Lerveraging pension contributions when at or near 55

NedS

mark55man said:

NedS said:

Also, depending on your planned retirement date and cash requirements, it may be useful to use the 3 x Small Pots rule to cycle cash into a pension and withdraw again (upto £10k) without triggering the MPAA and restricting future contributions.

@NedS - thank you for this.  I had seen but forgotten the 3 x trick.

I was just looking at ways of safeguarding against the (very low) risk of having triggered MPAA by starting income drawdown in retirement but then finding that my early retirement didn't stick.  3x10K is exactly the shortfall that would make up the missing 18 months in my plans. (I figure if still happy after 18 months then I'm good!!!)

Yes, I'm planning on exactly the same - retiring at 56 but leaving the door open to return should anything go horribly wrong in the first few years. I will also be looking to go on the basis of a 5 year career break offered by my employer, again leaving the door open to return if necessary. It all adds flexibility to my plan around worst case scenarios.

mark55man

and sorry OP for slightly going off at a tangent.  More related to your line of thinking, I had once thought of using a years worth of living on credit to delay taking my DB pension for a year.  That would give me an extra £1K a year in net extra cash at the cost of £30K of credit.  I decided that it was too complex and I didn't really have a solid repayment plan (commuting the increase for the extra lump sum didn't really work)

If I am successful in my savings I might reconsider, but there are lots of games you can play, but I suspect the benefits may be marginal