Advice please!!

FLOWERPOT

I earn (part time civil servant) £630 per month.
When I retire at 62 (next year) I'll receive about £510 oap.
The pension from civil service will be negligable as I've been there only 5 years since redundancy.

I have @ £65000 in isas and @ £85000 in other savings.
I would like to get a monthly income from my money but... should I invest all of it for income or keep the isas as they are, or should I mix it up a bit?

I would like to make up the shortfall between my salary and oap when I stop working.

want_to_save

I would honestly suggest you seek the help of an independent financial adviser who would steer you in the right direction. There are many things you could do and you would need to look at your attitude to risk and how much incoome you would require.

You can also ask the adviser at your bank but they are tied and you would not be offered advise on the whole of the market.

dunstonh

I would like to get a monthly income from my money but... should I invest all of it for income or keep the isas as they are, or should I mix it up a bit?

Every option has risks. If you leave it in cash ISAs then you will suffer shortfall risk and inflation risk. If you put into S&S ISAs/investments then shortfall and inflation risk is less but investment risk is introduced.

It is about finding a balance in risk that is both acceptable to your worries and to your financial position.

atush

Also, you do have some years in a FS public sector pension. It might be good to get out your last statement and say what it says. It could be a real boost to your income.

Is it possible to work more hours, or to work a few more years to get more FS pension.

Is all the 65K and 85K in cash?

I would be inclined to invest the unwrapped money in income producing assets and make sure the ISAs are paying out a decent amt of interest if you can. But as said, investing money does carry risk, but cash carries some definite risks that are guaranteed to affect your spending power.

Any other old pensions from your previous 40+ years of work?

xylophone

Do you have a pension from your previous employment?

kidmugsy

FLOWERPOT wrote: »

When I retire at 62 (next year) I'll receive about £510 oap.

I would like to make up the shortfall between my salary and oap when I stop working.

Consider this: when you qualify for the oap, do not draw it; defer it for a couple of years or more. For each year of deferral it will increase by 10.4% when you finally do draw it. You'll see that after two years of deferral it will just about equal your salary, which is what you want. Meantime you'd have to live off your savings, but that's OK - you will have effectively converted some of your savings into an index-linked annuity paying 10.4% per annum, which is a wonderful return. A word of warning - the deal is so good that the reward is going to be cut to 5.2% when the new oap system is introduced in 2016 (or 2017; I can never remember), so you'd want to check whether that change would apply to old-style oaps like yours after April'16, or only to the new-style ones. Otherwise I can heartily recommend pension deferral, subject to the hope that a future government never reneges on the deal.

P.S. If you do defer your oap, tell your civil service pension scheme - some schemes have rules that mean they'll pay you more when you are not drawing an oap than when you are. Maybe the civil service scheme is one such.

https://www.gov.uk/deferring-state-pension/what-you-may-get

atush

Defering pension and working an extra year could be a good double whammy for you.

FLOWERPOT

Thanks for all advice. I do get a co. pension which was changed from final salary so only get £230 pm. My new civ serv pension is actually a stake holder as I have no dependants so don't need the extras which cost more.
Still need that extra £100 pm but I think working an extra year or two would probably be the best route. Don't really want to go into stocks etc...tried it before and got burned!
Are there any isas which pay interest monthly?
Have lived a fairly frugal life to make old age easier and I'd like to enjoy it but it doesn't seem to work like that!

atush

Don't really want to go into stocks etc...tried it before and got burned!

Sounds to me like you were gambling on single shares- the dot.com boom maybe? There are all sorts of investing, many much less risky than what you got up to.

In collective, income producing funds paying 5% or even more, you would not have that same risk. One company could go down, the rest stay up and it would just drop a small amt.

FatherAbraham

kidmugsy wrote: »

A word of warning - the deal is so good that the reward is going to be cut to 5.2% when the new oap system is introduced in 2016 (or 2017; I can never remember), so you'd want to check whether that change would apply to old-style oaps like yours after April'16, or only to the new-style ones.

The proposed pension reform was origianally scheduled for 2017, but the Chancellor's budget earlier this year brought the proposed implementation one year sooner.

Rules on the rewards for deferring are related to one's state pension age (i.e. the kind of pension which one is deferring -- either pre- or post-reform). Although nothing is certain, since it's only a proposal, it seems most likely that deferral rates for people with pre-reform state-pension age will not see a change in their reward.

Warmest regards,
FA

FLOWERPOT

This needs a bit more thought. Will keep checking in on the forum as a few others are in similar situations and I may pick up more tips.
Will look again at the market but I am still wary as the last time my money was invested by FA. Value halved, had to wait 8 years to get just the investment back. Too old now for that! For now my best bet seems to work a bit longer. Thanks to everyone.