I'm glad I bit the bullet..

...sure I got the feeling I was being ripped off for all the years I paid into a pension but I am now retired on about about 60% of my final salary. I remember thinking when I was paying in around 20%-ish of my salary "Is this really worth it?", especially when friends were going for fancy holidays three times a year and buying a new flash car every 3 years - while I went away once a year and made my cars last 10 years. But I stuck with it and now I feel relatively comfortable (definitely not "well off") and secure. I also stretched to pay off my morgage early.

Friends who did nothing are now in a bind, they have the minimum company pension (around 15-20% of their final salary and are wondering how they are going to survive. I retired early (I had just about enough of the company I worked for) - some of my friends will have to slave on to the bitter end of their 65th birthdays and then even beyond if they want a reasonable lifestyle.

Would I have done anything different? - probably. I should have diversified - some into the company pension scheme and invested some in property - and tried to invest even a bit more than I eventually did (say 25-30% of my income).

Sorry if all this seems a bit of a preach or smugness but I was just lucky. I didn't understand this pensions stuff - I just stuffed some money into it and got on with my IT'ing around the world. But suddenly one day you discover - without warning it seems - you are retired and you have no more salary coming in - shock horror. What must have is a plan, any plan, maybe a pension, property, a croft in the Shetlands -whatever - but it must be a plan! When you are in your 30's or 40's it seems that you will go on working for ever - you are everlasting, you are invicible, but it does end, and end suddenly.