Pensions Planning: The NUMBER 14 December 2009 at 2:44PM in Pensions, annuities & retirement planning 2.3K replies 622.9K views

jamesd

The book may have one concept but there's no harm in people taking different views and implementations of it. Few people are able to make completely unconstrained payments into a pension so they may find it desirable to have a range of numbers covering the worst to best parts of the stock market fluctuations. One end of the range would be their minimum number and would be followed by a range of increasingly more desirable options if they do not find themselves buying an annuity at a market low point.

Gatser

jamesd wrote: »

The book may have one concept but there's no harm in people taking different views and implementations of it.

Absolutely.

We are having a discussion on here.... not following the concept of the book to the letter.

Keep your views coming in folks.... with as many NUMBERS (!) as you wish...

Gatser

thewhiteone wrote: »

Now I know you are not actually discussing the concept of the number youll be glad to know ill leave you to it.

You are Correct.... I AM GLAD you are leaving us to it. :beer:

OK folks... back to where we left off......

What's your NUMBER?

Pobby

Think ours, as a couple is about £22k, although I think that we will be getting rather more than that. That`s based on !3k state and serps. About 6k private and personal pensions and hopefully about £150k in savings when we reach retirement, in 4 years time. I have kind of semi retired ( due to the down turn amongst other things) and my wife works not a full week in a lowly paid job. Our earnings are about 27k a year post tax and we tend to save anything up to 6k a year out of ( even with quite a lot of home improvements which we pay others to do).

So we are hoping for a retirement where we will save money at the same time.

On the plus side. We will only need 1 car ( need for work 2 at the moment). Have the better tax breaks at 65 and the other little bits that go with it. We are both healthy, and although we possibly won`t need the income, intend to carry on some form of part time work as long as we feel able to.

Gatser

Pobby wrote: »

Think ours, as a couple is about £22k, ...... and hopefully about £150k in savings when we reach retirement

I have kind of semi retired ( due to the down turn amongst other things) and my wife works not a full week in a lowly paid job. Our earnings are about 27k a year post tax and we tend to save anything up to 6k a year out of ( even with quite a lot of home improvements which we pay others to do).

So we are hoping for a retirement where we will save money at the same time.

On the plus side. We will only need 1 car ( need for work 2 at the moment). Have the better tax breaks at 65 and the other little bits that go with it. We are both healthy, and although we possibly won`t need the income, intend to carry on some form of part time work as long as we feel able to.

Thanks Pobby.
Many similarities to ourselves.

We have similar values and plans.
Like many folks I think working in some part time role may be good financially and mentally/socially....the only thing i am getting more fussy about in later life is that I must really enjoy the job! I'd rather be on min wage in a great job than on 5 times the amount in a job I dread.

Also starting to think about moving to one car...just hope the free bus pass continues.... but any discounted travel will still be cheaper than running an extra car.

Actually we quite like the fun of being prudent with our hard saved cash... brings back "happy" memories of when we first got started.... there is some strange pleasure in watching the pennies again!

Just hope we don't win the Lottery and spoil it! :rotfl:

[Deleted User]

We are in our mid 40's have no dependents, a mortgage free house and fairly substantial savings.

We stopped paying into private pensions when they'd reached 6k PA each (so 12k pa in total). To be honest, we could live on that now - albeit without luxuries.

We're putting the maximum amount into cash ISA's each year instead of paying more into a pension. We figured that way we're more flexible. We run our own business and have no idea how long that will be viable.

I'm not sure how sensible this approach is, but we want to balance enjoying life now with saving for the future. We have a large house with a huge garden so at some point we'd want to downsize from that - hopefully releasing some equity.

Gatser

Deleted_User wrote: »

We are in our mid 40's have no dependents, a mortgage free house and fairly substantial savings.

We stopped paying into private pensions when they'd reached 6k PA each (so 12k pa in total). To be honest, we could live on that now - albeit without luxuries.

We're putting the maximum amount into cash ISA's each year instead of paying more into a pension. We figured that way we're more flexible. We run our own business and have no idea how long that will be viable.

I'm not sure how sensible this approach is, but we want to balance enjoying life now with saving for the future. We have a large house with a huge garden so at some point we'd want to downsize from that - hopefully releasing some equity.

All sounds good to me (as a non-expert!)
One piece of advice that has always proven valuable to me is "keep numerous eggs in many baskets" You are certainly doing just that.

I also prefer to spread future savings between ISA's, Tax Free savings and Pensions, each one split into many components.

Gatser

What's your NUMBER?

I will be updating the average feedback again soon.
Most people seem to have a comfortable existance around £25k

diveleader

My number is £23k.

The next step, I suppose, would be to discuss...

My number is X at today's rates, how much does it need to be if I want to retire in Y years time.

We were looking at an early retirement, funded mainly from savings. But the effect of 30+ years of inflation on my NUMBER, worries me - it gets very large!

Gatser

diveleader wrote: »

My number is £23k.

My number is X at today's rates, how much does it need to be if I want to retire in Y years time.

I am no expert at forecasting inflation but I currently use 3% as an annual increase factor. I have calculated my current NUMBER and increased that by 3% pa to see what I need by the time I retire.

the media is currently reporting that inflation will be on the increase over the next 3 years so I may need to revise my estimates/forecast.

How is your NUMBER analysed?