Pensions Planning: The NUMBER

OldBeanz

Gin_and_Milk said:

Thanks Albermarle.  I do intend to increase the amount I pay into my AVC at some point.  I know what you mean about how opening a SIPP might not be the best way to plan for my retirement given the AVC, I'm just wary of putting all of my eggs into one basket - despite the VLS fund.
I appreciate your thoughts, especially as I am by no means an expert myself!

The icing on the cake with LGPS AVC is that you can draw the money in your AVC as your Tax Free Lump Sum so pay the money into the pension out of taxable income and draw it tax free.
So given the £10,600 that your projected pension at 60 is then it's valued at 20 times that sum or £212,000. This allows you to withdraw up to £70,666 as cash (you may well have some pre 2008 which is included in this figure).
Any other pension would be taxable at 15% min (20% tax less 25%).

Gatser

VoucherMan:  I would not wish to cause upset by suggesting anyones Number is too high or low... it is a matter of personal choice and level of desire...  Infact, I congratulate you if you have found a lower Number that you will be happy with... what an enviable position,
I also have many activities in retirement that have little or no cost attached.
We love to go walking and cycling.  Is this how you keep your number so low?  Hints and tips always welcome.
This period of lockdown has been an opportunity for us all to reflect on what is truly important in our lives.... Health must always be top priority I suggest.
I wish you good health and fortune as you progress towards a happy and fulfilling retirement.

VoucherMan

Gatser said:

We love to go walking and cycling.  Is this how you keep your number so low?  Hints and tips always welcome.
This period of lockdown has been an opportunity for us all to reflect on what is truly important in our lives.... Health must always be top priority I suggest.

Cycling is a big part of it, and walking hopefully too. I enjoy walking, but usually consider it too time consuming, so stick to the bike. Obviously retirement would give more time to partake.

The cycling has actually gone far better than I'd hoped. In the event of redundancy/retirement, one of my first plans had been to buy a new bike. The logic being that I'm something of a lazy/fair weather cyclist, and if I bought a new one, I'd be out on it a lot more to make sure I got my money's worth. Over the last couple of months I've come to realise that there's nothing wrong with my existing bike, at least not enough to buy another.

I have a short (about 40 minutes) circular route I was using during lockdown for my daily outing, but since restrictions have been eased, I've ventured onto previously unexplored ground. The countryside is lovely, and there's plenty of it to explore without even going that far from home. The hills will take me a bit longer to get used to, but plenty of time for that.

And for a 'you heard it here first' moment, another of my cost saving retirement hopes is to indulge in a little model railway building. Something that always fascinated me, having had one in the attic as a child, I finally got the chance to 'play' with one when my train mad nephew came along. Naturally I fed his enthusiasm, which resulted in increasingly larger sets appearing at my house, but it all came to a halt when he became a teenager and discovered girls. The consequence of this is that I have more than enough equipment to build whatever I can dream up. All I need is the time. I'm aware that it can be an extremely expensive hobby, but as I've already bought most of the stuff I'll need, the ongoing costs will be minimal.

One thing you can be sure of; I'll still be spending far too much time online, so I'll hopefully come back here once I've been retired a few years to update on how it panned out.

bigfer

Keeping your outgoings lower? Try brewing your own beer. If you can boil a kettle, you can brew beer.....which does question the competency of the manufacturers of John Smith Smooth.
Beer kits are far superior to the dodgy rot gut of the 70/80s. Remember, "craft beer" is just a hipster's name for homebrew.

Stubod

bigfer said:

Keeping your outgoings lower? Try brewing your own beer. If you can boil a kettle, you can brew beer.....which does question the competency of the manufacturers of John Smith Smooth.
Beer kits are far superior to the dodgy rot gut of the 70/80s. Remember, "craft beer" is just a hipster's name for homebrew.

Totally agree, been doing it for years and must have saved a fortune. Reasonable kits are around £15 for 40 pints and it takes a total time of about 2.5 hrs to process, (Initial brewing, then bottling, or get a barrel and there is not even any need to bottle it!). I have only found one beer in a pub that tasted better, (can't remember what it was), but for me home brew all the way..

bownyboy

When I first read this thread many years ago we were aiming for £24k for a couple so £600k in investments.

