Only freedom will do

Suffolk_lass

Congratulations but 68!? Oh my. I realise you have SIPP, ISA and other trickles of pension income. Will you consider transferring any of your existing pension pots into the Local Government scheme? or perhaps you prefer to keep them separate - I recall you were in a public sector scheme that was DB that has frozen index-linked accrued benefits, with a reserved right to take it earlier than 68. And there's your DC scheme. And your SIPP (Oh dear, I feel like I am an e-stalker!) - I think I would want to keep them separate so that not all eggs are in one basket.

I presume you could take an actuarially reduced pension before 68?

edinburgher

You have wonderful recall

Yes, 68, therein lies the rub of the current offering from the LGPS!

I have considered transferring in either/both my DC pension and my SIPP, as from memory (the reason my original preserved DB pension is worth a few grand a year), the rates offered were very good. But at that point, the concept of FI was unheard of and my horizon has shifted.

If I transfer in, I'd get a theoretical NW bump of ££,£££, but there would be no way I could match my income from 68+ earlier on in the retirement cycle. I am sure there would be ways to smooth the income, but by a few years, not for 15 years or so! One basic example would be slow stoozing with as many credit cards as I could lay my hands on, but that would only buy me a couple of years of smoothing. Perhaps moving to a low COLA, but if anything, Mrs E and I will want to live closer to the action in retirement!

My thoughts at the moment are either transfer it all in, prepare to retire slightly later and chuck everything else I can into SIPPs/cash savings, or keep the DB and the DC separate and miss out on the loaded offer of a hefty NW bump.

Suffolk_lass

Our plan is to each have our DB pensions as our main income stream, and to use Mr Lass's DC pension as top ups between stopping work and drawing his state pension. His DB will be a bit below the Tax threshold so spreading it out over about 4 years will minimise the tax on the taxable part of it.

I didn't clock the advantages of a SIPP until far too late. I plan to retire in less than two years so an ISA is my favoured option, albeit losing the 40% tax relief (that now sounds pathetic as I write it - I shall have a ponder - pure cutting off my nose to spite my face, as granny used to say!)

Greying_Pilgrim

edinburgher wrote: »

Did you invest the money in anything esoteric Greying?

Well done, getting started is almost all of the battle.

'Tis funny you should say that ed, because..... erm, no, I didn't :rotfl:The very fact that this money is anywhere near the stock market is out of my comfort zone enough! It's soooooo tempting to stash it all in a cozy, friendlee, neighbourhood building society, with it's oh so tempting interest rate of -0.10% and where they send you a card on your birthday.......................

Or better yet, in a sock. Under the mattress. :cool:

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Thanks for your help

Greying X

edinburgher

@SL - that sounds sensible

@Greying - I was joking, honest

Karmacat

Congratulations, Ed! 68 is a bleep, but I bet you find a way to make it work.

edinburgher

Thanks KC - it is a bleep - but all it has done is make my plans a little more conventional.

Thinking about it in a different light - if I work 'til 50 and then retire I will be guaranteed a minimum income of £20,500 (+ inflation linking) assuming state pensions are still around when I'm a duffer. That's fantastic, no cat food! :j If I somehow actually worked 'til 68, I'd retire on considerably more money than I earn now!

I am going to call my current DC provider today and check what their fees are. From memory, it's a very low 0.3% with no additional costs for basic index funds. If they'll let me continue to pay in after leaving my current job, that could save me a bit over the years. Alternatively I could transfer everything into my SIPP, sure they'd be happy to see £35k extra to charge fees on

edinburgher

Mhhh... turns out that the platform charge is 0.4%, higher than I thought. I can transfer out for free.

So, even allowing for slightly higher charges (say 0.47% for one of the VLS funds if I open a Close Brothers SIPP), I think I'd be better off moving. I'm fairly sure that my L&G funds perform at least 0.07% worse than VLS100! I could also clone VLS with individual funds, perhaps slightly less efficient, but think it can be done for a total charge of something like 0.4%/year including the platform charge?

I will get transfer values for what would happen if I transfer in to the LGPS, but I don't think I can afford to kill my DC pot. I know £35k isn't a huge sum in the scheme of things, but my perspective changes if I think 'that's 2-3 years of living expenses before my DB pension kicks in'. So my retirement age would be a maximum of 65, with another year off each time I can accumulate £15k or so. That would be a convenient way to think about it for me, roughly £300 before tax for a week of retirement/£232 after tax for each week of freedom.

Karmacat

Of course £35k is a big deal! How hard would you have to work/ how many more years, to make up for that? We celebrate the odd tenner, we certainly want to look after £35k!

:j

earthgirl

Congratulations on the new job. Will it be one you enjoy?

Partly after reading your comments OH and I have decided to reduce our SS Isa exposure and have made a profit of around £7K in just under a year. We have left £10K in and feel that this is ok to lose if it all went wrong. Just wanted to say thanks so much for the inspiration - like greying really. I wouldn't have looked at it without your very informative posts.

I need to decide what to do with the funds I have withdrawn. I need to understand about pensions. I have 8 years of deferred final salary, one local govnt scheme with about 3 years in and I am 37. Oh this has just reminded me I have two others of a year each to locate.

Anybody have any advice about where to get started to look for information about pensions? Should I post on the pensions board?are there good websites? Sorry Ed