Should I start a pension?

squirrelpie

I'm surprised your accountant didn't suggest pensions when you were operating your company.

Possiblyretired

squirrelpie said:

I'm surprised your accountant didn't suggest pensions when you were operating your company.

That would probably be my fault because I did our personal tax returns. Hindsight ect.

Albermarle

Possiblyretired said:

xylophone said:

hustling in Europe.

Sounds slightly on the tabasco side as PG Wodehouse would have said....

Perhaps you should write a book about your experiences,,, a best seller would bring in the shekels!

It is certainly worth your while to check on making voluntary contributions so as to maximise state pension entitlement.

Are you both making full use of your ISA entitlement?

And a personal pension for each of you?

Yep, less details the better! Mind you, a book is not a bad idea 
This is what I have learnt today and what I'll be cracking on with -

Open a personal pension or SIPP and contribute £2,880 to get £720/year in relief.

Each put £20,000 a year into ISAs.

Possibly make voluntarily make NI payments once online service is up and running, before year end I hope.
Make appointment with local ifa
Figure out what is considered reasonable % costs to having a pension (or sipp?)*

Figure out what on earth a sensible spread of investments means

* side thought, maybe we should look at putting the commercial property into a sipp? Do people do that?

To take a step back. You have £700K to last you a lifetime and the state pension on top.
The main problem with keeping it in savings, is that normally interest rates are lower than inflation, so each year the value/spending power of your pot goes down a little. Unusually for the next 12 months or so interest rates will probably be above inflation but that is unlikely to continue long term.
So normally it would be the case to have some ( not all) of the £700K invested, as this should produce growth above inflation in the long term and make the pot last longer/produce a bigger income.
Or alternatively use some of it to buy a guaranteed income, with an annuity.
I think taking account your lack of experience in these areas you should employ an IFA to help you.

If you want to put a commercial property in a SIPP, then you are going into an even more complicated area, so professional advice really would be needed.

af1963

The voluntary NI payments may need to be spread over time.  You can pay for missing past years, but not in advance for future years.  For yours in particular, you might need to buy some years between now and retirement age. The total cost of each year usually won't change ( other than being inflation-linked), but future governments could potentially change this (in any way they choose).