As I have said in a previous post I would rather be in charge of my own money rather than pay someone else for the privilege of looking after it for me.
No kids and a wife 6 years younger than me.
Went in to semi retirement at 50 when wife was 44 then I fully retired at 60.
I have cash bonds averaging about 5% return from around £600 k, amounts to £30k interest per year.
My state pension as I am now 67 of £12k and my Mrs draws down £10 k a year private pension 25% tax free which will run out of funds when she hits state pension age.
I also have a small pension of £1750 from an annuity and £1600 from recurring consultancy income.
We are currently withdrawing about £6k per month cash, on average to live on.
To get that through a pension with tax deducted, it would need to be over £100k gross per annum.
Death will probably come before we run out of money but the insurance policy just in case, is the house.
The bonus is we get to enjoy the house on a daily basis rather than just looking at a pension pot figure .
The other big plus is also on average, the house value increases in value way above what a pension pot would achieve .
There are lifetime mortgages out there now, better than equity release schemes.
Lifetime mortgages are available on a draw down basis rather than lump sums which equity release tends to be . The problem is with lump sums you pay for a loan on funds you don’t need and none of the companies do offset mortgages for obvious reasons.
The loan, if ever we need it, can be paid off if we decide to downsize…. Or the last one dies.