Can we retire please? How much money do you really need need?

[The Wino]

It's an Equitable Life, Henry

No it bluddy wasn't. I lost tens of thousands. I have zero trust in the pensions industry or its regulator.

It's one reason most of ours is in property but then they moved the pension goalposts!!! I think like a lot of things the politicians ought to just stop tinkering for a while

 

[The Wino]

Any chance you could share that link?

Ian

Sorry it won't work it's just to access and play with the one he did for us.

 

[Nostrovia]

The 2000 tech-bubble crash was my learning curve. I had about £40K in the markets at the time, as a cost basis, which had taken many years to accrue. A week before the crash I could have cashed out for over £150K and completely cleared my mortgage. A week later I was left with about £20K. Took almost 10 years to recover.

Likewise (to a lesser extent), remember Baltimore Technologies?

One comment on here has already predicted a crash...........guess he/she read this in the financial section of the Sun.

Don't know about the Sun, but that's what Mervyn King said recently, whilst giving a speech to the International Monetary Fund. Maybe that wasn't reported in the Sun?

 

[Tony50]

As my Private Pension Pot was what I paid in, being self employed I put the total amount in a Draw Down pension Scheme that I think relies on the Stock market, it pays about double a fixed private pension pays or did maybe a bit risky but capital has moved down a bit but I have been drawing it at a reasonable rate for 15 years and am quite satisfied

 

[stevewagner]

I am a little bit weary of pensions.

Someone I used to work with lost £400K when his pension company went bust. I can't remember its name now but it was a big company.

Legal and General?

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[Chris]

Legal and General?

No equitable life I think.

 

[mikebeaches]

Legal and General?

Certainly not Legal & General!

One of the biggest and most successful UK firms in the business.

Offer some of the best low-cost tracker funds too.

 

[ABZSteve]

My MIL is 89 and changed her car a couple of years ago. She drove recently from Leicester to visit a friend in Easington just north of Whitby and has a very active social life. Not so sure about the spending up by 80!!!!

Yip, work it out until 100 and you will have plenty.

 

[The Wino]

Yip, work it out until 100 and you will have plenty.

Or more likely someone else will when we're gone

 

[autoswan]

Interesting thread quite informative, thanks.

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[Deneb]

Likewise (to a lesser extent), remember Baltimore Technologies?

Yes, but never held it. Henderson Global Technology in particular, but also Torotrak, Cable & Wireless, BTG were all big fails on my part when the bubble burst as I recall.

 

[Baggydave]

Looking at all the planning that some folk do is amazing.
i can honestly say I didn’t plan a thing my whole life & still don’t. it just kind of happens??

I make/made a little money go a long way & have modest needs.
Even our trips are mostly unplanned, except the van maintenance & insurance of course.
We just have a general direction mostly & sometimes that even changes. I think I’m just lazy planning wise.

works for Us, mostly!

 

[Nanniemate]

Looking at all the planning that some folk do is amazing.
i can honestly say I didn’t plan a thing my whole life & still don’t. it just kind of happens??

I make/made a little money go a long way & have modest needs.
Even our trips are mostly unplanned, except the van maintenance & insurance of course.
We just have a general direction mostly & sometimes that even changes. I think I’m just lazy planning wise.

works for Us, mostly!

I'm with you on that one

 

[Adrian1]

When we left work at 54 and 55 (how did we find time to work) I used a free web site called retireeasy to plan it did help but when I also worked it out with pen and paper .Now nearly 4 years in planning trips nearly 2 years away if you have your health and can do it DO IT your a long time dead.
Good Luck

 

[63720]

When I retired I approached my financial advisor. He asked for my pension figures and after a few weeks gave me an option for a monthly Income drawdown asking if I could live off that. I could so I did. He also said other people approach him and he asks if they have any money, sometimes they say no, to which he replies well I'm sorry you can't retire till you get to pension age. I was so pleased with the arrangements that if he lived closer I would wash his car every week and for his advice I pay £46 commission pa.

