Retiring

[LongsightM13]

I prefer the approach of John D McDonald’s fictional beach bum detective Travis McGee of ‘taking my retirement in instalments’ rather than waiting until I’m too old to properly enjoy it

 

[Millwallawayveteran1988]

Been fully retired 11 years now. Stepped down retirement is best if you can fix it rather than a sudden cessation of work. I had 3 jobs from 50 -60.
Do a spreadsheet -I know where my income/expenditure went for 10 years and and can confidently say I have enough to match my lifestyle all I have to do is stay alive to enjoy it..
Pay off debt its a killer.
£25K is plenty for a couple with both state pensions incl.

Most of my clients live on that comfortably.

Some of the (mainly) men made the mistake of funding their own pension to the hilt but paid nothing into their wives pensions. This means when it comes to taking the pension, the spouse often has a lot of her personal allowance left unused. Shouldn’t happen so much nowadays but I have clients where the female only has a state pension of £5kish as didn't pay full NI and the bloke £20k. Only £1250 of her unused allowance can be transferred so he ends up paying £1200 odd unnecessary tax.

it’s ideal if both can bring in £12500 and pay no tax.

 

[Tommy_Catons_Perm]

Most of my clients live on that comfortably.

Some of the (mainly) men made the mistake of funding their own pension to the hilt but paid nothing into their wives pensions. This means when it comes to taking the pension, the spouse often has a lot of her personal allowance left unused. Shouldn’t happen so much nowadays but I have clients where the female only has a state pension of £5kish as didn't pay full NI and the bloke £20k. Only £1250 of her unused allowance can be transferred so he ends up paying £1200 odd unnecessary tax.

it’s ideal if both can bring in £12500 and pay no tax.

Would you normally advise women to pay voluntary NI contributions to increase their state pension. I think you can typically pay for up to the last 6 years, even if over state pension age, and possibly more years depending on age and circumstances?

 

[Millwallawayveteran1988]

Would you normally advise women to pay voluntary NI contributions to increase their state pension. I think you can typically pay for up to the last 6 years, even if over state pension age, and possibly more years depending on age and circumstances?

Depends on how much it increases the income by and how much it costs really. Plus individual circumstances.

 

[M18CTID]

That's where I hope to be in five years when I hit 63
A £300k fund, take £75k out tax free and use £10k a year of it added to my pension drawdown planned to be £12.5k a year so I will be on £22.5k tax free plus what Mrs DD brings in. Then the state pension kicks in four years later
A rough calculation says that the drawdown should last until I'm in my 80's

Three month long lets in warm countries are our aim

This was the one good thing that Osborne did - the opportunity to access our private pensions in the way you describe above rather than having to buy one of those shitty annuities, and whatever is left in the pot during drawdown still has the chance of growing. Also, there’s a bit of wriggle room in your scenario in that once you’ve started drawdown if you have any spare cash you can stick some back in which would make it last longer although I think they’ve now reduced this amount to 4k per year from 10k and who knows if they’ll scrap it entirely in the future.
I’m 50 now and really wished I’d started investing more in my SIPP sooner but it’s not performing too badly at the moment. I’m way off your 300k target but still got a bit of time and if my investment in NIO shares pays and they sky rocket to Tesla levels and beyond then my pipe dream of retiring at 55 might become more than that!

 

[Petethemancinleeds]

There's plenty of people in the private sector who have seen bugger all pay rises over the past 10 years as well you know.

Anyway, enjoy your early retirement and your extra 15 years of relaxing compared to most of the rest of us. Most people in the private sector could only dream of this. In fact 44% of my pay at 67 would be a fucking mirac

I like bert as a poster and thank him for his service but agree with you here.

His bit of a sob story the vast majority of us would kill for.

The austerity may be linked to over generous pensions provisions so far removed from most workers options to be deemed something of a crime in itself, lucky bugger!

 

[r.soleofsalford]

Semi retired at 32, and worked 24 hours a week. Got anti-synthetase syndrome at 56 struggled through doing 24 hours a week.

Retired 3 years ago at 64.

 

[remember arthur mann]

Big plus for the public sector, early retirement, why not, low wages all your life, longer more comfortable end of life, shove the private sector.

 

[Bovril]

This was the one good thing that Osborne did - the opportunity to access our private pensions in the way you describe above rather than having to buy one of those shitty annuities, and whatever is left in the pot during drawdown still has the chance of growing. Also, there’s a bit of wriggle room in your scenario in that once you’ve started drawdown if you have any spare cash you can stick some back in which would make it last longer although I think they’ve now reduced this amount to 4k per year from 10k and who knows if they’ll scrap it entirely in the future.
I’m 50 now and really wished I’d started investing more in my SIPP sooner but it’s not performing too badly at the moment. I’m way off your 300k target but still got a bit of time and if my investment in NIO shares pays and they sky rocket to Tesla levels and beyond then my pipe dream of retiring at 55 might become more than that!

I am in the same boat as you, luckily I have a Military pension currently which will increase when I am 55. I am invested in renewables namely energy storage in the form of VRFB's hopefully will take off hugely in the next couple of years, if all goes well I will be comfortable at 55 to retire.

 

[denislawsbackheel]

Would you normally advise women to pay voluntary NI contributions to increase their state pension. I think you can typically pay for up to the last 6 years, even if over state pension age, and possibly more years depending on age and circumstances?

Without a doubt.
If you phone them they are quite good with advice.
My wife, a non tax payer, gets her state pension next July.
We just paid up extra years that will be in profit within 3 years of getting her pension.

Another thing we did was each year since pension freedoms were relaxed I have paid into a private pension for her the circa £2600 that she can pay in.
HMRC gives all the tax back into the pension,
At end of tax year draw the circa £3600 out.
Repeat paying in.
20% return a year.
Very nice.