EP.89 Pensions- When can I retire?

Let’s talk about pensions and the ultimate question, when can I retire? 

Many of my clients have lots of different pensions which they’ve often forgotten about. They don’t know where they are, how much is in them, let alone what their fees or charges are. Questioning what they’ve invested in, what the risk profile is and understanding how much they actually could retire on. 

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of devil in the details when it comes to pensions, so it’s best to get pension advice from a qualified independent financial adviser – I am one of them.

Let’s begin: 

Go and search for those lost pensions – head to the government website, this is your safest place to search. The government website will have www.gov.uk at the top. The website to search is: https://www.gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details 

Look for My Pension Contact Details. Press the Start Now button which allows you to input your work scheme from your employer and the system will search any existing old schemes for you. There is also an 0800 phone number on the page should you wish to speak to someone.

Top Tip: Google searches can bring up incorrect websites, make sure you look for www.gov.uk 

Add up the total value of all existing pensions.

Calculate (approximately) when you plan to retire, how long you will live (an average is between 85-95 years old) and the type of lifestyle you wish to adhere to. This will help to determine how much you need to retire. 

Now let’s work out if you were going to retire at 65, how much do you need to live on at 65? What will your life look like? Is it time to slow down or time to pack your bags and see the world?

At this stage in life we are assuming that the mortgage has been paid, children have left home and any additional costs e.g. university fees are no longer being paid out and it’s time to put you first!

Now, if you want a high salary and want to know more about how we work this out head over to the podcast and have a listen about how you can reverse engineer that back.

It’s very important and worth looking at, and seeing what you might need to add to your state pension as an example as people are earning a lot more than the example I talk about and have bigger pension inputs. It doesn’t matter how much is in there or what you’re dealing with. It’s all about where it’s invested, and how you’re getting on those returns. 

I hope that you find this helpful and you listen to the podcast. Be sure to go and search for any existing pension pots. If you wish to have a review of your pensions, then please do contact our sponsor  Evolution Financial Planning 

If you would like to have some cash flow projections done regarding pensions or any of your pots of money, then you can do a lifestyle financial planning session, which is where we take all those parts and we find out how much they could be worth and, therefore, how much you can utilise in your retirement. 

And you don’t have to do that in a regulatory process, we can just look at the projections on their own via www.rebeccarobertson.co.uk  

Lastly, if you are looking to have a general spruce up of your finances, when you go to www.evolutionfinancialplanning.co.uk  you’ll find something called a financial well-being assessment. You will be asked approximately 10 questions about your finances, after which it will send you an assessment summary email detailing your current situation and what you could start to look to prioritize for the future.

You will also be able to access a FREE chapter of my book which details the different levels of hierarchy when it comes to assessing and making decisions with your finances. 

Listen to the full podcast here.