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Retirement planning - does my plan have any holes?!

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  • NoMore
    NoMore Posts: 1,578 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Quite often when I speak to colleagues who have the same idea of they want the same as their current income they get from the job for retirement, when you dig deeper, you find that they are currently saving/investing £100's a month (mainly to pay for that retirement) and they do not account for that not being required in retirement. You are living of your savings/investments now, not adding to them.

    It's just easy to think you earn £x so you want £x to continue, but you really need to analyse what £x involves, and you may find you can get away with a much lower amount.
  • I Agree with NoMore. You have more than enough for both you and your spouse. I would definitely look to retire at 60. The funds you have along with the DB pension can last you forever, especially if you know how to utilise them properly to make your money work for you.
  • squirrelpie
    squirrelpie Posts: 1,377 Forumite
    Eighth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Ultimately, it's clear that you can afford to retire now if that's what you want to do. It's simply a question of what things you want to do when you retire and whether you're prepared to vary those things, plus how much you value your own time versus extra time spent at work. As many have said, nothing is certain in life, save death and taxes.
  • kempiejon
    kempiejon Posts: 827 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper
    The change in mindset from accumulating, selling your time for earnings to de-accumulating and having your time back is something that I often ponder. It's currently straight forward to live below my means, defer gratification and enhance SIPPs and ISAs. Year on year my total worth grows (hopefully), the amount by which it grows is my profit, capital gains and accumulated dividends and interest plus investment from earnings. The bigger the amount and the bigger the pot gets the better for accumulating me. 
    I need an amount of safety, some regular income but once I relinquish my grip on permanent full time employment the pot doesn't need to get any bigger, in fact it is sub optimal to accumulate faster than my own inflation.
  • Secret2ndAccount
    Secret2ndAccount Posts: 833 Forumite
    Fifth Anniversary 500 Posts Name Dropper
    OP seems pretty organised. I'm sure they are capable of assessing their own budget.
    When I was working, I was sent all over the world. That meant they often paid for my meals. Also T-shirts (with company logo), USB sticks (with company logo), pens, paper, water...
    Now I'm at home, I have to pay for my own foreign travel. The heating is on twice as much as it used to be. Things that lasted for decades are now wearing out because I've started using them.  Last year I spent 60k. That is at least double what I needed when I was working. Fortunately it was easy to build a pot when I had no time to spend on anything.
    One of the positives of having a larger budget - I don't keep a separate fund for capital items. If the boiler needs replacing, it gets absorbed into the mainstream spend.

  • Wobble101
    Wobble101 Posts: 71 Forumite
    Fourth Anniversary 10 Posts Name Dropper
    OP seems pretty organised. I'm sure they are capable of assessing their own budget.
    When I was working, I was sent all over the world. That meant they often paid for my meals. Also T-shirts (with company logo), USB sticks (with company logo), pens, paper, water...
    Now I'm at home, I have to pay for my own foreign travel. The heating is on twice as much as it used to be. Things that lasted for decades are now wearing out because I've started using them.  Last year I spent 60k. That is at least double what I needed when I was working. Fortunately it was easy to build a pot when I had no time to spend on anything.
    One of the positives of having a larger budget - I don't keep a separate fund for capital items. If the boiler needs replacing, it gets absorbed into the mainstream spend.

    Thank you. I know where our money goes and, as said earlier, know there is some excess in the target income I mentioned. 

    As you’ve said really well, there are going to be costs that we didn’t have when I was working - and given we won’t have as many years together in retirement as we assumed, we don’t want to be worrying about spending we previously took for granted. I’m also aware that with more time on my hands my ability to spend increases - I’d like to do some courses, eat out etc.
  • Wobble101
    Wobble101 Posts: 71 Forumite
    Fourth Anniversary 10 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 29 March at 8:32PM
    Thanks @JamesRobinson48. The first of your scenarios is the one I worry about but in reality whether I retire at 60 or 61 won’t really affect our ability to manage those costs. It’s in my bucket of too hard to plan for as it’s so unknown. Our home is our main asset and I guess if we had to we would sell it and downsize. If one of us died neither of us would stay here on our own. 

    My son is lucky enough to have some money left to him by a grandparent - not loads but enough to make a significant contribution to a deposit. I’ve an elderly parent but a well off one - they would be able to cover future care costs.


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