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[Rocking Rivet]

We approached this from the other end working out how much cash we would have then comparing it with what we spent each year less the costs of going to work.
Th first thing to do is set aside an amount equal to the state pension each year until you reach state pension age . Then work out any other income from investments/savings and I set it up on a spreadsheet with an allowance for inflation.
Our finances were a bit complicated so in the end we visited a financial advisor who we had used before he used a computer program that did the spreadsheet thing a lot better. You input all your assets and incomes (pension etc). At the top is a timeline with a symbol of an umbrella on a beach that you can drag to your retirement age and a skull and crossbones that you set to the expected date you might pyc. The program then calculates given the level of cash you expect to draw how your savings reduce over the years. You can choose things like inflation, interest rates of assets like shares/ISAs/property etc and see how your assets are likely to last or not. You can then alter the drawings to see what the effect is of taking more or less cash.....its huge especially if you take more out in the early years. It was very useful for us as we have some rental from property and the program is smart enough to assume you sell when you have no savings left then have an increase in cash but less income.
We were lucky we had visited him before and he neither charged us or tried to sell us anything just said he was happy to say it looked like the sums added up and made sense so just do what you think best. Of course there will still be things you can't predict (Labour were proposing to heavily affect our rental income with tax and increased regulation) . He suggested a plan to the age of 100 I hope he's right!!!!!
It's a big decision and we aim to re-do the financial calculation every 3 to 5 years.
So it's sharpen your pencil and fire up the PC but remember two facts. You can have more money when you retire and less years or more years and less money but not both. And there are no pockets in shrouds.

 

[Otter Spotter]

Looking at all the planning that some folk do is amazing.
i can honestly say I didn’t plan a thing my whole life & still don’t. it just kind of happens??

I make/made a little money go a long way & have modest needs.
Even our trips are mostly unplanned, except the van maintenance & insurance of course.
We just have a general direction mostly & sometimes that even changes. I think I’m just lazy planning wise.

works for Us, mostly!

I hate to throw cold water on you but if you need to go into a care or nursing home later then you will not have any choices unless you have something saved or worth selling to pay the weekly costs of care minimum £500 per week after they have taken your state pension into account. big Issue coming up is if the Government do not sort the problem of social care soon many care and nursing homes will go under.

 

[andyman]

I hate to throw cold water on you but if you need to go into a care or nursing home later then you will not have any choices unless you have something saved or worth selling to pay the weekly costs of care minimum £500 per week after they have taken your state pension into account. big Issue coming up is if the Government do not sort the problem of social care soon many care and nursing homes will go under.

My mum spent almost a year in a home, her savings helped pay the bill. Others I the home with no savings had all the costs met.

 

[robnchris]

I retired early age 60 in May 2017, I took the largest lump sum and smallest pension and bought a 2nd hand van with some of it.
I don't get the state pension until May 2023. My wife now gets hers and we live mortgage free on less than £20k. You can live well very cheap if you like without having to scrimp.
Last year we managed 62 nights away in Europe & UK. This year we have only managed 57.
After working in a job I no longer liked where I was working away from home a lot,
I have no regrets on early retirement.
The only downside that we had not considered was having to mind the Granddaughter to enable her Mum to work. But that is for another discussion.
My advice is to go for it, if you are short you could do some casual work in between holidays.
Ed

I retired 20yrs ago this year, unlike Ed 57 I took the smallest lump sum which put me on the larger pension thus any increases were on the bigger amount so built the pension nicely.
I worked out the figures and it panned out that if I lived longer than 7yrs -3mths then I was in pocket, ok I'm one of the lucky ones on a final salary pension which now floats just outside of the 40% bracket, unfortunately the state pension tips me over so I lose half of that to tax.

Chris is still working but has 12wks holidays a year so we have plenty of time to get away, the plan is she will retire in the next 2yrs and we will spend more time travelling.
As for how much do you need well we are all different so if your figures work for you then happy days.

As said there is a big world out there and there aren't any pockets in a shroud.

 

[Deneb]

My mum spent almost a year in a home, her savings helped pay the bill. Others I the home with no savings had all the costs met.

Which may be fine if they were fortunate enough to be placed in a good care home. But without self funding the chances are that they could be far more likely to find themselves in some form of living hell. How lucky do you feel?

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[Ivory55]

Which may be fine if they were fortunate enough to be placed in a good care home. But without self funding the chances are that they could be far more likely to find themselves in some form of living hell. How lucky do you feel?

