Looking for a good pension calculator

Gaberdeen

Late to the party, but I really like the Prudential Retirement Modeller 

https://www.mandg.com/pru/tools-calculators/pru-retirement-modeller/index.html

The detailed models can help forecast your pot at retirement, variances in income and in the case of drawdown, help you work out how long that might last.

I will note that there are a few bugs with it

You cannot pick a (custom) fund with an estimated growth rate of greater than 8% (probably sensible as opposed to a bug) and the 25% lump sum doesn't default to the Cap when the TFLS ends up over £268,275. - it caculates 25% of your pot and deducts it at retirement which aint gonna be what happens lol

Everything else about it is very good.

I've since checked Guiide and that looks like a good site, too so I will definitely have a play about with that.

vacheron

PenActuary said:

Hi

I see there a few questions about Guiide here. Its my site so please ask anything you want. Always happy to help. If you don't want to raise it here please just email us. Not sure if I am allowed to put the email here but its all over the site.

Couple of points raised that I have seen we assume you will get the full state pension, revalued to your state pension age, so if its £230 a week now if will be higher if your state pension age is a few years away. We know not everyone will get a full one so in the Dashboard area there is a state pension help section where we show you how to get an NI record and we can pro-rata the amount if you have less than 35 years.

We assume the lowest age you can access your DC pension pots is 55, yes the minimum retirement age is increasing to 57, but lots of people may still have protection so we allow 55 as the youngest age possible

Yes we ask if people have started accessing their pensions yet. This means accessing their DC pension pots. If they have we build them a plan from next month, come back later and its the next month again. We then ask "did you" rather than "will you" take 25% TFC. We need to know this so that we can tax the remaining pot correctly.

Any issues/questions you have at all just let me know.

Thanks

Kevin

Hi Kevin. 

Thank you for taking the time to sign up and introduce yourself and thank you for this amazingly useful tool you have provided for us all to use. Aside from the introduction of the couples planning, which others have already asked about (and I have a sort of workaround for now), one doubt I would like confirmed is about DB pension additions:
 
I have a one modest DB pension from my first employer whch I plan to use alongside my state pension for a guaranteed baseline income while my DC pensions will cover my additional (variable) income requirements.

My DB provider pension site provides all their estimates in todays money. So I am currently extrapolating a likely value on the date I am planning to take the DB pension and using this as the "annual starting income" in your calculator.

Can you confirm that this is correct, or is the increase between todays value and the DB start date also taken into account by the calculator using the (no/inflation/3%/5%) options available when adding it? 

Thanks in advance.

PenActuary

vacheron said:

PenActuary said:

Hi

I see there a few questions about Guiide here. Its my site so please ask anything you want. Always happy to help. If you don't want to raise it here please just email us. Not sure if I am allowed to put the email here but its all over the site.

Couple of points raised that I have seen we assume you will get the full state pension, revalued to your state pension age, so if its £230 a week now if will be higher if your state pension age is a few years away. We know not everyone will get a full one so in the Dashboard area there is a state pension help section where we show you how to get an NI record and we can pro-rata the amount if you have less than 35 years.

We assume the lowest age you can access your DC pension pots is 55, yes the minimum retirement age is increasing to 57, but lots of people may still have protection so we allow 55 as the youngest age possible

Yes we ask if people have started accessing their pensions yet. This means accessing their DC pension pots. If they have we build them a plan from next month, come back later and its the next month again. We then ask "did you" rather than "will you" take 25% TFC. We need to know this so that we can tax the remaining pot correctly.

Any issues/questions you have at all just let me know.

Thanks

Kevin

Hi Kevin. 

Thank you for taking the time to sign up and introduce yourself and thank you for this amazingly useful tool you have provided for us all to use. Aside from the introduction of the couples planning, which others have already asked about (and I have a sort of workaround for now), one doubt I would like confirmed is about DB pension additions:
 
I have a one modest DB pension from my first employer whch I plan to use alongside my state pension for a guaranteed baseline income while my DC pensions will cover my additional (variable) income requirements.

My DB provider pension site provides all their estimates in todays money. So I am currently extrapolating a likely value on the date I am planning to take the DB pension and using this as the "annual starting income" in your calculator.

Can you confirm that this is correct, or is the increase between todays value and the DB start date also taken into account by the calculator using the (no/inflation/3%/5%) options available when adding it? 

Thanks in advance.

