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Retirement - Actual vs Expectation
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Phossy said:FIREDreamer said:
Very roughly, £140K? (this is just a back of a napkin thing assuming that investment returns matches inflation).0 -
Hello all, thank you everyone for responses. My actual monthly expenditure is £1250 and I put aside another £350 a month for non regular things eg repairs, clothes etc. Your kind words have really help and comforted me a lot, I was starting to panic. I am happier to carry on putting in as much money away as possible until we reach 60 and that should take us to the £400k mark.5
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Pat38493 said:gorgeousme said:Sorry to be unclear. The figures are for my husband and me. I read other people’s posts on this forum and they often quote figures of over £500k in pensions along with more monies in ISAs, properties and investments so I feel inadequate and scared. I guess I am wondering if I’m chasing after rainbows. I want to learn from others’ experience hence my last paragraph. Retirement should be a happy time, but I’m petrified.
The first step is to understand as accurately as possible how much you think you will need to cover your retirement (including not only your basic essential expenditure, but leisure items, luxuries, and any irregular but significant costs like replacing cars and suchlike).
Also do you still have remaining mortgage or any debts - if so those needs to be taken into account one way or the other?
If indeed your annual expenditure as a couple is £1600pm and that's all, as others have pointed out, by the time you are both receiving state pension, all of your requirements will be met by your state pension.
Therefore you only really need enough in your pension and savings pots to cover the time between when you retire and when your state pensions are starting. Based on your figures, £384K is actually way more than enough and you could probably stop working earlier.
There is a thread on the over 50s part of these boards called "How much is enough to live on" which might be worth a read - you can find lots of people living on even a lot less than what you are quoting.
Finally you will also need to consider what will be the situation when one of you passes away before the other, especially if it's much earlier than expected. That said, the chances of living way beyond 80 years old are quite high these days.
Edit: I've found it! In the Money Saving one!0 -
CrickJon said:Pat38493 said:gorgeousme said:Sorry to be unclear. The figures are for my husband and me. I read other people’s posts on this forum and they often quote figures of over £500k in pensions along with more monies in ISAs, properties and investments so I feel inadequate and scared. I guess I am wondering if I’m chasing after rainbows. I want to learn from others’ experience hence my last paragraph. Retirement should be a happy time, but I’m petrified.
The first step is to understand as accurately as possible how much you think you will need to cover your retirement (including not only your basic essential expenditure, but leisure items, luxuries, and any irregular but significant costs like replacing cars and suchlike).
Also do you still have remaining mortgage or any debts - if so those needs to be taken into account one way or the other?
If indeed your annual expenditure as a couple is £1600pm and that's all, as others have pointed out, by the time you are both receiving state pension, all of your requirements will be met by your state pension.
Therefore you only really need enough in your pension and savings pots to cover the time between when you retire and when your state pensions are starting. Based on your figures, £384K is actually way more than enough and you could probably stop working earlier.
There is a thread on the over 50s part of these boards called "How much is enough to live on" which might be worth a read - you can find lots of people living on even a lot less than what you are quoting.
Finally you will also need to consider what will be the situation when one of you passes away before the other, especially if it's much earlier than expected. That said, the chances of living way beyond 80 years old are quite high these days.I’m a Senior Forum Ambassador and I support the Forum Team on the Pensions, Annuities & Retirement Planning, Loans
& Credit Cards boards. If you need any help on these boards, do let me know. Please note that Ambassadors are not moderators. Any posts you spot in breach of the Forum Rules should be reported via the report button, or by emailing forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com.
All views are my own and not the official line of MoneySavingExpert.3 -
gorgeousme said:Hello all, thank you everyone for responses. My actual monthly expenditure is £1250 and I put aside another £350 a month for non regular things eg repairs, clothes etc. Your kind words have really help and comforted me a lot, I was starting to panic. I am happier to carry on putting in as much money away as possible until we reach 60 and that should take us to the £400k mark.1
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gorgeousme said:Hello all, thank you everyone for responses. My actual monthly expenditure is £1250 and I put aside another £350 a month for non regular things eg repairs, clothes etc. Your kind words have really help and comforted me a lot, I was starting to panic. I am happier to carry on putting in as much money away as possible until we reach 60 and that should take us to the £400k mark.
The ability to live a happy contented life on a low'ish income is a gift, the ability to find value, the disinterest in overpriced tat or status symbols, not believing myths like "you get what you pay for", not always assuming a correlation between price and quality. That's probably worth a half million pension pot16 -
zagfles said:gorgeousme said:Hello all, thank you everyone for responses. My actual monthly expenditure is £1250 and I put aside another £350 a month for non regular things eg repairs, clothes etc. Your kind words have really help and comforted me a lot, I was starting to panic. I am happier to carry on putting in as much money away as possible until we reach 60 and that should take us to the £400k mark.
The ability to live a happy contented life on a low'ish income is a gift, the ability to find value, the disinterest in overpriced tat or status symbols, not believing myths like "you get what you pay for", not always assuming a correlation between price and quality. That's probably worth a half million pension pot
in a world filled with sarcastic keyboard warriors, it is really refreshing to experience such helpfulness and kindness in these forums. Thank you to you all, you have all helped me.8 -
gorgeousme said:zagfles said:gorgeousme said:Hello all, thank you everyone for responses. My actual monthly expenditure is £1250 and I put aside another £350 a month for non regular things eg repairs, clothes etc. Your kind words have really help and comforted me a lot, I was starting to panic. I am happier to carry on putting in as much money away as possible until we reach 60 and that should take us to the £400k mark.
The ability to live a happy contented life on a low'ish income is a gift, the ability to find value, the disinterest in overpriced tat or status symbols, not believing myths like "you get what you pay for", not always assuming a correlation between price and quality. That's probably worth a half million pension pot
in a world filled with sarcastic keyboard warriors, it is really refreshing to experience such helpfulness and kindness in these forums. Thank you to you all, you have all helped me.
If you read them for long enough, then you will find the odd stroppy type0 -
gorgeousme said:Hello all, thank you everyone for responses. My actual monthly expenditure is £1250 and I put aside another £350 a month for non regular things eg repairs, clothes etc. Your kind words have really help and comforted me a lot, I was starting to panic. I am happier to carry on putting in as much money away as possible until we reach 60 and that should take us to the £400k mark.
We're nearly 18 months into retirement and our actual spending is coming out somewhere a bit higher than I hoped, but comfortably below what I had planned for. Some of that might be inflation between the time we were finalising our plans and actual retirement.1 -
gorgeousme said:Hello all, thank you everyone for responses. My actual monthly expenditure is £1250 and I put aside another £350 a month for non regular things eg repairs, clothes etc. Your kind words have really help and comforted me a lot, I was starting to panic. I am happier to carry on putting in as much money away as possible until we reach 60 and that should take us to the £400k mark.
Good luck and well done for saving nearly 400k - it is way above average in the UK.1
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