Originally Posted by
RAT 5
There are others so traumatised that they would sit in full uniform, under the stairs, eating a cardboard meal on their knees watching the electricity meter, gas meter, water meter and checking the fuse box every so often.
Others discovered there's a whole new world out there and lived a longer & happier retirement.
I'd willingly retire tomorrow but unfortunately I've still got quite a few years left till I can afford to live off my meagre pension - and the state pension has got a year further away for me than previously advertised and six years further away for my wife.
Why didn't I and quite a lot of others save enough to retire "early"?
The 9.5% mortgage rate which increased to 15% just after I'd signed the contract to buy our first home didn't help. That sudden increase (mid 1980s for those still in nappies back then) actually put us below the breadline, as a junior military officer. I reckon there's more than a few youngsters eager to complain about older generation folk "taking their jobs" who will see things very differently once the mortgage rates start to increase, which they undoubtedly will. Regrettable all round, but life is a big competition, despite what some state schools chose to teach.