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Pensions Planning: The NUMBER
The NUMBER is how much income you need to "live comfortably" So What's your number? Very important for pensions planning, to know what you are aiming for. My Number? (for a couple) I calculated: £22,000 based on Food £5,000 Car/transport £5,000 Bills/Utilities £4,500 Holidays/Leisure £4,500 Clothing/Cash/Xmas/Other £2,000…
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Success Stories - Pensions
This is a bit of a light topic where the idea is to highlight what successes you had with your pension pots. Example - I contributed X and accumulated Y by Z year. Total appreciation was 'x' percent. Just trying to learn the following that could inspire a range of people - those with no pension, those who started late etc.…
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Acronyms etc..
Hello to all. As a fairly new forum user I would appreciate someone posting a key to the acronyms and arcane terms used when discussing pension issues. Thank you in advance.
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Pensions, Annuities & Retirement Planning Sticky
Welcome to the new Pensions, Annuities and Retirement Planning sticky! 👋 📖 Here are some Forum threads you may find useful (if there are any you think have been missed, please do let us know): * Can I cash in my pension? * Early-retirement wannabe * It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts!!!! 📝 And here's some…
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SIPP and reaching age 75
My understanding is that if you die before reaching age 75, then a SIPP is inherited (let's say by your widow) and can be taken free of tax. But if you die after reaching 75 then she pays tax at her marginal rate on withdrawals from the SIPP. What I hadn't appreciated, but have recently read, is that in the latter case the…
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Self Assessment / pension / tax calculating
Hi, I've searched for something like this for a few days now but nothing quite fits. Basically as you can't use the Gov.UK website to run a simulation of a self employed return prior to the end of the current tax year what I'm looking for is some kind of simulator or calculator that allows you to input profits, interest…
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Querying USS retirement quotations?
Do any of the USSers on the forum have experience of how best to query information from USS and actually have them engage with the query. Back in Feb 2025, when my institution opened a VSS, I asked for a retirement quotation for end of July 2025, which I did not take up. Now in January 2026, I asked for a quotation for…
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Tax and Drawdown
My DW will earn circa £5k from her savings (ex ISAs) in tax year 25/26 which will be tax free as covered by the £5k starter savings allowance. Her tax code for 25/26 is C1131N and she has utilised her personal allowance and withdrawn £11,310 from her crystallised DC pension pot. However, she's been taxed £187 in tax when I…
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Late Pension Payments
Hi all my first post. I work in local government. I have two pension pots, one in my current employer, one in my old employer. The issue is that I decided to retire in early April, the new tax year. I understand my current employer wont start the process of sorting my pension until I retire but the problem is my old…
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First Drawdown
So. In April I will be drawing down around 25k per year for the first year. Had a phone call with the company and I advised I wanted 25k for the upcoming year taken from drawdown pot.(TFLS taken allready) went through various questions and got to the end , he advised as my first withdrawal would be taxed at emergency tax…
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How valuable is my DB pension actually?
I am 37 and I have a DB pension currently worth £15k per year. A quick google search tells me that to draw down that much on a DC pension pot it would typically be a pot of £375-400k. This seems staggering to me since google also says the average pension pot size at retirement age is currently circa £150k. How can I be so…
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NHS Pension - early retirement work out?
Hi there My partner works for the NHS and is a member of 1995 and 2015 schemes respectively. We are just wanting to find out how to get projections of if she wants to retire early but are finding it incredibly difficult to work out how to do this. Understand that the 1995 scheme is normal retirement age of 60 and the 12015…
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IFA vs DIY
I'd be interested to learn what are folks' views on DIY pension management vs. handing over to an IFA or similar? My immediate concerns would be handing over my life savings to a relative unknown and them scarpering off with the money, their ability to manage the risk, pick funds/bonds etc, fees, etc. On the other hand, it…
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CS 'Widowers Pension Scheme' refunds - any way to calculate amount?
Quote from CS pension website - 'All classic members contribute 1.5% of their salary towards a pension for their spouse or civil partner in the possible event of their (the member’s) death. If the member never married and remains single until the point of retiring, they may be eligible to receive a refund of these…
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Civil Service Pension (and refund of WPS contributions)
Hi all I am trying to find out how much the WPS contribution part of my CS pension is? I appreciate it will not be paid out until I fully retire (I part retried in 2018- Classic). I have been single throughout my CS career. I don't currently want to raise a query due to the current mess the CS pension is in re Capita !…
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I Used ChatGPT to Predict the Inflation Rate
I saw the government's prediction for future inflation rates today: which I found to be laughable. It seems that wherever it is now, they think it will head rapidly to 2% then stay there. I asked ChatGPT to take the same graph and make a prediction. Here is the result: Slightly different… Though perhaps even more unlikely…
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Ltd Company Director SIPP Contributions
I am the sole shareholder of my limited company and the company currently pays £60,000 per year into my SIPP and all my carry back allowance has been utilised. Can my company pay in more than the £60,000 allowance and simply not get the corporation tax deduction? Or do I face a tax charge as the employee? Or am I simply…
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relating to possible 2nd pension drawdown, etc
Hi all, its just over a year since i posted on here last.. with some of the posters help it enabled me to get a better understanding so i could carry out a pension restructure and take my first drawdown.. i now have a crystallised (inactive in terms of payments goin in) pension with most of my funds in (this i intend not…
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It's no brainer to consolidate my pensions into Fidelity or other cheaper SIPP?
Hi fellow members, I’ve more or less made up my mind to retire once both of my sons have finished university. My pension + ISA is about 1.7m. I have several pension accounts from previous employments. My current workplace pension with Fidelity is very flexible, and the only charges at the moment are the fund management…
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De-risking before retirement
So, I plan (hope) to retire in about 18 months, when I will be 61. I have a works pension and the state pension from age 67, which seems okay. To bridge the gap of 6 years, I'll need about £150k, which I currently have in a combination of ISAs and a SIPP. I'm working for the next 18 months to build up a cash reserve and…
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Are my pensions going to be enough?
I'm 50 Top photo is from a place i worked at for ten months Bottom photo shows my Aviva private pension; pay £120/month into it. Payslip shows my current payments to a workbased pension, can I ask them to increase this? How much am I getting off it? Any good? How do these compare with police/pcso/nurse pensions I heard if…
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Pensions advice - Can't top up workplace pension need private pension? Not sure what to do?
Hi, my son is 25. He has a workplace pension with Nest (no choice). His employer is paying the minimum contribution and his employer wouldn't match any increase he makes to his pension. He can't make any increases to Nest through his employer (they don't even acknowledge his questions about this). So, he has been looking…
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Pension and Isa strategy
Hi all Just thought I'd get some wider thoughts on my current thinking. As background, I'm 40ish, earn £260k per year including bonus, have £400k in a DC pension and £130k in S&s Isa. I am married and my wife earns approx £13k, and in enrolled on a LGPS scheme. Our Isa number above is our combined total. I'm starting to…
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New Capita-run Civil Service Pension Scheme - problems (what a surprise!)
So, Capita have taken over the admin for the CSPS and their new website and members portal went live this week. I have just registered on the new portal and am not in the least bit surprised to find that the information available on the new portal is very scant and incorrect in terms of my length of service. With…
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736 discussions
6.4K comments
Most recent: Proof of Class 3 Validity - Working Abroad by sheramber
3 March at 11:25AM
