Retirement Plan at 55 – Enough to retire?

IanSt

ams25 wrote: »

On a related note, this has got me thinking about my own wife's pension situation. Very different from my friend, but.... good to get some external views...

she is younger than me... probably 26 or 27 years from SPA (assume at 68 or 69)

...so access to a personal pension/SIPP is probably at least 16 years away

she is still working but probably only for 2 or 3 more years. Will have Child Benefit to maintain NI contributions for another 6 years, after that we may need to make additional contributions as she will only have 22 or so years of contributions.

she is contributing to her workplace DB scheme which is good but as she will only have limited years it won't be much unless she keeps working much longer which is not her intention. NRA is 65. She can't buy more years.

She is not a higher rate tax payer.

So, our approach to date and currently is to focus on her ISA funds (max it each year for the last few and on going while we can ) but not to bother with a SIPP/PP on the basis that access is too far away and we don't want to tie up funds that won't be accessible for at least 16 years (and possibly longer). she will have spousal benefit from my DB scheme and inherit my SIPPS/ISA so should be adequately provided for.

Does this approach seem sensible? Am I missing somethng?

Every family has their own unique set of circumstances, and from the look of it you've carefully considered yours, so although you might be able to get a few more quid from the mix there's nothing there that looks unreasonable.

Just make sure you have a good emergency cash fund available so that you don't need to raid your stocks and shares funds should you ever need to get some cash together in a hurry.