Should I use pensionbee

daggz68

Hi
I'm 53 and plan to take my pension at 55
I have two pensions, one with prudential with roughly 30000 and another with nest for about 1500
Is it worth transferring to pensionbee to take the lot once 55.i know 25% is tax free so will lose a lot if taking the lot.
The reason being, I lost my house years ago and rented naff rooms since. I fancy a trip back to Capetown as not been abroad since 1995! The rest I want to put towards either renting my own flat, or buying a camper or river boat. That way I can just drive or sail off somewhere if I don't like the scenary.
Ideally I'll go the camper van route and not stuck to canals that way

Thanks

Marcon

daggz68 said:

Hi
I'm 53 and plan to take my pension at 55
I have two pensions, one with prudential with roughly 30000 and another with nest for about 1500
Is it worth transferring to pensionbee to take the lot once 55.i know 25% is tax free so will lose a lot if taking the lot.
The reason being, I lost my house years ago and rented naff rooms since. I fancy a trip back to Capetown as not been abroad since 1995! The rest I want to put towards either renting my own flat, or buying a camper or river boat. That way I can just drive or sail off somewhere if I don't like the scenary.
Ideally I'll go the camper van route and not stuck to canals that way

Thanks

Leaving aside whether your plan is a good idea or not (that isn't your question, although I'm sure plenty of people will be along to wag a warning finger!), do you need to transfer at all to be able to take your two pensions as one-off lump sums at 55? You can certainly take a pot of £1,500 from NEST, and depending on the terms of your Pru pension, may be able to take the lot from that in one go.

Otherwise pick the cheapest consolidator - Pensionbee isn't the only one.

Albermarle

OK I will say it .
What are you going to live off when it runs out ? £31K will not last long .

daggz68

Albermarle said:

OK I will say it .
What are you going to live off when it runs out ? £31K will not last long .

I can still continue to work once I've taken it
Might just start buying and selling car parts

Albermarle

daggz68 said:

Albermarle said:

OK I will say it .
What are you going to live off when it runs out ? £31K will not last long .

I can still continue to work once I've taken it
Might just start buying and selling car parts

Then what happens when you stop work, voluntarily or involuntarily and before the state pension arrives ?
Anyway make sure you have enough NI contributions for a full state pension at least .

This is a pensions forum, so most likely the majority of posters will be horrified that you will cash in a pension at 55, when you may well have 35 more years to live . To us it is the stuff of nightmares 

NannaH

I’m not horrified,  for someone who will have to rent in retirement,  getting rid of a small pension might just be the most sensible thing to do and with the timescale there will be no deprivation of assets to consider. 
The big problem with this forum is that most posters have large pensions and own property, they really don’t understand how badly a small pension can affect benefits for a renter in later life, it becomes a curse rather than a blessing,  I’ve seen it first hand with my elder Sister. 

OP you can easily split taking the pension over two tax years and pay zero tax 😉

Kim1965

Tend to agree with Nanna, renters probably need 200k to cover their rent over an average retirement. He may aswell blow it.
 I guess council tax help, housing benefit plus pension credit would represent a fair amount. Any body like to speculate what dc pot would cover a person retiring at 67 and living to 83? Certainly more than the 31.5k the op has. 

Marcon

Kim1965 said:

Tend to agree with Nanna, renters probably need 200k to cover their rent over an average retirement. He may aswell blow it.
 I guess council tax help, housing benefit plus pension credit would represent a fair amount. Any body like to speculate what dc pot would cover a person retiring at 67 and living to 83? Certainly more than the 31.5k the op has. 

OP also has a deferred DB pension from Ford, and possibly other pensions - so sticking to answering the actual question asked in the first place might be most help to them?

Kim1965

Apologies, couldnt see any reference to other provisions. 

NannaH

Nowhere does in this thread it mention other pensions. OP states he has TWO pensions, so I am going off the only information given and have answered the actual bloody question thank you very much 🙄

Albermarle

Kim1965 said:

Apologies, couldnt see any reference to other provisions. 

There was no reference, but Marcon must have checked the posters previous posts, where there is a reference to a deferred DB pension. At that time the OP was wanting to take that pension at 45 , so a similar theme.....

The big problem with this forum is that most posters have large pensions and own property,

Then again if the regular posters to a pensions forum were all skint/ with small pensions, it would not inspire much confidence !