What's your next milestone on the savings journey?

Dead_keen

jim8888 said:

How do I minimise my tax exposure? Which pot should I draw on first - my DC pension, my DB pension, my own savings and investments? How do I avoid or minimise the future breach of the LTA? 

I'm quite good at tax but find this quite confusing.  There are somethings that are quite obvious and sensible.  But I think that there are also some things that I find quite counter-intuitive.  There are lots of comments on this forum about whether a "safe" withdrawal rate is 3.x% or 3.y%.  But there is very little discussion around what your tax strategy should be if, for example, the real return on equity continues as it has done for the last hundred years.  

LAPORTS1

I've made quite a few changes over the last few years, motivated by many of the posters on these forums. 

I've moved jobs and increased my pension and savings contributions primarily because myself and my wife want to stop working by 60 years old at the latest and take some time for ourselves. 

Tale of the tape:
I'm 47
Workplace pensions worth £235,000 
ISA £10.5K
Saving £1450 into the pension each month and at least £400 into the ISA

My wife is 46 and has worked part-time as a nurse in the NHS for 23 years.

The plan is that in 10-12 years we'll have a combination of the drawdown from the workplace pension, my wife's NHS pension and full state pensions.

fkerr

I'm 37 and my workplace DC pot is £182,000. I'm contributing approximately £1,200 per month into my pension. The next big target is £250,000. I feel like I have a long way to go until I can afford to retire!

MaxiRobriguez

I don't have any milestones to be honest. I'm 33, pension pot currently £127k with a S+S ISA of £75k but only a couple of years ago those combined figures were closer to £50k so I'm not going to set expectations for near-term future because there's every chance of market corrections or prices going nowhere for a while, and actually for me I don't mind that as that means getting to buy more units at lower prices.

For me the target is to keep the money flowing in from my salary sacrifice as high as possible. We've just had our first child and I've reduced sacrifice from £2.3k to £2k flat to free up a tiny bit more cash flow. There's expectations from the wife of a new house soon, and I've earmarked a further drop to £1.6k, so anything more than that for the next few years is me on target.

Madrick

LAPORTS1 said:

I've made quite a few changes over the last few years, motivated by many of the posters on these forums. 

I've moved jobs and increased my pension and savings contributions primarily because myself and my wife want to stop working by 60 years old at the latest and take some time for ourselves. 

Tale of the tape:
I'm 47
Workplace pensions worth £235,000 
ISA £10.5K
Saving £1450 into the pension each month and at least £400 into the ISA

My wife is 46 and has worked part-time as a nurse in the NHS for 23 years.

The plan is that in 10-12 years we'll have a combination of the drawdown from the workplace pension, my wife's NHS pension and full state pensions.

That's superb 👍

I'm 13 years older (at 60) and you have managed to save a lot more than me

I have £215k in a DC pension

A DB pension worth 2k pa which started in june

£130k in mixed savings, premium bonds, S&S USA etc

No debts and mortgage free

Widowed, no dependents, two grown up sons, one still living at home. 

Just waiting for the right time to slide into retirement.... 
 Probably going to be the end of the tax year🤔

I suppose my milestone was/is hitting the £300k total wealth of pensions and mixed savings

Workerdrone

LAPORTS1 said:

I've made quite a few changes over the last few years, motivated by many of the posters on these forums. 

I've moved jobs and increased my pension and savings contributions primarily because myself and my wife want to stop working by 60 years old at the latest and take some time for ourselves. 

Tale of the tape:
I'm 47
Workplace pensions worth £235,000 
ISA £10.5K
Saving £1450 into the pension each month and at least £400 into the ISA

My wife is 46 and has worked part-time as a nurse in the NHS for 23 years.

The plan is that in 10-12 years we'll have a combination of the drawdown from the workplace pension, my wife's NHS pension and full state pensions.

We are in quite a similar boat. Wife and I want to be retired at 60.

I'm 46 in January
Workplace pensions worth £241,000
No ISA but £40k in Mortgage offset account
Saving £1224 into pension each month and £120 into additional SIPP for wife

Wife is 46 and currently working part time as nurse in the NHS for 26 years

Same combo for us. Retire in 14 and a bit years using drawdown on my pension, her 1995 section some of her SIPP, then her full NHS pension from 67 and both full SPA's from 68

Workerdrone

fkerr said:

I'm 37 and my workplace DC pot is £182,000. I'm contributing approximately £1,200 per month into my pension. The next big target is £250,000. I feel like I have a long way to go until I can afford to retire!

I'd say you are well ahead of where I was at 37. My total pension savings were £43k then, now £241k I've only really been serious about saving the past few years and got up to the £1224 a month mark. You're doing very well. I see a rosy early retirement for you.

Workerdrone

MaxiRobriguez said:

I don't have any milestones to be honest. I'm 33, pension pot currently £127k with a S+S ISA of £75k but only a couple of years ago those combined figures were closer to £50k so I'm not going to set expectations for near-term future because there's every chance of market corrections or prices going nowhere for a while, and actually for me I don't mind that as that means getting to buy more units at lower prices.

For me the target is to keep the money flowing in from my salary sacrifice as high as possible. We've just had our first child and I've reduced sacrifice from £2.3k to £2k flat to free up a tiny bit more cash flow. There's expectations from the wife of a new house soon, and I've earmarked a further drop to £1.6k, so anything more than that for the next few years is me on target.

Wife's expecting is usually and exciting phrase... unless its followed by "A new kitchen", "A new house", "A new car" "A Caribbean holiday"

Workerdrone

MaxiRobriguez said:

I don't have any milestones to be honest. I'm 33, pension pot currently £127k with a S+S ISA of £75k but only a couple of years ago those combined figures were closer to £50k so I'm not going to set expectations for near-term future because there's every chance of market corrections or prices going nowhere for a while, and actually for me I don't mind that as that means getting to buy more units at lower prices.

For me the target is to keep the money flowing in from my salary sacrifice as high as possible. We've just had our first child and I've reduced sacrifice from £2.3k to £2k flat to free up a tiny bit more cash flow. There's expectations from the wife of a new house soon, and I've earmarked a further drop to £1.6k, so anything more than that for the next few years is me on target.

Wife's expecting is usually and exciting phrase... unless its followed by "A new kitchen", "A new house", "A new car" "A Caribbean holiday"

DT2001

Is anyone self employed?
So many talk about £X p.m. contributions and being able to calculate where they might be in say 5 years time.

I was employed for 17 years and built up a DB pension plus single company shareholding.
I’ve been self employed for 25 years and the stay at home Dad for most of that. Only contributed in 3 years to my private pension (hit a milestone last year of £250k) but we’ve 2 properties (both built/converted to add equity) and added to ISA’s regularly.

Our retirement planning is vague but our overall wealth has increased, not steadily, due to vagaries of income, stock market, children, U.K. and foreign housing markets and a business.
So milestones can be passed on the way up and then on the way down and hopefully on the way up again. I tend to look at the whole on the basis I can downsize.