That’s what they play on the fear of ending up in a bad home, when they more then likely will be in the same home.

 

[andyman]

Which may be fine if they were fortunate enough to be placed in a good care home. But without self funding the chances are that they could be far more likely to find themselves in some form of living hell. How lucky do you feel?

I genuinely think it’s time for a two tier health service. At the moment those who pay in the least get the same as those who pay the most.
I’ve got my tin hat on, as no doubt at lot won’t agree with me.
But that’s how I see it. I have private health care which I am taxed on. I theory I should be less of a burden on the NHS, but I am charged for the privilege.

 

[SpeedyDux]

Which may be fine if they were fortunate enough to be placed in a good care home. But without self funding the chances are that they could be far more likely to find themselves in some form of living hell. How lucky do you feel?

That makes the alternative of a trip to Dignitas all the more appealing than a hellhole care home. Added bonus - certainty.

Mind you, those who survived a horrible boarding school might cope inside a quite bad care home.

 

[Ivory55]

I genuinely think it’s time for a two tier health service. At the moment those who pay in the least get the same as those who pay the most.
I’ve got my tin hat on, as no doubt at lot won’t agree with me.
But that’s how I see it. I have private health care which I am taxed on. I theory I should be less of a burden on the NHS, but I am charged for the privilege.

What about people in lower paid jobs

 

[Deneb]

That’s what they play on the fear of ending up in a bad home, when they more then likely will be in the same home.

Not round here they won't, but I suppose it might depend on where you live. MIL was placed in a local authority home a few years ago following discharge from hospital until we could arrange funding and find a suitable home. Some of the other residents had mental health issues and were screaming constantly day and night. It was more than I could stand for a few minutes at a time, let alone being resident. There were issues of personal property being "lost" on a daily basis, and clothing sent to the laundry was redistributed on what appeared to be a random basis despite being marked with the resident's name, so various residents were wearing other residents clothes. I suppose that is one reason why various residents were constantly wandering in and out of other residents rooms and searching through their drawers and cupboards. Trying to find their own knickers and helping themselves to anything else that took their fancy at the same time.

Even a tour of several private homes as prospective customers revealed some real issues in some of them.

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[Langtoftlad]

I'm one of the lucky ones on a final salary pension which now floats just outside of the 40% bracket, unfortunately the state pension tips me over so I lose half of that to tax.

Which is why the perceived wisdom is to take the largest possible tax free lump sum to avoid exactly that scenario...

 

[Euphony]

I’ve carried out some in-depth research into this and in pure financial terms, according to actuarial tables cross referenced with the IMF, the IFC, Yorkshire Savings Group, the IDA and the World Bank Group, you need £6,843,124 available to you, which equates to you spending:
Pretty well as much as you like, as often as you like.

 

[Deneb]

I'm one of the lucky ones on a final salary pension which now floats just outside of the 40% bracket, unfortunately the state pension tips me over so I lose half of that to tax.

Do you continue to contribute £3,600 to a pension each year to mitigate some of that?

 

[Otter Spotter]

I retired 20yrs ago this year, unlike Ed 57 I took the smallest lump sum which put me on the larger pension thus any increases were on the bigger amount so built the pension nicely.
I worked out the figures and it panned out that if I lived longer than 7yrs -3mths then I was in pocket, ok I'm one of the lucky ones on a final salary pension which now floats just outside of the 40% bracket, unfortunately the state pension tips me over so I lose half of that to tax.

Chris is still working but has 12wks holidays a year so we have plenty of time to get away, the plan is she will retire in the next 2yrs and we will spend more time travelling.
As for how much do you need well we are all different so if your figures work for you then happy days.

As said there is a big world out there and there aren't any pockets in a shroud.

why Not consider paying into a persona/ drawdown pension plan up to the £3600 gross limit each per year to reduce your tax bill and generate another lump of tax free cash which you could use later?

 

[Otter Spotter]

My mum spent almost a year in a home, her savings helped pay the bill. Others I the home with no savings had all the costs met.

understood but my point is without savings you really have no choice as to the quality of care you will get. Think of the urine smell you get in some homes, and poor quality staff. I used to look after providing advice to 17 care and nursing home residents and families and I know which one I would want to go into if I had too but the national firm that owns it are struggling.

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