Pensions, annuities & retirement planning

I retired 5 and a half years ago at 60. Since then I've been drawing on a private pension for income. Looking at purely numerical values my pension and savings have increased by a little over 31% in that period. I decided to see what impact inflation has had and…wow. Using CPI I'm worse off, using CPIH I'm treading water.…

My wife and I are planning on retirement in the next couple of years. I am quite financially literate and set up a Sipp for my wife after she wound up her own business and also transferred one of her old workplace DC pensions into it and I have managed it for the last ten years. I have already taken some DB pensions at age…

I got a quote through HL. I'm not sure whether to go the annuity route or not, I'm just looking into it. It would use the money in the HL sipp. The highest single life, no increases, no guarantee figures are Just. £9374 L and G £8654 Scottish Widows £7581 Aviva £7105 So, there's quite a variation. I'm not sure why anyone…

Hi all, I’m new to this forum but would like to ask if anyone has any experience with GAR pension policies. I have a relatively small but > £30k pension policy with a GAR, which I would like to transfer to a drawdown arrangement. I am in the fortunate position that I will not be reliant on this money to live on as I have…

I am interested to hear if anyone is thinking about de-risking their current pension portfolio in light of current speculation around a potential pending market crash? I am obviously aware of the dangers of doing this, not timing the market and also leaving investments as a long term project, however, i doubt people will…

been playing with bridges. I do plan to have this money mostly in fixed income. slowly moving into IGL5 with the view of maybe some CSH2 before retirement to fund the bridge each year as needed with low volatility funds or a bond ladder to lock in yields. However, the question then is ‘when’. playing with ChatGPT and…

Thanks to encouragement and sound advice from the lovely people over on the how much to live on thread, I have decided to retire sometime between now and April 2027 next year aged 61. I already have a DB pension in payment, I pay tax on this via a BR tax code. I work part-time, earning £15Kpa and will take my small LGPS…

Hi everyone, I’m sure this would have been asked a thousand times before so I apologise. I’ve recently started a new job that has a workplace nest pension. I have 2 older workplace pensions that are both with different providers. There isn’t a great amount in them but the amount is large to me, question is what to do with…

Hi All, I am trying to transfer an old pension of mine from Aegon to my ii SIPP. ii have requested that I fill in a Financial Advice declaration form because the transfer is over £30k. The pension has section 32 buyout protection, which grants me more that 25% tax free cash. As I am NOT going to take any tax free cash and…

hi all can anyone help im 57 and have a db pension with avc's i signed all the paper work off end of jan to start claiming my private pension for start of the new tax year i dont have a passport so i had to send a copy of my driving licence and 2 bill inc bank statement the id is now still the hold up ive been on the phone…

So, I'm 60 with a DB pension (circa £34k PA) plus DC & SIPP pensions (variable drawdown). With fiscal drag of the 40% tax threshold and inflation of pensions, there's a good chance that my DB + state pension will reach the 40% tax threshold (age 67). So last tax year I decided to drawdown and transfer my SIPP to ISA's…

I've got something in my head and am convinced that i'm going to diddle myself out of money. I've tried googling and AI-ing it but can't locate a sufficiently clear answer. I wonder if someone can help? When the assessment for premium scheme entitlement is undertaken it assesses your final pensionable earnings as part of…

Hi i had my pension quote from royal mail im in section C - my understanding is that theses are the figures if i decide to take my pension at 55 My RMPP pension shows the following Option 1 regular income £1503 pa tax free cash none tax free cash from cash balance none leftover benefits from cash balance none Option 1A…

I just saw that Vanguard has launched an ETF FTSE Global All-cap tracker at charges of 0.07% This could shake things up a bit as the charges massively undercuts their own FTSE Global All-Cap fund, so if the portfolio is the same or similar it could be worth switching in to this if you have significant holdings in the fund…

I’m a little confused by carry forward. Not looked at it before but there is potential it may be an option in the next 12 months so just looking at what it entails. currently I salary sacrifice heavily - down to 50270. This is only recent but I have ramped up over the last two years. So looking back to 23/24 and a chunk of…

With regard to simply getting the best annuity quote (not interested in other forms of pension management)… is there anything like an 'online marketplace' where a friend can put up details of his current pension and receive 'offers'? Or something close to that?

Hi Hive Mind I am an ex civil servant who plans to retire in May 2026 aged 60. I am a deferred member of the pension scheme. From the MYCSP pension portal calculator I have a fairly good idea of my expected pension, however I have requested what my widower pension refund contributions will be (to no avail at present) I…

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/articles/latest-thoughts/investing-success/three-new-global-equity-etfs one FTSE global all world with a 0.07% fee; one global small cap; one all world ex-US assume they may only be available at Vanguard immediately until other platforms bring them online. Personally I’d be curious how…

I turned 40 this year and reasoned that another 25 years at the coal face in my industry is not as attractive as it was when I was 20, so I'm looking for a way out that doesn't leave me potless in retirement. I am fortunate enough to have been very lucky with some investments in the Stock Market a few years ago so I have a…

So the default for the CS pension is that the named dependent (eg spouse) will get a pension of 37.5% of the members pension if the member dies first. I want my spouse to get more than this, there is a process called Allocation whereby the member accepts a lower pension and the survivor pension is increased, the exact…