u/Capital-Transition-5

I (32F) have been awarded tier 1 ill health retirement, which means that I will receive my full pension for the rest of my life. At the moment it stands at £30,000pa and is index linked. I have been given three options:

1. Take the £30,000 in full
2. Take an annual lump sum of £126,000 but reduce the pensionable amount to £19,000pa
3. Take a partial lump sum with a reduced pensionable amount

I have to decide now whether or not to take a lump sum. Initially I assumed that I'd be able to take a lump sum out in the future but that's not possible.

If I did take a lump sum then it'd be for a deposit on an accessible home for life.

I own a three-bedroom flat that has £100,000 mortgage left on it and I rent out my two spare bedrooms, which totals to £1,400pm. Because this flat is now inaccessible to me due to ill health, I cannot live there longterm. I plan to rent out my flat as BTL (totalling my annual income to £44,400, with a rental yield of £520pm after tax), and to buy a second property that is accessible for me.

I'm single and don't have children, so I don't know where my home for life will be. Because of that, I’m worried about taking too large a lump sum unnecessarily and permanently reducing what is otherwise a very secure lifetime pension.

At the moment, I’m leaning towards taking the full pension and saving separately for a deposit instead. I’ll soon receive around £17,800 in backpay and already have ~£38,000 in savings, so I’ll have around £55,000 available, which may already be enough for a deposit on a suitable accessible property.

However, I'm happy to hear any alternative advice, particularly from anyone who’s had to make a similar pension vs lump sum decision, especially in relation to housing security and long-term financial planning.

EDIT: My illness is life limiting rather than life threatening so, fingers crossed, my life expectancy is average

If so, I (32F) would love to connect 🥰

I joined the beer money website Prolific to make some extra money remotely since I can't work. It involves filling out paid surveys. I made £26 in three days from 22 surveys, which i was ecstatic about.

But I did a couple of surveys while fatigued and failed the attention checks, so now my accounts been permanently banned. Support have refused to reverse the decision even though I explained my situation and said I'll manage my fatigue levels better in future. I sought help on r/ProlificAcc but they were all, "two rejections you're cooked haha"

I know it's not a huge deal, but I feel so frustrated and humiliated. This was supposed to be an accessible, flexible way to make money while I'm housebound, and I couldn't even get that right because of this illness. Its another in a long line of disappointments. Joining the website was the only good thing that'd happened to me for ages.

I (32F) have had long Covid for almost four years. Initially very severe, and over the last several months I've become moderate. Since I've been unwell, I've had to move back in with my mum, I've lost my job on the grounds of ill health, I've received my pension, and I've lost most of my friends. I'm largely housebound. The only person I see on a regular basis is my mum. My life is mundane and involves a lot of silence. A couple of years ago, I deleted social media and started to distance myself from certain friends, because I couldn't relate to them and their able-bodied problems were starting to frustrate me, which has made my world very small. I'm part of a local long Covid support group and have made good friends in there, who are now my main social circle. We spend a lot of time talking about our health, our feelings around it, resources for disabled people, and lifting each other up.

I didn't realise how abnormal it all is. When I see that someone from my past has gotten engaged or bought a house or had a baby, I fall apart, because it's a shock that while my life is Groundhog Day, the world has moved on.

Last week, I went on r/AskWomenOver30 to seek advice about my unsupportive friendships (from able-bodied people). I was told to stop expecting so much from friendships and that I sound miserable to be around. I was shocked. I explained my circumstances and that my limited life means that I rely on friendships more than the average person, but I was met with resistance. It started to dawn on me that my reliance on friendships is abnormal for someone my age. I haven't grown up from that life stage. Last year I fell out with a close friend, who said that she felt exhausted by how much I need from her and that I'm always negative now, and I felt shocked that friendship was no longer as important to her and confused about the negativity that she referenced. All I do is talk about my life, which I didn't realise has become so negative.

Today I was scrolling through Reddit and saw someone post in my city's subReddit about a mysterious virus floating around. Everyone casually commented, "I've had that. It's shit. Lasted a couple of weeks. Better now." So casually as though a viral infection is nothing. Then it hit me, that for everyone else, it is nothing. I've had to become hyper vigilant to infection by necessity. They can catch a virus, recover, then carry on with their lives.

And it's dawning on me how much I've changed and how much I don't fit into society. I've missed the milestones of other people my age. I don't get them and they don't get me, because I didn't get the chance to grow up. There's no lightness or fun in my life anymore because I'm in survival mode. I'd love to go out dancing, to hop on a plane to a sunny place, to go for a walk in the sunshine. I'd love to just know why everyone's become obsessed with matcha since 2022. Anything other than staring at these same four walls, mulling over how to conserve my energy.

And honestly, I miss being 'normal', I miss fitting in. I'm going insane from living in this dimension.

I'm in the UK and fill out paid surveys on the website Prolific for a bit of extra money. I mentioned it to my friend in Ghana, who sadly doesn't earn much money through his job, and he's keen to do something similar. It looks like Prolific doesn't work in Ghana. Does anyone know of any similar platforms my friend could use that do work in Ghana?

I (32F) ask because my need for collectivism, social harmony, and my empathy and emotional expression are all strong. I value interpersonal relationships above everything else. I'm an extrovert. I care deeply about social justice. I'm loyal and supportive to a fault.

But I'm terrible at reading the room. I don't have the charisma and social skills of ExFJs. I'm always putting my foot in my mouth. If anything, I end up clashing with a lot of ExSJs because they get annoyed with my social incompetence. I'm always striving to improve my people skills and I care deeply what others think of me. I do have a diagnosis of autism.

But the values I hold are very ENFJ, but I don't know if its possible to be ExFJ while having poor people skills?

I've been typed a lot as ENFP but I definitely have strong extraverted feeling, which isn't a cognitive function for ENFPs.