What is a "proper" pension pot nowadays?

Daniel54

cns06 wrote: »

I don't disagree with you re the pension, but its so locked in re access. What happens if I put 100% of my retirement income into my pension and the retirement age goes to 60 or higher? I want to go at 55, or sooner. Also as a lower rate tax payer the kick back is only 20% - so that makes things a bit worse too for us.

Also - its alright saving tax now but what about later when you may struggle to access large lump sums. Pensions are generally designed to trickle money out. My accountant tells me stories all the time of people who have huge pots but get quite a tax bill each year...

I take your point regarding access to pensions,which is likely to rise in line with the state pension age

In terms of pension withdrawal,you ignore the benefits of the annual personal allowance and the 25% PCLS.Someone drawing down say £16k pa in 2016 will have the benefit of £11k personal allowance,£4k from the PCLS ( one way or the other) and pay 20% tax on £1k ie £200.This translates to a rate of tax of 1% on drawdown and surely makes the 20% tax relief going in look pretty attractive ?

If you want a large lump sum over and above the PCLS then I agree this needs to be saved for separately,although personally I far prefer ISAs to rental property.

mark1959

To the OP I would say that £100.000 [in todays money] is quite a reasonable amount at around 55 to give you at least the option of retiring as long as you have other savings as well. Not necessarily a BTL though.
BTW, £100,000 in 30 years could mean anything from £50,000 to £80.000 actually put in. Or even more, or less.

mark5

mark1959 wrote: »

To the OP I would say that £100.000 [in todays money] is quite a reasonable amount at around 55 to give you at least the option of retiring as long as you have other savings as well. Not necessarily a BTL though.
BTW, £100,000 in 30 years could mean anything from £50,000 to £80.000 actually put in. Or even more, or less.

Agreed, there's a lot of posters on here who over estimate what the average person needs to live on.
Not everyone earns 50-60k per year upwards and needs to pay £1000 per month into their pension.

jumperabv3

mark5 wrote: »

Agreed, there's a lot of posters on here who over estimate what the average person needs to live on.
Not everyone earns 50-60k per year upwards and needs to pay £1000 per month into their pension.

It's so weird to think forward 30 years down the line ... I think 30 years from now we would have different schemes for sure, not sure if the term "annuity" would exist by then....

:eek:

atush

mark5 wrote: »

Agreed, there's a lot of posters on here who over estimate what the average person needs to live on.
Not everyone earns 50-60k per year upwards and needs to pay £1000 per month into their pension.

And I think a lot of people just starting pensions underestimate their future needs and dont save enough.

Better to save too much than not enough.

yuiop220

It's been very interesting reading about pensions and peoples retirement plans.

Thanks for sharing!