It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts!!!!

Sea_Shell

And the winner is..... @bluenose1   You were the closest!!

It was £150 vacuum (Shark)
£65 petrol (not quite a full tank, but close)
and £15 in B&Q for a bag of topsoil, 2 paving slabs and a plastic bucket!!


In other spending news, I used to love Douwe Egberts Hazelnut flavoured instant coffee, but they stopped doing it.   I have now discovered that Waitrose stock similar by a company called Littles, which is just as nice.   Bit steep at £3.15 for a 50g jar, but hey, what's a little luxury now and again.  It won't be an everyday cuppa....I have Aldi for that @  £1.89 for 100g.

moving_forward

Wow seashell you are splashing the cash! Now posh coffee....be careful you may run out of money when your one hundred and forty four 🤣🤣

Sea_Shell

DH gets his first pension "payday" next week.   

But as I have to remind him, as it's drawdown, its not NEW money, he is merely paying himself with his own money!!!

It will be interesting to see how this little initial pot (£42,886) copes with the level of DD (£1150pm), and how long it actually lasts in real life, before he has to transfer in more funds from other pots.

On the face of it, ~37 months is our "starting point", if it was 100% cash with no fees.    Will it hold steady, be shorter, or last longer?   Will be an interesting little "experiment".

With the markets being a bit subdued at the moment, we've decided to leave it invested, for now, even though it's technically a short period (3 yrs).   But if the fund recovers, then there is always the option to cash out, and just draw from that.

moving_forward

Ooh how exciting the start of drawdown. I will follow with interest as it's what we are hoping to do.
Currently my pension is lifestyled but I plan to change my "retirement date" to ensure de risking doesn't happen to early.

Dizee123

I received my first drawdown payment from standard life of £1048 last week.  I will be drawing down this amount from a pot of around £30K until July 23 when my main DB pension kicks in.  I dithered over whether to take the whole amount up to the tax allowance or to take a monthly figure.  The thought of trying to reclaim the tax, and the delays others have mentioned, swung it to the monthly amount.  I can move to spending easy access cash savings if there are any large drops in value. 

Now just need to liberate my £6k in Legal and General as a small pot and all will be going according to plan for a monthly income of around £1,500 (topped up with a little savings money).  As I lived on £1,250 (tax free sum) for the last 8 months, this will feel like riches!  However, this months extra money is already earmarked for new glasses....
 

Stubod

...we were going to start drawing down our SS ISA's as from January, but (as always seems to happen) the market tanked, and our FA forgot to start the payments anyway so we are spending "cash" instead until my pension starts later in the year. (Already taking Mrs Stubods pension)...

Audaxer

Sea_Shell said:

DH gets his first pension "payday" next week.   

But as I have to remind him, as it's drawdown, its not NEW money, he is merely paying himself with his own money!!!

It will be interesting to see how this little initial pot (£42,886) copes with the level of DD (£1150pm), and how long it actually lasts in real life, before he has to transfer in more funds from other pots.

On the face of it, ~37 months is our "starting point", if it was 100% cash with no fees.    Will it hold steady, be shorter, or last longer?   Will be an interesting little "experiment".

With the markets being a bit subdued at the moment, we've decided to leave it invested, for now, even though it's technically a short period (3 yrs).   But if the fund recovers, then there is always the option to cash out, and just draw from that.

Good luck.

Interested to know the percentage of equities in that initial pot?

If markets fall further presumably you would drawdown from your cash pot instead until the markets recover?

Sea_Shell

Audaxer said:

Sea_Shell said:

DH gets his first pension "payday" next week.   

But as I have to remind him, as it's drawdown, its not NEW money, he is merely paying himself with his own money!!!

It will be interesting to see how this little initial pot (£42,886) copes with the level of DD (£1150pm), and how long it actually lasts in real life, before he has to transfer in more funds from other pots.

On the face of it, ~37 months is our "starting point", if it was 100% cash with no fees.    Will it hold steady, be shorter, or last longer?   Will be an interesting little "experiment".

With the markets being a bit subdued at the moment, we've decided to leave it invested, for now, even though it's technically a short period (3 yrs).   But if the fund recovers, then there is always the option to cash out, and just draw from that.

Good luck.

Interested to know the percentage of equities in that initial pot?

If markets fall further presumably you would drawdown from your cash pot instead until the markets recover?

Just looking at the factsheet, it's currently 51% equities.

If markets fall further, we'd carry on pulling it out (to use PA), but would look at reinvesting in our ISAs and spending from cash...or just carry on regardless!! 😉

zagfles

Surprised people seem to think equities are low at the moment, I'm surprised how high they are considering all that's going on in the world. Typical world index tracker up about 7% over the last year, up about 30-40% over 3 years and about 50-60% over 5 years.

Also I think people need to be wary of trying to time the market using "finger in the air" decisions as to whether to spend from cash or equities, it's not something people typically do during accumulation so why do it during decumulation?

Sea_Shell

I said fall further, I didn't say they were low, but they are off their recent highs, so subdued...a bit?!

As for a "finger in the air" strategy...the alternative is to plough on regardless of what the world's doing around you, based on some other (possibly flawed) strategy.

But hey, I might run out of money when I'm 144 😉

I'm not saying our way is perfect.😇  Far from it.  This thread could end up being a perfect example of what NOT to do!

Stay tooned! 😎