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Post by speedysteve on May 13, 2023 7:33:16 GMT
It's pretty complicated these days.
Flexibility brings complication.
I was reading about annuity rates being higher now than in many years. Thanks to the higher interest rates.
So, they are making a bit of a come back in popularity.
In 2016 the best annuity rate was 4.8%.
They dipped further, but recently up to 6.3% at most competitive!
You don't have to take the annuity with the company your pot is with..
I was curious if taking out now, 5 years earlier than previously considered, would be a good idea to secure the extra %.
Balance that against leaving in another 5 years (although growth is low at this point), and being younger, potentially living longer in the providers eyes this getting a lower rate.
Balance that against drawdown against leave alone until older 70, 75 etc and then get an even better rate.
Later on I have several pensions that can't be taken early, 2 of them very good Swedish rates.
One pays out an elevated rate between 65 and 70 then drops back a bit for perpetuity.
Nice idea, I've retired, lets travel or doing something nice while still young enough🙂
As you near end of life, perpetuity takes on a different meaning😂
Question about the advisor you mentioned Martin.
How do they make their money when advising you?
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Post by MartinT on May 13, 2023 7:52:36 GMT
My adviser made me look at it quite clearly:
- Try to live day to day on the bigger pensions, like Final Salary schemes, as well as the state pension, that generate income
- Put all the rest into a draw-down pot from which you can take big money when needed
That way, the pot continues to be invested while you're not using it.
I'm using Cobens and they take a percentage of the pot for arranging it all. The good news, though, is that it's 2% or capped at £1,995. So not a lot, then, for arranging everything and organising the new pot and all the pension companies for a draw-down pot likely to be around £300k. No further retention fees, either. They're FCA approved.
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Post by MartinT on Jun 14, 2023 9:28:22 GMT
So that's the second of my Final Salary pension paperwork now submitted, which takes care of this October when I'm 65.
All that's left is to consolidate all my other pensions (including my existing employer's one) into a single pot ready for when I'm 66 and retired, and claim my state pension at the same time. It's been an awful lot of form-filling and none of the pension companies are up to date with online forms. Don't even get me started on some of the questions and wording...
Q. Annual rate of pension in payment (before deduction of any tax) on 5 April 2006
Q. Annual rate of pension in payment (before deduction of any tax) at the date you first took a pension on or after 6 April 2006
Q. For each pension that has or will come into payment on or after 6 April 2006 and before the date of retirement shown at the top of this form, please provide the following information: Percentage of Standard Lifetime Allowance that the total benefit taken represents.
Aargh, finding the answers to these questions is not easy!
I honestly don't know what some people do if they don't keep track of all the various statements, online portals and a good spreadsheet!
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Post by MikeMusic on Jun 14, 2023 9:39:53 GMT
Get it done now while your brain is in gear
I have so many bits I need to get around to
Have an office to work from when you retire
Previously I went to the desktop and my office at home.
The laptop caused a problem as I sit in front of the system and most things are somewhere else.
I did a lot of personal work at my work desk when I was working, fitting things into the working day while still working most of the time
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Post by MartinT on Jun 14, 2023 11:44:33 GMT
Have an office to work from when you retire Previously I went to the desktop and my office at home. The laptop caused a problem as I sit in front of the system and most things are somewhere else. I did a lot of personal work at my work desk when I was working, fitting things into the working day while still working most of the time All good tips. I do have, and always will have, a desk in the study with my home PC. I also do home stuff at work during breaks (like this one). You need a decent screen for number crunching and will go mad with only a laptop. Most importantly: use Excel or Google Sheets and keep all your numbers up to date, logging when you update an entry and where from (e.g. letter, portal). |
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Post by MartinT on Jun 28, 2023 7:05:37 GMT
The plan is complete. All my income pensions (final salary schemes in 2024 and the state pension in 2025) combined will give me an income slightly higher than I have now, so I'll be able to live on them quite comfortably. One DC pension plus one stand-alone will go into a drawdown pension managed by AJ Bell and my current DC pension will add to it in 2025 when I retire. I am going to dump some more salary into that DC pension for the next year while I receive some pensions above and am still working. I have also taken a lump sum to put into savings to cover future moving and possible building costs when we move. I am very glad that I sought advice (I used Cobens), pensions are a minefield and I would probably have made some non-optimal decisions if I had tried to do it on my own. |
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Fro
Rank: Quartet
Posts: 342
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Post by Fro on Jul 19, 2023 13:52:48 GMT
In my retirement I have never been busier doing house projects like updating the flooring, cabinets, and fixtures throughout the house. I bought a Porter Cable tile saw which has performed flawlessly on the tile jobs. Examples of before/after in progress.  
