Pensions, annuities & retirement planning

The NUMBER is how much income you need to "live comfortably" So What's your number? Very important for pensions planning, to know what you are aiming for. My Number? (for a couple) I calculated: £22,000 based on Food £5,000 Car/transport £5,000 Bills/Utilities £4,500 Holidays/Leisure £4,500 Clothing/Cash/Xmas/Other £2,000…

anyone registered for this The MoneyHelper Pensions Dashboard can help you see your pensions (including your State Pension) together in one place. https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/pensions-dashboard/research-panel Just registered it found all my pensions apart from one,some of the values were a bit…

This is a bit of a light topic where the idea is to highlight what successes you had with your pension pots. Example - I contributed X and accumulated Y by Z year. Total appreciation was 'x' percent. Just trying to learn the following that could inspire a range of people - those with no pension, those who started late etc.…

Hello to all. As a fairly new forum user I would appreciate someone posting a key to the acronyms and arcane terms used when discussing pension issues. Thank you in advance.

Welcome to the new Pensions, Annuities and Retirement Planning sticky! 👋 📖 Here are some Forum threads you may find useful (if there are any you think have been missed, please do let us know): * Can I cash in my pension? * Early-retirement wannabe * It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts!!!! 📝 And here's some…

Hello I've been looking for a financial adviser but no luck (for various reasons). I get £9447 per annum from my workplace pension. However I have a pension pot with Aegon worth £18000 in total. I want to access this in the most tax efficent/cost effective way. Aegon havent been helpful. Im 61 so 6 years until state…

Due to my work history I have several different pensions via different employers. One of the employers has opted to transfer its pension scheme to a third party, a specialist insurer PIC. According to the documentation I will become a PIC policyholder. It seems odd to me that a company can pass on its pension…

I have been discussing my pension investments with an IFA and they have suggested moving my pension to Prudential and investing my entire pot in a single PruFund which as I understand it is a smoothed fund. I have been told the charges on this is 0.9% which seems expensive and more then I am currently paying. I am not…

Hello, looking for some sage advise from people here. I am 60 and still working part time and I am also a full time carer I will shortly have a significant lump sum to invest, bit of a surprise, and I have no idea really what to do with it. I was thinking of something that gives me an income potentially at age 67 and…

So, Capita have taken over the admin for the CSPS and their new website and members portal went live this week. I have just registered on the new portal and am not in the least bit surprised to find that the information available on the new portal is very scant and incorrect in terms of my length of service. With…

Assuming I retire in London

Hi all, I’ve become a huge convert to the gilt ladder approach over the last couple of years. I currently have a combination of a nominal gilt ladder to bridge the initial years before I can access my pension, followed by an index-linked gilt ladder running from 2033 through to state pension age in 2042. While I was…

I sometimes feel like posting little updates of what I’ve done, what I’ve been thinking about, what I’ve been reading up on - but doesn’t feel like its worth a thread. But maybe it woudl be good to have a general thread for musings and little steps you’ve taken this week (and next week etc)? Just a thought

In May 2022, I began to receive funds from my Defined Benefits (DB) pension. I took a Pension Commencement Lump Sum (PCLS) of £50k together with a regular monthly pension amount. I was entitled to take a PCLS up to £95k, but chose to take a lesser amount, to receive more in my monthly pension payment. The pension…

Planning on taking a PCLS (pension commencement lump sum) from my SIPP. What is not clear to me is if I need to sell some of one or more of my investments first in order to have cash available for the withdrawal. I walked through the process expecting to be asked what should be sold to release the lump sum cash, but I…

i've finally put things together in my mind, and a big factor I hadn't understood, was that of withdrawing money from your pension without paying tax. a lot of the FI community tends towards a preference to put money in ISA/pensions in index tracking funds, in preference to buying a home, and /or paying off a mortgage. It…

A smorgasbord question for those who planned retirement and have retired. How well has your actual expenditure matched your modelling? Did you use your expenditure just prior to retirement to estimate your retirement expenses? I understand most research indicates that people spend a bit less, but similar than…

I'm looking at drawdown options for my wife. She's currently in a legacy CM/SW IPP so I think we will need to move that pot (and a couple of other smaller DC pots) to a new provider who offers "modern" flexible drawdown options. We're looking to intially bridge from next year (age 59) to SP age with drawdown ideally as a…

Morning all Am 51, work in the fruit and veg aisle for Tesco. My back is not taking the strain, and with xmas approaching its only gonna get worse. I am seriously considering my future. I pay 4% in the pension, matched by tesco. Been paying in 18yrs. Prior to that i had a pension with home office - for 10yrs. I am…

I'm getting very confused helping someone with their Self Assessment tax return and the state pension. Firstly, although everything seems to say the pension increased 6.4.26, it actually seems to increase the next full week, not mid week. In other words, if a pension is paid Thursday - Wednesday, the uplift is effective…

I am taking early retirement ( 55) from USS and will have a DB annual pension of £23k and a separate £9k pa widows pension but my dilemma is I will need an additional £17k pa for the next 4 years to cover short term additional expenditure (supporting children through uni, maintain current standard of living) and I need…

Looking for a low risk methodology to fundamentally preserve the wealth of part of my as yet uncrystallized pot in retirement and thus not be at the mercy of any market crash. The monies from this would be used to provide for day to day expenses during retirement. The other part would be invested in equities, and used for…

My wife has approximately £70,000 in a SIPP with Invest Engine, comprising 40% money market funds and 60% global equity index funds. Can she crystallise the £28,000 money market portion, take £7,000 as tax-free cash and move the remaining £21,000 into flexi-access drawdown, leaving the £42,000 global equity holdings…

hello, Have sent email to Aviva workplace asking if this is possible but here goes have 8k per year coming from a DB pension My Aviva pension is DC with estimate 300k so I could have a 75k lump sum, but instead of taking in one hit, I take it in smaller slices, much smaller slices… is there any limits on how many slices…

I know not everyone will use them, but they restrict flexibility so much. My wife has a small pension. about half is people’s pension, half is a vanguard I set up for her and put some of my salary in. was hoping to buy a gilt ladder to lock in the first years of the bridge, and we have about enough now for the first 4…