Pension stuff, how's it all looking ? HAve you prepared ?

[MyLittleStudPony]

[ Maybe that has all changed with interest rates at their current levels.

Short answer: yes.

I wonder if interest rates might go down before some of us retire and that uplift may be lost to some extent.

Not that I wish to piss on anyone's chips.

I'm sure some people do get a big pot and a big pension and well done to them. Not me though. I've got all of mine in rusty Peak Frean Family Assortment tins, up in the loft.

[weeksy]

Our pots would have been mega if I'd worked the extra 12 years.

5* pension at 66
Or
3* pension at 54.

But we had to move somewhere cheaper.

You need both people to agree on that of course, with having the mother in law and our boy, moving abroad isn't an option that's likely.

That said, realistically we're talking 8-10 years, a lot can happen in 8-10 years

[Yorick]

Our pots would have been mega if I'd worked the extra 12 years.

5* pension at 66
Or
3* pension at 54.

But we had to move somewhere cheaper.

You need both people to agree on that of course, with having the mother in law and our boy, moving abroad isn't an option that's likely.

That said, realistically we're talking 8-10 years, a lot can happen in 8-10 years

She hated teaching and we had no kids, so was easier.

And the MIL is here on hols

[Horse]

[ Maybe that has all changed with interest rates at their current levels.

Short answer: yes.

It was gilts etc., last October, that tanked much of mine. I decided (and was financially able) to leave them alone, hopefully to recover.

I should probably check their (there's three separate pots) current values.

FWIW, a year ago, a pot of about £125k would get a guaranteed annuity of about £9k.

But I no longer had £125k Also was considering flexible draw-down anyway.

[Scotsrich]

My pot has dropped about 15% in the 4+years since I retired.

Fortunately thanks to my late FiL I haven’t had to touch it for a couple of years and won’t for another couple yet so hopefully/maybe it’ll make some of that back.

Them’s the breaks.

[Dodgy69]

These pension values are usually calculated on your "normal retirement age". Currently that's either 66, 67 or 68 depending on your age. Early retirement will reduce it.

I didn't want an annuity and exchanged mine for a drawdown. Withdraw as and when. I'm now 57 and have withdrawn some of the tax free allowance for house job's. The 75% taxable will hopefully be untouched for a good while yet.

You can request a transfer value from your pension provider and stick it all in a drawdown, but this will have investment risks and can go up or down.

Imo, it's not worth working your bollox off until your ( nra ) and then being a millionaire when you're knackered.

[weeksy]

These pension values are usually calculated on your "normal retirement age". Currently that's either 66, 67 or 68 depending on your age. Early retirement will reduce it.

I get that yes. However, my work is different to digging holes in so much that a bit longer won't be a massive issue. I won't be 67 though that's for sure

[Count Steer]

If it's £45k at current values that's pretty minted. If it's at the predicted values in 17 years time after paying in for those years. It's not so minted. Inflation's a bugger.

[Buckaroo]

Well that was interesting.. Just had a Webinar with Johnson Fleming/Scottish Widows and gone through some of my pension stuff.

Massively impressed with how the pension has done in 2023... Gone up by a fair bit.

According to pension calculator it should (in theory anyway) be worth £45,000 a year at retirement.

Sounds about right.

I retired 1.5 years ago with a fund of 97% maximum government private pension allowance. With this amount, it's around £49k per year, taxed of course, plus two times state pension. We're doing just fine on this, but it took many decades of final salary pension to achieve this and some pretty hard jobs along the way. Paid off though

[Horse]

it took many decades of final salary pension to achieve this

And that's the thing that most won't benefit from.

I had 16 years in one when it was closed, so 16/60 of the projected final salary. Luckily, Filly is still working

[Dodgy69]

These pension values are usually calculated on your "normal retirement age". Currently that's either 66, 67 or 68 depending on your age. Early retirement will reduce it.

I get that yes. However, my work is different to digging holes in so much that a bit longer won't be a massive issue. I won't be 67 though that's for sure

Thinking about it ... you have got a bloody soft job. You might aswel keep going .

Also the 55 moves to 57 from April 2028.

[Yorick]

Was talking to a lad a few years who was hoping to retire after 35 years with a company who made racking systems. Well know and American owned. Along the way there were 4 buyouts by other U.S. companies.

The shit hit the fan last year when the pension pots had got lost in the transactions. He lost about £300k IIRC. He's still working.

[gremlin]

I am, in financial jargon, what's known as 'arsehole lucky':

I have a 60/40 DB pension, which we were all moved out of a few years back, but will still pay out nicely when I hit 65. It's all index-linked and more gold-plated than Ratners could ever have dreamed of.

Plus, as the evil mill owners had evicted us from the DB scheme, they made the DC scheme very attractive to stop the workers revolting, contributing 25% of my salary into it every month. They also matched my recent AVCs up to 3%, so I can't really grumble.

Having both a DB and a DC pension gives a bit of flexibility around how to fund my, hopefully early, retirement.

All I have to do....is keep breathing.

[Yorick]

I am, in financial jargon, what's known as 'arsehole lucky':

I have a 60/40 DB pension, which we were all moved out of a few years back, but will still pay out nicely when I hit 65. It's all index-linked and more gold-plated than Ratners could ever have dreamed of.