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Post by stanleyb on Jul 26, 2023 21:28:17 GMT
That's an absolutely fabulous amount of work that you are doing there. I love it.
My dear wife has bought a patch of land in her native country Ghana, not far from the coast. She would now like me to design a suitable bungalow. I designed our extension and kitchen, and the 3D rendering were amazingly accurate to the finished work. So she thinks that I should be able to manage a bungalow. Her confidence levels in me are sometimes questionable....
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Post by Slinger on Jul 26, 2023 21:35:53 GMT
That's an absolutely fabulous amount of work that you are doing there. I love it. My dear wife has bought a patch of land in her native country Ghana, not far from the coast. She would now like me to design a suitable bungalow. I designed our extension and kitchen, and the 3D rendering were amazingly accurate to the finished work. So she thinks that I should be able to manage a bungalow. Her confidence levels in me are sometimes questionable.... Just out of interest, Stan, what modelling/rendering software are you using? |
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Post by stanleyb on Jul 26, 2023 21:45:31 GMT
I am less than 12 months away from retirement age, but I am not sure that I can afford to retire. When I started doing proper planning for it around 15 years ago I based many of my calculations on future earnings. But the 2008 financial crash and then the Brexit vote in 2016 has left me far more exposed than I had expected. My daughter moved back in, because it was becoming to expensive for her to rent, and my youngest son has yet to start a job after just had his graduation ceremony. Mind you, 5 degrees amounts 3 kids has been a hell of a financial ride. Student accommodation and living expenses are the stuff of nightmares. I don't know how those who had to borrow the money are going to manage in future years.
That's not to say that I don't have any savings, but the missus has had me dipping in it for so long that I am getting worried now.
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Post by stanleyb on Jul 26, 2023 21:46:45 GMT
That's an absolutely fabulous amount of work that you are doing there. I love it. My dear wife has bought a patch of land in her native country Ghana, not far from the coast. She would now like me to design a suitable bungalow. I designed our extension and kitchen, and the 3D rendering were amazingly accurate to the finished work. So she thinks that I should be able to manage a bungalow. Her confidence levels in me are sometimes questionable.... Just out of interest, Stan, what modelling/rendering software are you using? Chief Architect. www.chiefarchitect.com |
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Post by MartinT on Jul 27, 2023 4:38:57 GMT
That's not to say that I don't have any savings, but the missus has had me dipping in it for so long that I am getting worried now. That's a tough call. My adviser asked questions like how long I expect to live, what are my health issues etc. I had an hour's Teams call with him on Tuesday where he had used modelling predictors to show me how my pension pot would hold out and what annuities would be available at the age of 85+. I'm sure he was thinking "retirement home" while I was thinking "in the ground, mate". |
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Post by MikeMusic on Jul 27, 2023 8:51:31 GMT
That's not to say that I don't have any savings, but the missus has had me dipping in it for so long that I am getting worried now. That's a tough call. My adviser asked questions like how long I expect to live, what are my health issues etc. I had an hour's Teams call with him on Tuesday where he had used modelling predictors to show me how my pension pot would hold out and what annuities would be available at the age of 85+. I'm sure he was thinking "retirement home" while I was thinking "in the ground, mate". Guessing game to work out how long one has Good diet and keeping fit are good, yet luck has a part to play |
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Post by stanleyb on Jul 27, 2023 10:24:44 GMT
That's not to say that I don't have any savings, but the missus has had me dipping in it for so long that I am getting worried now. That's a tough call. My adviser asked questions like how long I expect to live, what are my health issues etc. I had an hour's Teams call with him on Tuesday where he had used modelling predictors to show me how my pension pot would hold out and what annuities would be available at the age of 85+. I'm sure he was thinking "retirement home" while I was thinking "in the ground, mate". After you told me your life story of the last decade or two I can fully understand where you are coming from. I lost some fabulously wealthy friends who never made it to pensionable age, whilst at the same time I have a friend who was going to sell his UK home, share the proceeds between his kids, and retire in the West Indies in order to die quietly of cancer that had hit him. I convinced him not to sell up, but use the house as a base every time he needed to come back for medical treatment etc. Miraculously, he has more or less recovered from