Champagne & Caviar Or Homebrew & Chips?

Will your retirement be a cheerful cruise or a sad slog? We asked the Fool audience for their views of life after work...

Over the past month, we've been quizzing Fool.co.uk readers about their expectations regarding retirement and pensions. Over 1,800 helpful people completed our online survey to tell us their plans, hopes and dreams for life after work. Here's what they revealed:Your current lifestyleWe grouped our audience into five categories, based on their current income, as seen below:Current lifestyleAnnual income (£)Champagne and caviar74,500Wine and pâté44,900Cider and cheese32,500Beer and mash28,700Homebrew and chips22,700Our big question is: what are people doing now to preserve or improve their lifestyle when they finish work? For some gritty people, it's a life of...Bread today, jam tomorrowBuilding on the results of our survey, we estimate that around three million Brits -- around a tenth of the workforce -- are living modest lifestyles today in order to enjoy a more rewarding retirement. However, while almost half of us expect to maintain our current lifestyle when we retire, one in six people are living for today rather than planning ahead for tomorrow.Our survey found that half of us would prefer to retire to a relaxing life of 'wine and pâté' -- a lifestyle which we calculate would require a pension pot of £750,000, as per the table belowLifestyleSize of retirementpot (£000s)Champagne and caviar1,243Wine and pâté750Cider and cheese542Beer and mash479Homebrew and chips380According to our research, an upscale retirement would require a pension pot of almost one-and-a-quarter million pounds, while even living on the modest 'beer and mash' scale would require a nest egg of close to half a million pounds.Nevertheless, a few determined Brits -- almost one in eighty adults -- are making significant sacrifices now in order to enjoy a ritzy 'Champagne and caviar' retirement. A further one in sixteen people is prepared to tighten belts now, living on 'beer and mash' today so as to enjoy 'wine and pâté' in retirement. What's more, a small proportion (just one in sixty of us) is prepared to live on 'homebrew and chips' at present in order to switch to wine and pâté when we hang up our boots.Getting out earlyOur research found that a typical Fool reader aims to stop work by the time s/he hits 59:Expectedretirement age% of readers61-704051-605341-50630 to 401Below 30Below 1As you can see, most of us want to call time on our careers early, with three in five people (60%) aiming to abandon the rat race by the age of sixty. However, retiring before the normal State retirement age (currently sixty for women and sixty-five for men) requires a bigger pension pot, which leads us on to:Start early, save hard!When it comes to saving for retirement, the earlier you start, the better off you'll be. To build a pension pot of roughly £650,000 by age 59, you'd need to save the following amounts:Age whensaving beginsMonthlyamount (£)2020030470401,200504,000(Approximate monthly investment required to achieve a retirement pot of around £650,000 at age 59, assuming real growth of 8% a year.)As you can see, delaying your pension planning for ten years by starting to save at age thirty instead of twenty means handing over more than twice as much: £470 a month instead of £200. Put it off for a further decade until age forty and the monthly saving jumps sixfold to £1,200 a month. This is a daunting task, though not impossible if you cut back by downshifting to a 'beer and mash' existence for a few years.Finally, I'll leave you with a quote from my chum David Kuo, Head of Personal Finance at Fool.co.uk:"...retirement is not just about the age when you take the longest coffee break imaginable - it is also about the type of coffee you can afford to drink. Consequently, it pays to consider how you will pay for your cuppa."So, start pumping up your pension today!More:The Four-Step Guide To A Comfortable Retirement | Are You Banking On An Inheritance