Pensions Planning: The NUMBER

gadgetmind

Well, I guess you can argue against lots of insurance ...

Anyway, even if my expenses won't go up because of these things, I can't see many places where they will naturally go down.

BillJones

Gatser wrote: »

I saw a new post this month asking "How much money do I really need to retire, comfortably?"


Sounds familiar...


Answer: THE NUMBER (YOUR number, whatever you feel it needs to be)

£50k for me, £50k for the wife, so £100k in total, after tax.

This is assuming that I don't want to live in London when retired, and instead have a home in France and one up North in England.

gadgetmind

I'm sure you could squeak by on a little less if you had to.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2518110/City-trader-went-518-000-salary-claiming-71-week-benefits.html

BillJones

gadgetmind wrote: »

I'm sure you could squeak by on a little less if you had to.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2518110/City-trader-went-518-000-salary-claiming-71-week-benefits.html

I am sure that I could, and would likely be just as happy as I am now on virtually nothing.

That doesn't mean that that's the plan, of course. It's fun doing well at work, and a side effect of that is a decent wage.

richbeth

Gatser wrote: »

I saw a new post this month asking "How much money do I really need to retire, comfortably?"


Answer: THE NUMBER (YOUR number, whatever you feel it needs to be)


I certainly agree with all the advice from my retired friends, particularly that you need only a fraction of your working income to have a full, active and happy retirement. Many costs associated with a working life disappear once you retire!

Our target is £50-55k pa after tax (£4-4.5k pm) for a married couple.

This is based upon actual spend over last few years with adjustments for post retirement changes. We'll see some expenses decrease and others increase but overall will need less money for 'outgoings'. There will be no additional savings or mortgage payments factored into this as we'll be living off savings and will probably not have a mortgage although I might keep an offset just to keep access to cheap money if required.

We can obviously manage on much less but aim to retire round 50 so want to make sure we have sufficient to live a comfortable life and manage any ups and downs without needing to downsize until 75+.

R

MrsFingersCrossed

This is such a brilliant thread that after reading it and losing it and hunting for it countless times I've finally joined so that I can post and keep THE NUMBER THREAD active and current. Thank you, Gatser, for your original posting, and thank you everyone for your valuable contributions. I've read every one and now it's my turn to post something about our tentative and 'fingers crossed, it'll all work out in the end', possibly rather optimistic retirement plans.


My husband is a practical man who hasn't a clue about pensions, and I'm not that different. We have muddled through and now are both ready (me nearly 58, he's 60 next month) to seriously plan for our retirement. Not retirement from working altogether, just retirement from the corporate office desk and all its constraints.


We plan to downsize next year, and have done our sums on an approximate NUMBER of £24,000 per year forever to cover general outgoings. We hope to have enough money from downsizing left to supplement that £24k annual expenditure, like for holidays or if the car or washing machine goes kaput.


We also hope to earn some money from gardening. Not stately homes or parks, just your average front and back gardens: lawn mowing, hedge trimming and weeding the flower beds. And putting in new fence panels after a windy day just like today. Wish us luck!

Cyberman60

Well, my pension is about 7.5K until I get the state pension. If I had 24K a year I wouldn't know what to do with it.

gadgetmind

Cyberman60 wrote: »

If I had 24K a year I wouldn't know what to do with it.

I guess that's why ice cream comes in different flavours.

Some people have simple tastes, and that's fine.

My wife and I like scuba diving, which involves a fair bit of kit and travel, so £24k pa would be really limiting.

I have friends who take pleasure from motor racing, sailing, and flying light aircraft, and £50kpa would still clip their wings (and sails and wheels) so there is no one number to suit everyone.

MrsFingersCrossed

Cyberman, that is very encouraging but 7.5k is not a lot to live on, especially round these parts. Not wishing your life away but I hope the state pension kicks in for you soon!


Or maybe you have some great moneysaving tips that enable you to manage fine on that? I can't help thinking that council tax and household bills alone could swallow half of it.

kangoora

Our number is £25k to £30k net pension (2 incomes) based on an 'OK' figure to a comfortable one. So around £33k gross for the top figure.

Planning on using the SP as a safety net if investments/savings over the next 6 years don't match up to expectations to hopefully keep the same date. If investments are fine then we'll be a lot better off than planned and may need a rethink but retiring earlier probably isn't an option as I'm throwing all spare cash at mine and DW's pension at the moment to meet the numbers needed.

I counted down from current salaries, not up from what we expect to spend i.e. subtracted all costs that would disappear on retirement such as mortgage, loans, kids, 2nd car (will go down to one) etc. to arrive at the number, instead of counting up what we expect to need.

After doing that we discovered that we currently live off about £2k/month (£24k/year net), hence the lower figure, from a combined net income of £4.2k month.

When looked at this way it's slightly scary how much of a bite the mortgage, loans (now finished thankfully) & the kids takes from that monthly sum.