Preparing for old age

sat56

Hi, just looking for pointers on what I should be looking at with regards finance in old age.

I'm 45, single, earn around 22k, own my own house outright, worth 80K ish. Would like to retire early if finances allowed.

I've savings worth 20k ish, premium bonds worth 25k.

I currently save £200 into regular saver per month and £100 into company sharesave scheme

Currently pay 6% into company pension scheme and on last statement would receive £3500 per year.

Also have a deferred civil service pension worth £300 ish per year. Last statement was about 10 Yrs ago so details hazy.

I'm in line to inherit £60k from my mother within next 20 years, and possibly £60k from my father within the next 20 years.

They have both been talking about there wills recently, there divorced, but would take what my father says with a pinch off salt.

Is there anything else I should be doing to make retirement earlier or my retirement income greater

AlwaysLearnin

Does your employer offer additional pension contributions if you go over the 6%?

I presume your savings are in cash. Not sure how early you want to retire and therefore timescales you're looking at, but investing has historically provided better returns than cash savings over the longer term. It isn't something you should do without reading up though. The Savings & Investments board may be a start point.

Premium bonds as an investment get a mixed reaction on here too, so I imagine there will be views on those.

Otherwise you look to have done okay, but early retirement can be an expensive business...

kidmugsy

It might be worth your while to write to the civil service scheme and get yourself up to date with your prospects there. It would certainly be wise to get the official prediction of your State Pension.

You could consider moving some of your money into stocks and shares ISAs over the years - the tax advantages on share investments are usually non-existent if you are a standard rate taxpayer, but they do avert any need for you to report your dividend income to HMRC. Anyway, someday it may again be worthwhile to have a part of your investment portfolio in bonds, and there the tax savings in an S&S ISA are useful.

atush

If you want to retire early, you aren't going to do it on Cash savings and PBs and a small pension. Sharesave is good though.

I would up your pension and switch the ongoing cash savings to a S&S ISa, as equities will outperform cash over longer periods. I was looking at a couple of my ITs yesterday, that are up 18-30% this year alone.

bigfreddiel

keep your cs pension - it's increasing every year- just find out how much

transfer your pb's over the next two years into vanguard lifestrategy 60% acc fund and leave it

keep £6k cash in the highest earning instant access account

invest the remaining £14k in the isa mentioned above

pay more into your pension

retire early :-)

fj

AlwaysLearnin

You may find this thread useful too:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2146737

Once you have figured out "your number", then it may help you to plan how/if you can get to a position where you have an equivalent (factoring in inflation) amount coming in without needing to work