Plus, as the evil mill owners had evicted us from the DB scheme, they made the DC scheme very attractive to stop the workers revolting, contributing 25% of my salary into it every month. They also matched my recent AVCs up to 3%, so I can't really grumble.

Having both a DB and a DC pension gives a bit of flexibility around how to fund my, hopefully early, retirement.

All I have to do....is keep breathing.

You're a pal and wish you good luck.

But compared to me, you've wasted 12 years of your life.

No pockets in shrouds.

And that fiver you owe me?

[Buckaroo]

it took many decades of final salary pension to achieve this

And that's the thing that most won't benefit from.

I had 16 years in one when it was closed, so 16/60 of the projected final salary. Luckily, Filly is still working

There's an awful lot of luck involved in this, that's for sure.

[weeksy]

It's worth remembering that work isn't actually horrible for everyone, I remember Jeremy Clarkson saying that he was fed up with people asking him if he planned to retire, he chooses to do jobs that he really likes instead and gets paid loads for it. My boss is the same, he's probably in the top few hundred richest men in the world but he has no interest in retiring and seems to get frustrated if I mention it, his attitude is to find something that makes you really happy and get paid loads for it and because he's one of these clever people he can do it.

There's plenty of other irritating cunts on here, you'd assume they're getting paid for it too

[Mr. Dazzle]

It's worth remembering that work isn't actually horrible for everyone, I remember Jeremy Clarkson saying that he was fed up with people asking him if he planned to retire, he chooses to do jobs that he really likes instead and gets paid loads for it. My boss is the same, he's probably in the top few hundred richest men in the world but he has no interest in retiring and seems to get frustrated if I mention it, his attitude is to find something that makes you really happy and get paid loads for it and because he's one of these clever people he can do it.

I'm not clever enough to do that, if I carried on doing what I'm doing now until I was sixty-seven then I'd be stupidly rich, but I don't want to and I can't think of anything that I would really enjoy that pays as much, so I'll be retiring from corporate life and we think we're going to set up a little hobby business working out of our annex that pays it's own way and contributes a bit towards bills, but we're not doing it as anything other than an enjoyable part-time gig, our income will come from investments.

If I won the lottery tonight I'd still go to work on Monday, just in a Rolls-Royce

I'd rather be happy about going to work than happy about the fact I don't have to do it any more. Fortunately for me, I know what job I want to do and I have the skills to do it. Winner

[v8-powered]

Chatting pension stuff with the wife last night (she's also my IFA!)

My pot that I pay in to has grown by 9.5% in the last 12 month's, hers has grown by 15% in the same period but she has a higher risk strategy as younger than me. I also have 2 final salary schemes from when i was a real worker but pay little notice to their performance, sure they are just fine.

[gremlin]

I am, in financial jargon, what's known as 'arsehole lucky':

I have a 60/40 DB pension, which we were all moved out of a few years back, but will still pay out nicely when I hit 65. It's all index-linked and more gold-plated than Ratners could ever have dreamed of.

Plus, as the evil mill owners had evicted us from the DB scheme, they made the DC scheme very attractive to stop the workers revolting, contributing 25% of my salary into it every month. They also matched my recent AVCs up to 3%, so I can't really grumble.

Having both a DB and a DC pension gives a bit of flexibility around how to fund my, hopefully early, retirement.

All I have to do....is keep breathing.

You're a pal and wish you good luck.

But compared to me, you've wasted 12 years of your life.

No pockets in shrouds.

And that fiver you owe me?

Where you getting 12 years from? I'm only 54, so barely got hairs on my nut sack.

And besides, our two situations are very different as to where we need/needed to be in terms of our respective wellbeing. I don't feel ready to pack up work yet. Everyone I know who has seems to have known when the time was right, and I've not had that epiphany yet. My job isn't too shabby, despite my occasional moaning.

And, just because of your post, I'm going to leave a caveat in my will that I be buried in a tailor-made shroud, with at least half a dozen pockets, just to prove you wrong. And in one of them will be that mythical fiver I owe you.

[weeksy]

However, whilst I'm laying out my thoughts I'd also add that it depends on the job.
If you have a job where you can switch off after your 7.5hr day and enjoy time with your family then fair enough, but if you can't then earlier retirement might be the right decision even if you still like work.

As I was saying somewhere else, I spent a lot of time over my career making sacrifices to get us into a good position but now it's not so critical, so family time is way more important than a job/money and I have a job where I can never switch off, so at some point I'll have to make the call.

There is an interview somewhere with Jordan Peterson (who I don't usually like) but he's talking to someone who has everything they've ever wanted, great career, great place to live, money, etc, but no kids or much family around them and he points out to them that they've sacrificed having a family so they could have all the other stuff and it's a bad mistake to make, they'll spend their elder years without the blessing of grandkids or family, etc.

Whilst i'm on here all day, i have superb levels of freedom, i dropped my lad at school most mornings and picked him up each day, in a given year he is woken up by me 360+ times a year and the same number of nights, i'll be the one who puts him to bed (yes even at nearly 16)
Work outside of my given hours, simply doesn't exist in my mind, once i turn the laptop off, it's done. My weekends are my own, Xmas is my own (even though at times on-call). I think i 'need' to retire less than many people... because i've got a great balance.

But even retiring, i'm still not 100% on... I'd like to set up a bicycle workshop for play money, earn a few quid, keep up to date on technology, etc..