I turned 50 last week, the day before I quit a stressful and soulless job I ended up with following a restructure at work & from Saturday I am self-employed in the same industry. I will be worse off financially but free of management for a while at least which after 25 years feels liberating; I hope to pick up some interim/sessional type work to add variety to my weeks and carve my path for the next 10 years whilst the kids complete their education.

If you enjoy your work and the people there are great to be around then you've struck gold, but to each their own - life is for living and I think beyond early to mid seventies your world gets smaller. I hope that in around 8 years I'll have enough to semi-retire, travel, play guitar and give something back through volunteering.