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Pension vs ISA vs current income
I could do with some help on working out how best to proceed in terms of allocation of saving for pension vs. ISA, and what a realistic retirement could look like. I have played around with Guiide extensively but am still somewhat confused. We were both aiming to retire in 10 years, which would make us both 55. Clearly…
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10 years retired - how come finances are so good?
Ok this isn’t supposed to be any sort of boast but how come stock markets are so positive at the moment. My retirement fund balance is the highest it’s ever been this despite seemingly (to me) plenty of reasons why company earnings might be negatively affected in the next few years (tariff/trade wars; Ukraine war; unrest…
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Is this pension performing poorly or not?
Hi, all I have a pension with Scottish Widows ( shows up in my Halifax app ) which is frustrating me. It's crystalised as I took the 25% tax free withdrawal a couple of years ago. I don't contribute anything to it. For years now it's just seems to hover at the same level (around £110k). It just doesn't grow, but maybe I'm…
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What about inflation?
Hi I do the calculations (with compound interest etc & regular payments) and plan to have £1 million saved by the time I am 55 to retire. But! This is 12 years away, so £1 million will be worth quite a bit less. If I was younger & projecting my future savings plans further into the future, the inflation would be even…
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Any viable options or suggestions please?
Update: Just a “thank you” to everyone who responded, certainly responses and pointing to related threads provided different ( & broader) perspective 🙏 Given the unearthed DB also has an embedded widows benefit I’m coming to conclusion I’ll not get IFA support for moving to a SIPP, therefore receiving SIPP scheme also…
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Deferred pension poor performance
Hi all, I worked for Npower for around 10yrs, in that time I joined their defined benefit pension scheme. It wasn't great as they (Npower), paid 0 in. I left in 2019 & the pension then was £3985 pa lump sum £0 today when I have logged back in there is a retirement illustrator which calculates if I take my pension at 65…
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Drawdown strategy - tax, savings interest and student finance
So I have come up with a plan based on the following constraints: Personal allowance: 12570 - assumed to be fully utilised by state pension post SPA Savings allowance: 1000 and 5000 (reducing 1 for 1 with taxable income over personal allowance) Unearned income max pension contribution: 3600 - reduces income for student…
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Paying into current LGPS AVCs after taking pension from previous LGPS employer - am I recycling?
Hi all, Following an investigation by the Ombudsman, I may be receiving a TFLS of approx £30k along with my regular LGPS pension (backdated to 2021) from a previous job. I didn't think I'd be receiving this and I've been paying into my current employer's LGPS scheme since 2022. At the beginning of this year, I began paying…
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Government Bonds V Annuity
Hi, I have been looking at Annuities a little more as I get closer to pulling the pin and retiring. Probably as I am relatively young (will be 58 by the time I retire) the annuity quotes I have been getting are ok but not great. So I thought I would look at an alternative angle. The Coupon on the longer term government…
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Looking for an online-only pension
I'm really tired of dealing with my pension company over the phone, as it costs a bomb, takes for ever, has no paper trail and is horribly inefficient (the last thing I did with them took 3 months to sort out, for example). Does anyone know of any online-only providers I can move to? In the genre of Starling/Monzo banks,…
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Small pots to maximise use of 0% tax band
Hi I've been pretty successful in getting most of my redundancy (taxable bit) into my pension via salary sacrifice whilst meeting NLW requirements. As a result I have only earned £9,760 taxable this year and my employer has contributed £45,623 to my pension. Since I have the time to do the admin I think I can contribute to…
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Reaching Tax Free Lump Sum Limit in SIPP - Worth taking this part now?
So I'm wonder what's the best thing to do (mostly tax wise) if someone was fortunate to have a SIPP where the tax free element had reached the c. £268,000 lump sum allowance limit. Would it be better to keep it in the pension - where any growth linked to this amount that was subsequently withdrawn would be subject to…
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Civil Service Pension - Retirement Modeller Download
Anyone know who to download the results of the modeller? I've tried to "print as pdf" but it just prints a blankish piece of paper with all details set at zero - I presume the modeller is dynamic so doesn't store the data. I could do a screenshot - but it's for a mortgage application so not ideal. Anyone had similar?
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Teaching assistant pension
I worked as a TA for local authority from 2000 to 2012. Should I have been offered a work based pension?
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HMRC National Insurance Record - Year not Full
I've been looking after my wife's Self Assessment since she became self employed. I've always done them as soon as they arrive and paid them pretty promptly, I've never waited until end of January. Looking at her NI record, 2022-2023 says Year is not full We are checking this year to see if it counts towards your pension.…
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Offer from Morrisons Pension
My son works at Morrisons (Supermarket). He has received letter to take a 'One-Time Winding -Up Sum Offer to Take your RSP (Retirement saver Plan) Section benefits as an Immediate One-Off cash Sum'. (Italics bit inserted by me). He doesn't understand the letter. Neither do I. My main question is: Will he still be in any…
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Civil Service ABS 2024-25 issued
Just to flag for information that I got an email today to say that my 2024-25 Annual Benefit Statement is available on the Pensions Portal. I'm an active member. There are two versions - one standard (with the McCloud period included in previous scheme i.e. Classic for me); and one alternative (i.e. McCloud period included…
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My retirement numbers; any advice?
So, here's me, 59, going to be 60 in a few months, hoping to retire somewhere between 61 and 62.I want about 30k in retirement, and this what I currently have:* DC pensions worth approximately 500K (430k in works pension, 70k in SIPP) * 100k in cash (about half and half NSI/ISAs) Between employer and salary sacrifice,…
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Keep AVC or take the money and run?
I have a smallish Teacher AVC of a predicted £16500 ( which I am very grateful for), It is due to mature( not sure if this is the correct word) in 6 months. I'm thinking of taking all the money but have noticed its predicted value seems to have gone up a lot in the last year, a fair bit more than if I put it in a savings…
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Leave in drawdown or move (slowly) to ISA
Question for hive mind. Sometime next year 2026/27 will fully retire (especially if redundancy package offered) and will take what I can get tax free (put £20K into ISA if still exists) and move chunk of AVC to drawdown. Question - in following years would it be better to leave the crystallised cash in drawdown to…
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Most recent: Confused about buying Pre 2016 and Post 2016 years by DRS1
9 May at 7:41PM
