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USS - Effect of Becoming a Deferred Member for a Month
I am currently a member of USS and will be 60 on January 30, 2025 when I hope to retire. My employer is offering a voluntary severance scheme whose final date of employment would be December 31, 2024. According to the benefits calculator on the USS website, if I remain in the scheme and take my benefits at age 60, the…
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Annuity rate. Is this reasonable?
Hi. I plan to combine my personal pension pots and probably take an annuity for my retirement at age 65 soon. I've had one of several offers and I want to know if forum members, more knowledgeable than me, think it's ok. It will give me a return of 5.3% of the pot in the first year, then increase every year by the RPI…
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50 and no pension - where do I start?!
Hi All, As the subject, I'm 50 and I have no pension (well, I do have a very small one from my early 20's with about 4.5k in it IIRC). I want/need to start saving for my old age. I'll be looking at putting about £800 a month away for this. I'm a contractor with my own Ltd company, so I'm on minimum wage and take most of my…
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Civil Service Alpha additional contributions timing
My OH has worked for CS since 2020 and is currently aged 62.5. He's planning on stopping work at 65 but not drawing on his CS pension at that time. He is a 40% taxpayer. He is considering making additional contributions to his CS pension, but has missed the cutoff date to put a lump sum into this current tax year. He could…
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Cannot get pension pot without IFA, cannot pay IFA without pension pot…help please?
Slightly stuck as almost penniless. I have about 40K in an uncomplicated Pru pension pot and need to take it all. Pru won’t release it until I have the form signed by an IFA and sent to them as it is over 30K. I don’t have any funds to pay for an IFA so am in a tough Catch 22 situation here. I am not resident in UK and…
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Teachers pension - early retirement v phased retirement v part time
I am looking at options from September 2026 when I will be 57. I have three options as stated in the title 1. Early retirement 2. Phased retirement 3. Working part time ( reducing my hours) I am a Headteacher in a primary school. Ideally I would retire on 31 08 26 but that would result in a significant reduction in my…
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Pension Performance with a default Aviva fund
First off, this is not a criticism of Aviva, I have found them great in every way. This is more regarding the default fund with Aviva that my company subscribes its employees into - via SalSac in my case. I do not think my fund - risk rating 4/7 - is performing well enough. It's a rebadged Black Rock mix of global equities…
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Maximising my salary sacrifice pension pot and higher rate tax
My situation is my wife will retire about about three years before I do and get a considerable tax free lump sum as part of her pension payout. I am a higher rate player and can sacrifice £40,000 per year at 40% tax +2% national insurance savings. If I sacrifice £40k, I am still (just) a 40% tax payer. So my workings means…
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Pension Discussion
I am just wondering what other people's takes are on university pensions? I worked in a university from 2018-2023 an paid in to their pension scheme for 4 years of this. I contributed 6.5% and my employer contributed 16.9% approx (great!... or so I thought!). After doing some lengthy research, I think I may have finally…
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Carry forward pension allowances.
Hi All A couple of queries with regards the carry forward pension allowances, if anyone can help it would be appreciated. I was working overseas for many years and came back to the UK in late 2020 due to redundancy during the COVID pandemic. I was out of work from my return in 2020 until April 2022. I used all the…
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What to do?
My partner will be retiring this Autumn. He has a 'Nest' pension pot of around £14,000 and we aren't sure what to do with it? Should he take it all out (minus tax) and put into his savings? We really don't understand much about annuities other than it's a lifelong payment (possibly?) and wonder if this smaller amount would…
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EVR local government, what option to take and what to do with it?
Hi all, There is going to be EVR at my work (local government) and I'm thinking of leaving. I am 58 and have been in the pension for 30 years. I know i do not get any penalties, if i take EVR, and I'm contemplating (if i get to go) what's best to do with what is on offer, as i still have a mortgage to finish. For example…
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Can I defer my private pension for another 5 years
I have a small private pension that is due to be paid to me this year. Can I defer my private pension for another 5 years when I become 65? Would it be beneficial? I am planning to take the lump sum now as much needed house repairs have to be done and wonder if I defer my private pension for another 5 years with the same…
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Help needed - max amount I can put into pension
I will very shortly be receiving an inheritance (house + funds), and I would like to put as much of this as I can into my company pension. I could really do with some help in terms of calculating how much I can put in in this tax year (Apr 24 - Apr 25). I am 56 years old, working full time for a company (higher income tax…
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Taking deferred DB pension early
I have been advised that if I took my DB pension on 6 April 2025 (I’d be 60 years and 3 months) it be £7,832.28 a year. NRA is 65 years. However they can’t tell me what my pension would be at 65 - is this normal? I have another DB pension and they’ve told me what it would at NRA and if I took it early. They provided the…
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Suitable SIPP for Short Drawdown
My OH has her work DC pension with TPT, expect it to be around 26 to 28k when she retires this year (date still in debate). They do not do drawdown so she needs to transfer it. Plan is to take 25% TFLS, and drawdown the rest over 26/27 and 27/28 at £11310 a year (while giving me the other £1260 allowance). This allows her…
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Change in Tax Code
Hi. I'm not sure I've posred this in the right place but none of the optiond seemed appropriate. Hoping someone can advise me as HMRC are impossible to get hold of. I received an email today advising that my tax code is changing so they can claw back around £1k. I don't have huge savings so not interest related. Nothing…
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Paying voluntary NI contributions for a period of living abroad
Hi, I recently applied to pay voluntary class 3 NI contributions for
a period of 13 Years living abroad. It was an online form which
simply asked questions that I answered, afterwards I received an
email saying the HMRC had received my application, a reference number
and information about finding out when to expect a…
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Civil Service Pension retirement planning
Hi there, I'm a 60 year old civil servant with 38 years service and I'm trying to understand when/if I should take retirement (either partial or full). My current salary is about £62k but I'm one of the 2% of members who didn't receive an Annual Benefit Statement for last year which makes decision making very…
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Rationalising a portfolio and Capital Gains Tax
Outside of my SIPP and ISA's we have a general investment account that has been added to over the last 20 years or so and now has around 80 holdings. Most of the value is in funds but there are some individual stocks in there and there is a fair degree of overlap. I would love to slim this down to around 10-15 holdings my…
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