Shortly Retiring

redmalc

The time is coming for me to retire after forty three years at work, it’s quite daunting but the workload is very stressful and will only increase in the work I am in.
We have no mortgage or debts and find ourselves in a lucky position but I am not sure which way to go to fund our retirement, State pensions will pay us £19500 per annum and we have 500K in personal pensions and 420k in S&S and cash Isa,s with 80 k in shares.
we will need 35 K per annum to live on , that’s including the £19500 state pension so we will need £15500 from either our pensions or Isa,s.
My thinking is we use the funds in  our cash Isa,s and we have no tax to pay and leave the pension invested, does that make sense !  And after the cash Isa funds have gone we take the 25% from our pension to live on

Dazed_and_C0nfused

£19,500 isn't taking full advantage of two Personal Allowance's though.

And are you both now at State Pension age or do you need to fund more than £15,500 for a few years first?

Is the £19,500 total State Pension an assumption or based on checks of the actual State Pension accrued to date (or with additional voluntary years purchased)?

Marcon

redmalc said:

The time is coming for me to retire after forty three years at work, it’s quite daunting but the workload is very stressful and will only increase in the work I am in.
We have no mortgage or debts and find ourselves in a lucky position but I am not sure which way to go to fund our retirement, State pensions will pay us £19500 per annum and we have 500K in personal pensions and 420k in S&S and cash Isa,s with 80 k in shares.
we will need 35 K per annum to live on , that’s including the £19500 state pension so we will need £15500 from either our pensions or Isa,s.
My thinking is we use the funds in  our cash Isa,s and we have no tax to pay and leave the pension invested, does that make sense !  And after the cash Isa funds have gone we take the 25% from our pension to live on

Not sure what you mean by 'take the 25%...'. You have clocked that 25% of your (DC) pension is tax free but the rest is then taxable, so why would take the whole 25% upfront, pay no tax in the year you take that, then pay tax on any future withdrawals?

Given your current earnings level (https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6205969/taper-relief-on-pension#latest), might it make sense to get some proper financial advice now, rather than relying on a random bunch of strangers commenting on a couple of paragraphs as opposed to a full understanding of your position?

Happy retirement regardless!

DT2001

As dazed_and_COnfused said your not using your personal allowances to the full so maybe you can use personal pension to fund part of the £15.5k. The £80k in shares - do you have capital gains that you want to realise to use those allowances?
Do you have plans for inheritance. If you are over the IHT threshold including your property maybe you could consider ways to reduce the expected tax which might change your plans.
It looks like your wealth will increase as £15.5k is about 1.5% return on your funds so maybe your other plans are more relevant (than paying no tax)?
Sorry to ask more questions than offer solutions!