We’re now at £630k and from analysing our spending in Money Dashboard I think £2.5k to £3k per month or £30k to £36k a year is more realistic.

Last few months in lockdown has validated how much we would need for bare bones retirement which is around £1.8k a month.

The one thing I wish money dashboard would do is show your categories of spending over a 12 month period, seems only to do it for current and last month.

crv1963

bownyboy said:

When I first read this thread many years ago we were aiming for £24k for a couple so £600k in investments.

We’re now at £630k and from analysing our spending in Money Dashboard I think £2.5k to £3k per month or £30k to £36k a year is more realistic.

Last few months in lockdown has validated how much we would need for bare bones retirement which is around £1.8k a month.

We revised our sums upwards too, a mix of DB, DC and SP in the plans. We're aiming for a similar amount to you of between 30-36k pa, I think all things being equal we'll pull the plug when we get to 33k pa and have around 2 years income saved in case it all goes pear shaped.

Lockdown or more specifically lack of spending opportunities has illustrated to us we could live a reasonable life on 1800 pm so everything else is clearly none essential spending. Being sent even further from home has increased my fuel costs but I had spare in the budget for that.

Apart from the odd trip to the local pub there isn't a great difference to our social lives! I'm ending each month around 500 to 600 unspent from income (even with helping out furloughed son) and when we clear the mortgage in a couple of weeks that will be 1k to 1.5k pm unspent. I'm going to enjoy a pub lunch, night out to the theatre and a run over the Lakes when this is all over and then have a serious word with myself about continuing to not spend!

tigerspill

bigfer said:

Keeping your outgoings lower? Try brewing your own beer. If you can boil a kettle, you can brew beer.....which does question the competency of the manufacturers of John Smith Smooth.
Beer kits are far superior to the dodgy rot gut of the 70/80s. Remember, "craft beer" is just a hipster's name for homebrew.

Would you be able to give a recommendation for a light/pale ale type kit?  Currently drinking Hop House 13 and like it a lot (I know it is classed as a lager). 

bigfer

tigerspill said:

bigfer said:

Keeping your outgoings lower? Try brewing your own beer. If you can boil a kettle, you can brew beer.....which does question the competency of the manufacturers of John Smith Smooth.
Beer kits are far superior to the dodgy rot gut of the 70/80s. Remember, "craft beer" is just a hipster's name for homebrew.

Would you be able to give a recommendation for a light/pale ale type kit?  Currently drinking Hop House 13 and like it a lot (I know it is classed as a lager). 

I use Ritchie's Simply kits, dirt cheap. They do a pale ale. I've done four of these now and are bomb proof. They make a good base for trying stuff out. I've dry hopped with it and used American West coast yeast and even chucked in a jar of liquid malt extract from Holland & Barrett which gave it more legs. They are a tenner. At the other end of the price scale, I did a Mangrove Jack's Craft Series American Pale Ale, the grapefruit one which is supposed to taste like BrewDog Elvis Juice.... absolute belter.
I have only the basic equipment and reuse 500ml beer bottles. It's great...I haven't been to the pub in weeks....oh hang on......
..

Anonymous101

bigfer said:

tigerspill said:

bigfer said:

Keeping your outgoings lower? Try brewing your own beer. If you can boil a kettle, you can brew beer.....which does question the competency of the manufacturers of John Smith Smooth.
Beer kits are far superior to the dodgy rot gut of the 70/80s. Remember, "craft beer" is just a hipster's name for homebrew.

Would you be able to give a recommendation for a light/pale ale type kit?  Currently drinking Hop House 13 and like it a lot (I know it is classed as a lager). 

I use Ritchie's Simply kits, dirt cheap. They do a pale ale. I've done four of these now and are bomb proof. They make a good base for trying stuff out. I've dry hopped with it and used American West coast yeast and even chucked in a jar of liquid malt extract from Holland & Barrett which gave it more legs. They are a tenner. At the other end of the price scale, I did a Mangrove Jack's Craft Series American Pale Ale, the grapefruit one which is supposed to taste like BrewDog Elvis Juice.... absolute belter.
I have only the basic equipment and reuse 500ml beer bottles. It's great...I haven't been to the pub in weeks....oh hang on......
..

That sounds really interesting. What basic kit would you suggest you would need to get started?