Delayed retirement? Yes I suppose so. But I'm not sure that I want to stop working yet. I started saving at, oooh, err, around age 18 from memory and kept on going once I actually got a job at around 21 and I've been investing instead of saving since 25, and as I've just turned 50 that's for about half my life. Frightening. I left full time employment 7 years ago and since then I've been working self employed at a pace that suits me.
I've never wanted to hand over my hardearned to someone that I couldn't see or to somewhere I could not actually put my hands on it. Luckily for me my savings and investment have NEVER included a pension (well not voluntarily anyway, there is a small one from a few years of involuntary membership that I may never get to claim). So it's entirely up to me on a year by year basis whether I work or not. Intriguingly it also gives me pricing power in my self employment (as a woodturner) as I don't have to price jobs to win and can afford to price the jobs I want to do.
As far as I can see at the moment any savings in a pension, whether SIPP or not would simply have reduced my current flexibility and seriously reduced my quality of life. Surely it's a con?
cheers
Mark (self employed woodturner)
