employees when it should be their job to resolve. The stress isn't worth it. After returning from our next visit to Hungary in August I'll be retiring a few days later! Yay.
I cannot wait to quit the UK. I just hope we manage to sell our house and settle in Hungary so we can take advantage of whatever we should be entitled to before the cut off point. Also we find the right property but if necessary will rent to ensure we don't buy the wrong one.

PS - I am not expecting living in Hungary to be smoother than UK but the lifestyle choices outweigh the disadvantages.

Re: Early Retirement
 

Congrats........Go for it !!!

Re: Early Retirement
 

Good call, life is too short to be miserable.

Re: Early Retirement
 

Yay, well done! :thumb:

Tons of 'fun' to come, but I'm sure you'll feel it's worth it.

Best of luck with the project.

Re: Early Retirement
 

Exactly

Re: Early Retirement
 

Congratulations. Hope you have a very happy retirement.

Re: Early Retirement
 

Can't wait! It'll be lovely to have a "neighbour" at long last!

Re: Early Retirement
 

Good idea. When I was young they were predicting that increased automation would lead to reduced working hours and earlier retirement but the opposite has happened, due to the greed of those in charge. When I started work at 16 in a factory there were often collections for a retirement gift for one of the shop floor men. In many cases there would be another collection about 2 years later, this time for the same mans funeral.

Re: Early Retirement
 

Last year I was stunned to be given a card and John Lewis voucher from my colleagues for 20 years NHS service ...... they got it completely wrong. It should have been 29 years ..... how did they get it wrong .... someone in HR only looked up the online records but paper records show me as working 29 years at the time. I asked our Pensions department to confirm my service history and they confirmed 29 years last year. Hr have now updated their online records so it shouldn't happen again but I am slightly worried when I finally get my NHS pension 10 years might be missing!

I'm not expecting a big collection for my retirement because I'm retiring end of August and many of my colleagues will be out of the office on holiday. Adding to this my finance team were relocated to a hospital site whilst the rest of the department moved to a new office. Some of the support services were also relocated to north west London (for them this means after their inner London Allowance protection runs out dropping down to outer London Allowance). I can't wait to get away from this hopsital site because I find it so depressing working there. A junior doctor was stabbed a few months ago by an outpatient and an inpatient using a fire extinguisher managed to smash his way into the admin office area. Luckily all my colleagues and myself were at other sites or working from home. We have not had any training what to do in such situations which I find shocking. As for myself I have previously trained in self defence so can look after myself in most situations. We all have to carry panic alarms with us at all times.

I'm the oldest guy in the whole of our Finance department .... and they'll gonna have to look to someone else to keep everyone in check!

I had an old friend from my school days here last Friday to give me a quote on some works to be carried out on my property before I put it up on the market and he has advised to get three estate agents to do a valuation and give advice whether it's worth having the works carried out. This I'm going to do.

At this point in time there's a new build going up just up the road from where my wife's parents live. It's actually two houses, semi detached, one of them a bungalow and the other having two floors. Might go and have a look at them in August if they have not been bought by then. By Hungarian standards the value of these houses is a bit above what the average Hungarian can afford. But times are achanging.

Re: Early Retirement
 

Ha ha .... yes ..... there is an Englishman living in Malyi where my wife's family live. I think he's involved with training police dogs. He's probably a member of this member!!!! Hello if you are reading this .... must come over and say Hello when I am in Hungary!

Re: Early Retirement
 

I have a friend who is a postman and his working hours have been cut he has to sprint to complete his rounds. The area he covers is not just urban but countryside too, including bridle paths and non-tarmacced roads! They've introduced e-trikes but they are not suitable for the terrain he covers! You are right ... it's all about greed by those in charge!

Re: Early Retirement
 

They are, you want to see some of the Budapest prices! We have flats building just up the road that start at 150 million - & top out at 250 million.

Re: Early Retirement
 

Good grief .... my calculator would only allow me to go up to 99,999,999 HF!

Does this mean the average Hungarian wage is also rising? Last time I checked I think it was around £15k per year. UK average wage was around £28k at the same time.

Re: Early Retirement
 

Budapest wages have risen - but not even closely in proportion to the increase in property value! The property boom has followed the classic pattern. Our apartment has doubled in value in the last 5 years but unless you are downsizing / moving outside the city it is meaningless!

Re: Early Retirement
 

Sadly I think you are right, these days people do need to know what to do in a terrorist or other violent situation. Last night I was watching a TV programme about the crash investigation of a Lufthansa airliner. The pilot had gone to the loo and the copilot locked the cabin door and flew the plane into a mountain. He was depressed and it was a suicide but resulted in a huge loss of innocent lives. If the pilot could have opened the door with a key or whatever he could have prevented the crash but the only means of unlocking it was from inside the flight cabin. He tried to smash the door down with an axe but it was too solid.