Retirement

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When I left my job of 23 years my employer brought in a financial advisor to talk to us about pensions. He couldn't stress enough that it makes more sense to take your pension early at 55 if it's allowed by the scheme.

The rather morbid reason given is that you'll take a 24% hit on the monthly return but life expectancy is only about 75. Take it at 55 and you have 76% for 20 years as opposed to 100% for 10 (less if you're a bloke and can only retire at 68.) Do the maths; you earn more by taking it early.

I’d query the life expectancy mind mate. Unless you are employed within a dangerous profession/heavy labour, or the Scheme has done a post code analysis of mortality rates and a lot of people live in a deprived area, 75 is at the low end of life expectancy.

Most of the Schemes I now see have expectancy around 87/88 for men and 90/91 for women.
I think it's more than likely that taking it early would be available for your wife if it's a civil service pension. The amount quoted on your pension statement is worked out on how much the pot would be worth now, not at 65; they can't predict what the pot will be worth in the future so they have to use current figures. Also, any figures her pension provider gives is purely based on their scheme. You can earn a hell of a lot more by transferring the pot into a different scheme like a guaranteed annuity.

Have a look at Pension Wise | 50 or over? | Get to know your options They have lots of very useful advice on there.

If you take your CS pension at age 55, and without redundancy, you get hammered with an early reduction factor approaching 50%. As the Scheme is also unfunded, you can’t transfer out to a DC arrangement.
Not sure if that’s an option for my wife. I guess it would be but going off the annual statement those figures apply at 65. It seems a decent enough pension scheme.

With savings and provisions for the kids, and taking into account property, we should be able to make it through a comfortable retirement.

There’s also the chance that I might work again, I’m only 39. If I do, everything will be about savings. Not necessarily a pension scheme but then again, who knows.

If your wife takes her pension voluntarily at 55, she will be hit with a large reduction. If, however, she is made redundant at 55, the reduction is waived.
 
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Basic state pension is £129.20pw so £6718.40 per year. And that's if you've paid NI contributions for 30 years. If you haven't then you have to make voluntary contributions to bring it up to that amount. :(

Sorry @niceonemarra but I hope you like the taste of cat food.
The new State Pension paid in full is £168.60 per week or £8,767 p.a. Your life expectancy statistics were wrong as well.
 
I’m still grafting here at 65 (if you can laughably call what I get away with as grafting).
Planning to knock it on the head early next year when I qualify for state pension. It’s a difficult call to decide when to make the jump and commit to living on a smaller income. Still got one of the kids living at home but he’s working now anyway. Mortgage paid off. Looking forward to spending more time on the bike or in the hills.
 
plan to work a bit less in my 40s to spend more time with the kids, maybe 3 days a week or something. then do something different (not sure what yet). it's all very clearly planned out...

one final salary and one DC scheme with decent contributions in.

two mortgages hopefully both paid off by 45. bring it on. would love to spend time coaching at junior sports clubs. also do more ultra distance running and exploring.
 
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I was 51 on Wednesday and don't have a mortgage to pay and very little debt. I do have 2 young kids still so still have to bring some money in for a while yet, but thought about working for 6 months a year.
 
I have no plans to ever retire and I don't have a pension I opted out from day 1 and have continued to do so.

What are your retirement plans?
Keep fit as possible ,keep enjoying myself which includes Safc matches which dosnt actually make sense if I'm trying to enjoy myself!, ,Northumberland coffee shops,look after the family ( the most important bit).and a bit of volountary work keeps me busy...
 
Posted this on the other thread but probably better placed here.

Me and the missus are both 39, no mortgage however I have no pension, she has a small civil service pension that under current forecast will throw up a lumper of 40k and an annual £15k ish at 65.

We’ve a rental property thats owned outright in a good location and its a lovely house. The rent from that can cover most of our monthly living costs. We’ll sit on that until we’re mid to late 40s and sell it to bring in a lump sum. Once that’s depleted, mid 50s we’ll look to sell our family home and downsize, replenish the pot again.

All of the above god willing. Life changes. Realise we’re in a fortunate position but we worked damn hard for it.
I was at a mid-career financial planning talk last week. Most of it was fairly expected, note your incomings against your outgoings and do something useful with the rest. The advice was with interest rates low there was not a huge advantage between paying off your mortgage early and investing (clearly does not apply to you).

Mortgage free, the advice was that £20k per person per year was a pretty nice figure to lead a comfortable life and have cash for a few holidays. With £15k and a current £9k state pension each, you are only £7k short. But, it will be 67 before you can draw on all that and who knows what state it will be in by then. They did say that things like rental properties are a good investment and can be seen as another form of pension.

