The bloke who folded paper plans, and retired at 50
I wasn't a director. I wasn't on a big salary. I was a regular bloke in a series of ordinary jobs who paid attention to one thing most people ignore.
My school leaving report in 1979 was not, let's say, effusive.
"At some point David will have to apply himself. He can't expect to survive on native wit alone."
Seemed a bit harsh at the time. Probably not too wide of the mark, mind. I left with O levels in Spanish, French and English, none of which felt especially useful as I talked my way into a job at British Rail, working in their engineering drawing office. I couldn't draw to save my life. Fortunately, all they wanted me to do was fold the paper plans that other, more skilled people had created.
Six months of mind-numbing origami. Then another twenty years of a wide variety of jobs, moving gradually upwards, sideways, occasionally backwards, until I became the media relations manager for the London–Edinburgh intercity train service. The Spanish and French turned out to be largely irrelevant. The native wit, as it happened, was essential.
Daily sparring with journalists, radio presenters and TV crews. Explaining away any number of rail industry failings. Finding the good stories, and there were good stories, to promote train travel. I later became what I privately called the "can you go" communications manager. Not my actual title, but an accurate description: the person the business turned to when they needed someone to talk to local councils, transport groups or MPs at short notice.
"In 2012, I retired at the age of 50 with 33 years of contributions to the pension fund safely banked."
Not a director. Not on a megabucks salary. Just a regular bloke who paid attention.The one thing most people don't do
The pension didn't happen by accident. And it didn't require a financial advisor, a complicated investment strategy, or any particular brilliance. What it required was something far simpler: I actually read the paperwork.
Every year, when my pension statement arrived, I read it. When I didn't understand something, I either looked it up or picked up the phone to the pensions team, who, in my experience, were almost always helpful, because most of their members never called.
I kept track of my projected retirement income at different ages. I understood how the scheme worked. And I made sure that my contributions were actually being made at the right rate, and that my employer was matching them correctly. That last one sounds obvious. It's less obvious than you'd think. Errors in contribution records do happen, and they compound over time.
I think about that school report sometimes. The teacher wasn't wrong. But what they perhaps didn't account for is that native wit, applied consistently in the right places, does a perfectly reasonable job.
You don't need to become a pension expert. You need to spend perhaps two hours a year reading your statement, asking a few questions, and making sure things are roughly as they should be. Thirty-three years of doing exactly that got me to retirement at fifty.
Not because I was clever. Because I turned up and paid attention.
In part two of this series, I'll tell you about the most important thing I actually found when I read those statements, and the change I made in 1996 that made a significant difference to my final pot.