Many thanks for the question. In inputting data we use nominal amounts, people generally find it much easier. Obviously not the case here as all your provider gives you is todays money. We use 2.5% as an inflation assumption after retirement and to estimate future State Pension increases up to state pension date. So if you quote say £2000, and its 5 years away I would input £2000*1.025^5 = £2260 as an estimated starting pension. One thing I would say with Guiide is its not a static plan you can update things as they become clearer. So you'll get a better estimate of this the closer you get and at the final point an actual retirement quote from a specific payment date. So you can always get a more accurate analysis as you near retirement. Other things will obviously change also, such as pot values, tax bands, State Pension estimates etc so we recommend at least an annual review before retirement, a review at the point of starting your pension pot drawdown and at least annually thereafter. You can do all this easily in the Dashboard/Track area. 

squirrelpie

I'm 71. Guiide says it will make a plan starting straight away, which is fine, and I told it I've already accessed my pensions. Then when it asks me about what type of retirement I want (minimum, moderate or comfortable) it says "the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) suggest an after tax income if you retired in 2023 of £31,300. We have increased that by 2.5% per year to when you want to retire" and gives a figure of £32,900. The PLSA site still gives a figure of £31,300, so why does Guiide mention 2023? And why the inflation?

edit: I see it also thinks the current state pension is £11,501, so obviously it's living in the past for some reason !! ?

squirrelpie

Hmm, When I told it I had accessed my pension already, it asked me whether I had taken all my my tax-free cash and I said no. Now looking at the plan it says it has assumed I'm going to keep on doing that (i.e. UFPLS or equivalent). I'd think taking all the tax free cash first in tranches as part of my income when needed would likely be a better plan - or is that not right?

PenActuary

OK so 25% of every pension drawdown is tax free. Lets say you want 25K in the next year. The most tax efficient way to take it is 12570/0.75 (your tax free allowance) plus 25% tax free = 16760 then if you have any savings 8240 to make up the rest. No income tax at all. Yes you could take a tax free cash lump of say 25K but then would not take advantage of getting the 16760 out tax free. In our calcs we always use any remaining tax free allowance then if you haven't taken a lump sum divide it by 0.75. We do this until your savings run out. 

PenActuary

On the PLSA question, the latest publishes standards were based on data in 2023. Look at the fine print in the retirement living standards site it say "The latest research updating the standards was carried out in 2023" so as its 2025 we have updated it by 2.5% a year to 2025.

For the State Pension, if you are before state pension age it will estimate the figure. That figure is the 2025 state pension revalued up at 2.5% for each April until your state pension age. If you are over State Pension age yes we need to update the 11,501 figure which it uses as a suggestion for current state pension, but as you are over State Pension Age you must know the actual amount being paid and you are invited to put this in. Apologies around 0.1% of our users are currently above State pension age and its something thats been overlooked. Thanks for bringing it to our attention, will get it fixed. I love my old decks and vinyl collection, so am guilty of living in the past a bit!!

squirrelpie

PenActuary said:

On the PLSA question, the latest publishes standards were based on data in 2023. Look at the fine print in the retirement living standards site it say "The latest research updating the standards was carried out in 2023" so as its 2025 we have updated it by 2.5% a year to 2025.

Maybe it's worth saying that on your site, since it fooled me. It's not obvious when you look at the PLSA site, even if you go looking for it, which I didn't.

squirrelpie

PenActuary said:

OK so 25% of every pension drawdown is tax free. Lets say you want 25K in the next year. The most tax efficient way to take it is 12570/0.75 (your tax free allowance) plus 25% tax free = 16760 then if you have any savings 8240 to make up the rest. No income tax at all. Yes you could take a tax free cash lump of say 25K but then would not take advantage of getting the 16760 out tax free. In our calcs we always use any remaining tax free allowance then if you haven't taken a lump sum divide it by 0.75. We do this until your savings run out. 

That doesn't cover my case, or probably a lot of others. My state pension plus a DB pension take up all my tax free allowance, so there's no notion of a tax free £16760. Everything I take from my DC pension is at BR (unless I spend even more!). Which I suppose is why you run down my savings account first in my plan? Not what I actually intend to do. But if I take tax-free cash from the pension first, then it is claimed and leaves more cash in the pot. As and when I die, any 'tax free' cash left in the pot suddenly becomes taxable and so less valuable. I could crystallise my entire pot, slowly over several years, and take the whole tax free amount without touching a penny of taxable money if I wanted.

PenActuary

Many thanks for the feedback, we will look at making the 2023 reference around the PLSA clearer. Noted on the fact around already exceeding the tax free allowance already and you are correct we will take drawdown from savings in that case to minimise income tax. We optimise the calculations based on income tax, but understand some people may also have inheritance tax issues and given the recent changes in legislation around pensions and inheritance tax may wish to seek advice around this.