I did find the monitor your outgoings bit a bit useless. “How much do you spend per month on clothes?”. I don’t have a set amount. If I need new clothes then I buy them but avoid clothes shopping otherwise.
 
Two years ago at the age of 55 I decided to semi retire. I resigned over in the Middle East, moved back to the UK, had a few months off then took a 37 hr job in the Port at Blyth. I don't mind staying like this for a few more years yet. No stress and make enough to not dip in to savings. A few weeks ago I got a bit bored at work so studied the periodic table to keep my brain active. I can now name all 118 elements in the correct order and will be moving on to learning Spanish 37 hours a week.
 
Logon to your own Personal Tax Account on gov.uk. You will need a passport, driving licence or payslip to register. It gives you your state pension to date and forecasted state pension at retirement age..........whatever that maybe.
 
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Two years ago at the age of 55 I decided to semi retire. I resigned over in the Middle East, moved back to the UK, had a few months off then took a 37 hr job in the Port at Blyth. I don't mind staying like this for a few more years yet. No stress and make enough to not dip in to savings. A few weeks ago I got a bit bored at work so studied the periodic table to keep my brain active. I can now name all 118 elements in the correct order and will be moving on to learning Spanish 37 hours a week.
Mondly is a decent app to start off with for languages.
 
When I left my job of 23 years my employer brought in a financial advisor to talk to us about pensions. He couldn't stress enough that it makes more sense to take your pension early at 55 if it's allowed by the scheme.

The rather morbid reason given is that you'll take a 24% hit on the monthly return but life expectancy is only about 75. Take it at 55 and you have 76% for 20 years as opposed to 100% for 10 (less if you're a bloke and can only retire at 68.) Do the maths; you earn more by taking it early.
Clever. Never heard that before . Well worth knowing . Too late for me like .
 
18 years time when I’m 60, youngest will be 22 then, if she doesn’t go to uni I’ll retire at 56...I’ll have 36 or 40/60ths of a final salary pension to play with and still own a rental property which isn’t paying itself off at the moment due to negative equity and trapped into a shite mortgage, which I hope to work out a plan to pay itself off by retirement age to either sell or as a source of a small income.

Will be looking for property abroad and downsizing current property and spending time between the two.

Will have got the clubs back out by then and be playing golf to occupy the time but I’ll be mostly sitting on my arse with a drink in my hand for my remaining days.

Don’t understand those that go back to work as they’re bored???

I wouldn't be going back to work but I'd want to do something other than sitting on my arse drinking.


It sounds tempting when you can't but it would soon become deadly dull.
 
I wouldn't be going back to work but I'd want to do something other than sitting on my arse drinking.


It sounds tempting when you can't but it would soon become deadly dull.
It wasn’t meant to be taking literally! It was more a reference to taking things easy in my later years. It will likely involve some drink, but I hope it’s more like a glass of wine in my Spanish villa or on some worldwide cruise, rather than sitting with the dossers in Wetherspoons daily.
 
I was at a mid-career financial planning talk last week. Most of it was fairly expected, note your incomings against your outgoings and do something useful with the rest. The advice was with interest rates low there was not a huge advantage between paying off your mortgage early and investing (clearly does not apply to you).

Mortgage free, the advice was that £20k per person per year was a pretty nice figure to lead a comfortable life and have cash for a few holidays. With £15k and a current £9k state pension each, you are only £7k short. But, it will be 67 before you can draw on all that and who knows what state it will be in by then. They did say that things like rental properties are a good investment and can be seen as another form of pension.

I did find the monitor your outgoings bit a bit useless. “How much do you spend per month on clothes?”. I don’t have a set amount. If I need new clothes then I buy them but avoid clothes shopping otherwise.

Yeah mate, the general advice now is a household income of c£27k a year is a good platform for retirement. If you want a more of a luxury retirement, £39k a year is the figure to aim for.
 
I’d query the life expectancy mind mate. Unless you are employed within a dangerous profession/heavy labour, or the Scheme has done a post code analysis of mortality rates and a lot of people live in a deprived area, 75 is at the low end of life expectancy.

Most of the Schemes I now see have expectancy around 87/88 for men and 90/91 for women.


If you take your CS pension at age 55, and without redundancy, you get hammered with an early reduction factor approaching 50%. As the Scheme is also unfunded, you can’t transfer out to a DC arrangement.


If your wife takes her pension voluntarily at 55, she will be hit with a large reduction. If, however, she is made redundant at 55, the reduction is waived.
You're correct about the amount of state pension. I was wrong and had looked at the old state pension figure.

The life expectancy is a little out too but not as much as you're saying. Life expectancy for men is now 79 and for women it's 82.


Personally my state pension age is now 67 so the maths is still valid and you can take more money from your pension by taking it early than leaving it and taking it in full at retirement age.
 

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