his illness, and has "rented" out the house to his daughter. The rent she pays goes towards his pension. At the other end of the spectrum I have a friend who was forced to retire last March because his pension pot and personal wealth are so great, his two kids are worried about the tax liabilities he and his wife are going to leave them with unless he starts spending some money quickly to reduce it. Another mate has been busy over the last five or more years giving away money to his grandkids within the rules allowed by our tax laws so that his kids won't get hammered by inheritance tax. His wife was a prolific investor in stocks and shares. When she passed away at just 63 he was confronted with a portfolio that had him in tears. He never realized that they had accumulated such immense wealth, because his wife had been doing all the finances since they got married. It's so difficult to guess how much one should have tucked away, or have access to as a pension. My mum died at 81. My dad died at 91, his twin brother at 96. I am now the eldest in my family tree. Will I make it to my nineties? can I afford to? It's no doubt a question that a few of us have thought about. |
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Post by MartinT on Jul 27, 2023 11:28:49 GMT
A few things have given me pause for thought, stanleyb . Our mothers (both our fathers are dead) have reached that age where they are very frail, one physically and the other with signs of dementia. They are both around 90, my mother has little to leave and needs full-time care while Ruth's mother owns a house; both require complex care beyond our ability to provide. Additionally, my father had diabetes and I have it, too. He couldn't afford the meds in the USA and it pretty much killed him. I am better off but even so my life expectancy is curtailed, also because I had cancer in 2008 (remission is over-stated, you are always in danger of it recurring). So my risk analysis for my adviser was that I intend to travel and enjoy life in retirement as fully as I can while I have my health. I don't see anything past 85 because I'm unlikely to reach that age. It's better to be pragmatic. Nevertheless, I will have a pot of money remaining and something left to give my son, not that either of us believe in inheritance. |
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Post by stanleyb on Jul 27, 2023 12:51:33 GMT
So my risk analysis for my adviser was that I intend to travel and enjoy life in retirement as fully as I can while I have my health. Traveling. Now there is a thing that many elderly are actively taking part in. I befriended someone in 1995, end ended up helping get a job in a company that I did business with. Since retiring it's difficult to get him on his house phone. He and his wife are constantly traveling. Meeting up is like arranging a meeting with another company. His wife has to consult their travel diary for a suitable date. Been like that for about ten years now. They only come home to change the content of their suitcases, maybe take a week or two to run around, but then they are off again. How he keeps it up I have no idea. He isn't even worried about passing away whilst on a travel. He insured himself so that his and/or his wife's body would be repatriated back to England. I am not suggesting that anyone should follow his example, but it's one hell of a way to spend your retirement. |
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Post by MikeMusic on Jul 27, 2023 14:49:05 GMT
Travelling I've done although nowhere near as much as many people
Sitting here listening to music on the system is difficult to beat
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Post by MartinT on Jul 27, 2023 15:46:32 GMT
I think it's a balance. I've travelled a lot but nowhere near being away from home all the time. I dislike not travelling but neither would I like being away all the time.
Music is even better if you've been without it for a bit.
The advantage of travelling when retired is that you can go away while the teachers/students/parents remain tied down.
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Post by MartinT on Oct 12, 2023 18:40:46 GMT
T-minus 323 days to retirement (so it says on my countdown app). I get my big lump sum from Xerox later this month and monthly income from them, too. I've instructed the payroll department to compensate by dumping much more salary into my current pension for the final 10 months. That will build up the pot for transfer to AJ Bell. I can also pay off the car, thank goodness.
Leaving the money aside, I'm finding myself thinking "that's the last time I do that" about many unpleasant work tasks. I especially will not miss another start of academic year. It's generally hated by IT staff in all schools and colleges across the land. It's too soon to be demob happy but I'm starting to feel more relaxed when the pressure is on, with that tiny clock in my mind going "tick tock".
Does this ring true for those who are already retired?
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Post by nicholas on Oct 12, 2023 18:44:11 GMT
Does this ring true for those who are already retired? Totally and completely... all it gets from here is better. |
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