USS - please tell me this is not as bad as it looks.

MarlowMallard

owlowlowl said:

Clueless again here! Very grateful for any help.

Husband and I are getting on top of pensions way too late in the day. Both USS. Husband earns £85,414 a year gross. We have not paid in any AVCs to date. He is about to turn 53. 

Current retirement projection at 66 is DB £36,357, lump sum £109,072, investment builder £102,489.

It's important to know if the £36,357 is real-terms, i.e. purchasing power of £36k today,  or actual £36k in 2038 when it'll buy a lot less.

You should be able to check this if you put in 0% inflation to the modeller.  Or, find value now of DB earned as of now (if he quit tomorrow but took the 
 pension at 65/66 without actuarial reduction), then add (1/75) times £72k times 13 years to go  for future accrual of DB. 
 (The DB scheme has a salary cap of £72k , and his + employer contributions on the chunk over that go into Investment Builder).   

Since past benefits and future DB accrual should be roughly inflation-linked, that will give you roughly the present-day DB value if he retires at 66.  

glass_half_full

Hi,

As you are 47 time is on your side. On the USS site you can see the performance of the various funds over several years. Of course the past is no guide to the future. I work at a University and I only got serious about saving into the investment Builder around the time of the pandemic. Have a look at the USS Sharia fund for example. There is no shortcut to learning about this stuff, but you will get there.