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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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Good (and short!) explanation of COPE
There are lots of queries about COPE cropping up regularly. This is one of the better, not to mention shorter, explanations I could find which might help: https://www.wypf.org.uk/pensioner/all-about-my-pension/contracted-out-pension-equivalent-cope-amount/
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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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New board for state pension top-up / Future Pension Centre / voluntary NICs questions
Hi all Regulars on this board will well know how many threads we've seen in recent months about Future Pension Centre-related questions. As a result of a great suggestion from a Forumite (passed on by a Forum Ambassador) we've created a new sub-board for all these types of threads: ➡️ Topping up your state pension ⬅️ If…
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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 me 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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State Pension forecast updated for 2023/24 NI contributions
I’ve just seen that my 2023/24 NI contributions are now reflected in the HMRC app. So others may be updated now/soon. Nice to see that “You cannot improve your forecast any more” confirmed.
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COPE impact on state pension
My State Pension forecast states that I can get £221.20 (full state pension) when I am 67. It also states that I have an amount of COPE. I understand that the COPE is paid as part of my other pensions, this is fine. What I am unclear about is whether the COPE amount will be deducted from the £221.20 paid by the government.…
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Just can't decide between Drawdown, lifetime or fixed term annuity!
I just can't decide between Drawdown or a lifetime or fixed term annuity for two of my pension pots combined. I keep going round in circles. I don't want to take financial advice as I feel I should be able to work this out myself. Especially with a little help from my Forum friends! I don't think I would have the…
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Unemployed Pension Contributions
Can someone advise please? I only had gross salary earnings this tax year from April to 3rd May, having now left the job and I was in a salary sacrifice scheme, so contributed to my workplace pension for that period. On the assumption that I do not have any other employment for the rest of this current tax year, how much…
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Interactive Investor SIPP question
I note there is a fee of 12.99 per month. Is this the II "platform fee"? You also have to pay a percentage fee - albeit smallish generally around the 0.2% mark - for the various funds that you decide to invest in??? Trying to do the numbers. My workplace pension offers a fee of 0.3% so by the time the platform fee and fund…
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Bucket drawdown strategy, what to put in medium term bucket?
Hi to all you extremely helpful regulars. I've been retired for a couple of years now and so far our spending has been taken from Mrs LW's P/T earnings, rental income and drawing down cash. We have untouched SIPPs and ISAs. I am 59 and my wife is 57, she will retire in 3 years with a DB income that just about replaces her…
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Military widow’s pension CPI increase?
I’m in receipt of a pension due to my husband dying in Service last year. My understanding was that my pension (and those for our young children) would increase in line with the CPI from April. However, I received my remittance letter for all of us today and it is only increasing by 2.79%, not 6.7%. It has now pushed me…
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Civil Service Pensions - Deferred AND Current Member
Hi, I wonder if anyone au fait with civil service pensions may be able to help me. Ive scoured the civil service pension webpages but cant seem to find any guidance on my particular situation. I'm in a perhaps unusual position of having two civil service pensions. 1) A deferred Classic pension from first period of service…
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CS Classic lump sum - when paid?
Quick question - today (May 1st) is the very first day of my retirement (although have been off for a few weeks with leave) so I am expecting to get my first pension payment at the end of May as it is paid in arrears. I am however a little confused as to when I get the Lump Sum - I received a letter from MyCSP a couple of…
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Bold leap into retirement
Morning all, I hope you have managed to find some time for yourself in what can be a busy period. We have enjoyed spending time with family over the last 3 days, it’s a quiet one today, then off to visit more family tomorrow. I’m not planning anything wild for NYE, but have been really starting to think about what I want…
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Reclaiming St James Place costs
I’ve had a barrage of ads and calls about reclaiming charges on my St James pension and investments to the tune of £4200…….. is this like the PPI fiasco and is it legit?
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Multiple pension and ill health early access
If I request early access to one of my pensions does this get recorded by hmrc so that I also have immediate access to the 2 other pension schemes? Can I choose just to have early access to one pension?
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Transition Arrangements for PCLS following abolition of LTA in April
Hi, What is the best source for info regarding the transition stuff? Any feed/stream I should subscribe to? David
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Are we nearly there yet? Option for VR
It's been about 5 years now since husband and I got really interested in FIRE and it feels like we've made good progress in the last few years. Rough plan is to retire in 2 years time when we will be 53/55. We would be happy with a joint income of £40K per year. At the moment we have joint DC pots of £550K and cash / S&S…
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Civil Service - Alpha Pension
Hi, anyone have any ideas if the Annual Adjustment of Pension contributions is the same as the Pension Increase? For example for 2023-24 2.32% of pensionable income built up, but that figure also gets adjusted to take into account cost of living. I can find info about the increases for folks taking their pension, but not…
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Do I need to make Bonus Sacrifice decision without knowing value of bonus?
My employer has advised me that I need to decide what percentage of my discretionary bonus, if any, I wish to sacrifice into my pension. The rub is that I need to do this before I know how much I’ll be getting. Apparently this is HMRC rules, but I can’t find any information about it anywhere. Please could someone point me…
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25% Tax Free Lump Sum or whole amount used in annuity?
Hi all. I have an employer’s
retirement savings plan (not Final Salary just to be clear) and I am 67 so would
like to take the pension. The dilemma I
have is whether to take the TFLS or use the whole amount to buy an annuity. I don’t want income drawdown as pots
can go down as well as up and I'm risk averse. I could take…
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Pension Withdrawal
I currently have a works pension with Royal London.I have withdrawn my 25% cash some years ago. I withdraw my maximum from my pension on monthly basis £1150 per month allowing myself and wife £13800 without any tax implications. My question to you fellow advisors is . If I was to withdraw £30k from this pension pot. What…
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Views on this pension fund?
5 years ago I commuted a small defined benefit pension fund to prudential (using an advisor). Since then I have removed the advisor and left the funds sit as they are. The investments are held in a fund called the "PruFund Growth Fund Series E" and while I like the inbuilt diversity of the investment, I don't like the…
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Topping up Pension in Drawdown
My Partner retired 2 years go (aged 60) with a good DB scheme and a cluster of small SC schemes that I consolidated into Pension Bee ( a further DB scheme start paying out in 3 yrs time ) She is a std rate tax payer The PensionBee fund we drawdown sums, as needed (25% tax free, 75% taxed) In the last 2 previous year we…