It can be good to talk about retirement with friends, but it can be a bit of an awkward discussion. How much are your pensions worth? What age can you go? What about your other half? What will your income be? You’d like to give your thoughts, and receive some back, but without some basic information, this can be hard to do.

I was thinking about this at the weekend as I chatted to a mate in the pub who’s considering retirement as soon as possible from a job he hates. He’s passed the landmark 55 birthday, so knows what lump sum he can take today. I’ve no idea what kind of sums we’re talking about, but he mused, “You know, I’m thinking about buying a decent motorbike, and building an extension to the garage for it.”

“How much will that set you back?” I wondered.

“Well, maybe ten grand for the bike and six or seven for the garage”.

I tried to disguise the spluttering into my beer. “Yeah, well, if that’s what you’re comfortable spending that amount of money on”, I said, eyeing the sleet hitting the pub window and imagining tinkering with the bike as your hands turn blue.

“It’d give me a hobby, a project, something to do”, he said, and I could certainly see the point of that. After all, I’m looking for retirement projects too.

“”Quite a lot of cash to spend on a hobby”, I ventured, trying to calculate how many months earlier he could retire if he didn’t blow the money on that project.

“Some folk would spend that on holidays in a year and all they’ll have is memories”, he mused. “The bike will last me the rest of my lifetime, if I look after it.”

So there’s the funny thing. I think I would consider spending seventeen grand on holidays if I had the money to spare. That would be up near the top of my things to do with that kind of spare cash.  In fact, with a bit of budgeting, seventeen thousand pounds could take you on holiday for a year – and think of all the experiences you’d have, the places you’d see, the people you’d meet, the stories to tell. That would be a worthy spend, in my book, so I told him as much.

He looked at me aghast. “Are you mental?”, he asked. “No way would I squander that kind of money on a bloody holiday, even if it did last a year.”

Different strokes for different folks, of course but, while we’re talking in cliches, no man is an island. My mate had a motorbike before, but gave it up after a few scares and resultant pressure from his family. I’d happily traipse off around the world for a year, I dream, but the reality is I’d be going myself if I did it. So would I consider doing so? “No”, is the simple answer. My family and friends are more important to me than far flung places at this time of life.

This is where I start to think that money in retirement isn’t maybe as important as I sometimes think it is. True, it can give you options, but how realistic are they, all things – including loves ones – considered? In fact, especially when considering loved ones. Or at least I’ve come to believe that this is a truth for me. I feel happy and content when my family are happy and content and, if I live my life doing only what only appeals to me, then I’d consider it selfish. Which I like to think I’m not.

There can be compromises in all of this and I’d have to admit that money probably facilitates those, given that “it can give you options”. Sometimes just knowing that you could do something, or buy something, takes the pressure off the need to have it. Plus, like me and Oscar Wilde, you might suspect that the worst thing in the world is not getting what you want, and the second worst thing is getting it. With such I thoughts I give myself mental succour, shoulder the sky, and drink my ale.