Retirement

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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.

Life expectancy is really dependent on your social status and job tbh mate. Most pension schemes, DB ones anyway, will look at more detailed analysis when estimating mortality during the valuation process.
 
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.
Life expectancy is higher than that though.
 
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.
It is nice to have a figure to aim for. My rough life plan is to pay off mortgage ASAP (which will take years), invest money that had been used for mortgage payments into something else, retire at 60, use that money plus pension and lump sum, to see me through, then get the boost of the state pension at 67.

If I aim for a £40k income and can work out roughly what pension I will get from work, I can work backwards to see if retiring at 60 is feasible. If not then I can start to adjust now. I may surprise myself and be able to retire earlier. I think you can draw a work pension from 10 years before the state pension, so 57 could be possible. Just under 15 years to go if that is the case.
 
Life expectancy is really dependent on your social status and job tbh mate. Most pension schemes, DB ones anyway, will look at more detailed analysis when estimating mortality during the valuation process.
Yeah but I'm saying that on average it's better to take it early. Hopefully I'll live long enough to be proved wrong and at 85 be sitting on my sun-lounger wishing I'd waited until I was 67 to take 100%. :cool:
 
Worked in the public sector for 37 years. It's then you appreciate pensions.
Yeah, in the last job I had there was a young lad aged 18 who I tried talking to about the importance of starting to think about pensions even at his age. Of course he wasn't going to live past 30 so what was the point of wasting money on something he'd never see, there were much better things he could spend his money on here and now etc.

I wanted to grab him by the lapels and give him a damn good shaking.

If anyone reading this is of the same opinion as him then I can't stress just how bloody important it is to get your pension sorted now or you'll spend the rest of your life kicking yourself for being so short sighted.

I was lucky in that my employer decades ago automatically signed us up for their private pension scheme and you had to actually jump through hoops to get out of it so being a lazy git I just let it ride and forgot all about it. Thank Christ my employer knew better than the young, stupid me!
 
Am now six months into working part time. It was a decision I thought a lot about as it's probably pushed back retirement by a few years. All good so far though.
About to increase from 2.5 days a week to 3 days a week, which is good. So the retirement date edges closer to the present day again. But I'm not doing more than 3 days again if I can possibly avoid it, I'm having too much of a lovely time.
 
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?
I retire in 7 year 363 days.
Yeah but I'm saying that on average it's better to take it early. Hopefully I'll live long enough to be proved wrong and at 85 be sitting on my sun-lounger wishing I'd waited until I was 67 to take 100%. :cool:
It depends what type of pension you have. If you take some final salary pensions 10 years early you can lose 5% per year early that would be actuarily reduced 50% to take it 10 years early. I know people who have done this to pay debts and stayed in work and are paying tax on the income too.

I have two final salary pensions (1 due at 60 one at 65) and a third DC scheme which I'm piling cash into rather than paying the 40#% tax rate. Plus my state pension will be due at 67. Should have a good income and lump sum to work with.
 
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57/58 is still the aim for me , loads to do and will travel a lot also (fair enough not in luxury but want to use the trains to travel all over Europe on 5/6 week breaks ) , lots of hobbies / sports and interests , be wounded if it changes and have to work past 60 for some reason , want to still be physically active when I retire and not have regrets when knackered
 
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.

The ages you quote are for life expectancy at birth. But as you age, your life expectancy increases, because you outlive the folk who die young. The probability of a 55-year-old dying of a rare genetic disorder aged 5 is 0%.

In the 3rd bullet point under "Main Points" of your link illustrates this:
"Life expectancy at age 65 years in the UK did not improve for males and females in 2015 to 2017 and remained at 18.6 years for males and 20.9 years for females"

So a 65 year old male is expected to live to 83.6 and a 65 year old female gets to 85.9.

I don't think the advice you were given is necessarily of general application, even if it was correct in your case.
 
As I retire in March next year I’d like to see an independent advisor, has anyone used one that they can recommend ?
I live in Sunderland.
 
Off to Portugal? They’ll let you take your private pension tax free for 10 year; as a sweetener to attract folk in.

Me and the Mrs have an offset mortgage and are fortunate enough to be earning decent money to be saving quite aggressively.

We could probably make more investing it but the idea of being mortgage free is appealing - we are trying to get mortgage free within 3 years (I’ll be 40).

We’ll then have a decade to maximise our savings - via the savings in outgoings and hopefully continuing to deliver work wise. I’ve always been of the view that the state pension will not exist in its present form and it will end up means tested, by the time we get there - so we need to provide for ourselves.

If we can do that at 50 should be able to either slow down or do less; the kids will have a nice lumper in their ISAs to get them started and we can downsize and either access the capital (fund us to 57 when we can get at our pensions) or split time between the U.K. and somewhere warmer.

Plenty of golf, learn a language, travel. Happy days.

Brexit may scupper some of this and other plans to just bugger off to the European sun like. Or at least make it a sight harder
 
They are raising the state pension age to 68 before I hit that age so I definitely have at least 40 years ahead of me. That thought is absolutely f***ing dire so I'd better start earning a mint so I can retire early off my own bat.
 
I'll see how things are when I'm 60. I'm due a private pension payout at 55 which will give me the choice of reinvesting for a few more years or cutting back my working hours. I really enjoy what I do, though, so it doesn't really feel like working. With the state, employer and private pensions I think I have all bases covered whatever I decide.
 

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