I've been exercising my old brain today. I'm in a defined benefits pension scheme (one of the few that remain) through my employer, and the terms of the scheme have been changed recently. My current terms have a retirement age of 60, and I can take a reduced pension from 50. In March 2018, when I'm 54, I get switched from the "old" version to the "new" version. If I retire soon after I turn 55 as I'm planning to do, this will mean that I'll have only one year, or, if I continue to work an extra few months, two years, on the new scheme, resulting in a small amount of pension that I won't be able to touch without penalty till I'm 67, or even later if my state retirement pension age rises again. I've been doing the sums and weighing up the pros and cons of opting out of the scheme from March 2018 (I could rejoin later if I decided to continue working) and putting the money that won't be going into my occupational pension into my private pension that I can access from 55.
I've concluded that although it means having an additional FI jam jar (more like an egg cup, for the actual sum involved will be tiny), which feels untidier than putting more pennies into an existing jam jar, if I'm going to live to 120 it's in my best interest not to opt out. I'm relieved that I've come to a decision and can go back to not thinking about my occupational pension.
My next step is to persuade my husband to find out the value of the occupational pension he had for a few years before and just after we met. It won't be much, but it won't be zero, and I'm keen to have as many numbers as possible to work with. I do love a good logistical problem, and I'm enjoying the process of projecting which sources of funding we'll draw on at the different stages of retirement.