Pensions

The key thing is to use a financial adviser to help you with this. We’re here to help you establish your retirement goals or investment goals, and put a plan together. We’ll help you understand all the rules and how market changes affect your retirement. Many people think of retirement as being just pensions. But that’s not the only tool we use.

We look at gathering all the assets that someone has – property, ISAs and any other assets and put it all together in one financial plan. Each of these investment types come with their own advantages and disadvantages. There’s no set rule of what’s better for each person.

If someone has an ISA and when they retire there’s £500,000 in it, that’s all tax-free income. But you can only contribute up to £20,000 a year into a stocks and shares ISA. So there are limitations there. You can contribute more into a pension a year and also get some really good tax benefits of 20% or even 40% on your contributions.

When you do get to retirement there are some restrictions on that tax free income versus an ISA, so it’s important that we take into account all the options available. We guide clients based on their individual status and needs because not every solution fits everyone.

We can formulate a plan so that you can have that comfortable retirement that you’re looking for.

The best thing to do is start early. If someone planned for their retirement at age 25 and put £100 a month away until they reached the age of 60, they’re likely to have double or even triple the amount of retirement funds of someone who starts at age 40.

There’s a big difference in starting early that really boosts your pension pot. Many of the investment options for retirement work off the principle of compound interest – and to me this is the eighth wonder of the world.

That compounding effect really benefits people over a long time, especially in the later years where it can really boost your income.

The first step is to look at what you currently have. That’s not just pensions: it includes property assets, general investments and any alternative investments you have. Many of these are actually quite easy to get hold of.

Also, if you think you have some old pensions with previous employers but you’re not sure, there’s a useful tool on the government website which allows you to trace old pension providers.

Once you’ve located all your assets, it’s a case of working out what your needs and objectives are in retirement. That is, when do you want to retire, how much income will you actually need and will you need any lump sums along the way for a holiday, a car or anything else.

It’s about looking at your current assets and working out if you’re currently on track to meet that retirement goal. If you’re not on track, you need to amend your plans. One of the easiest ways to do this is to increase your contributions towards your retirement objective.

That’s really the core of planning for your retirement, but there are many other factors to take into account. It’s also really important to continually review this plan. You can’t just make a plan now for 30 years’ time and hope that it’s going to work. You need to adjust it over the years. There are market changes, government changes to watch out for along the way.

There are multiple factors that you need to take into account. The way I look at it is quite simple. If you plan for your retirement, you’re more likely to retire earlier. You’re more likely to be financially secure, and more likely to enjoy your retirement.

If you don’t plan for your retirement you are more likely to work for longer, more likely to struggle financially and less likely to enjoy your retirement. Research shows that a comfortable retirement requires an income for a single person of over £30,000 a year. So when you take that into account, some people will get a state pension that only covers a third of this.

So the only way to ensure that you have a comfortable retirement is to plan for it and to put provisions in for it now.

You can actually retire whenever you want, if you have enough money to last you for the rest of your life. You can actually retire today. However, there are rules when it comes to pensions and when you can actually access them.

You can currently take the State Pension at age 66, but that age limit is gradually increasing. From 2026 the state pension age for many people will be 67 or 68, depending on how old you are. This depends on future governments as well and if any amendments are made to the rules.

So it’s not a dead cert at the moment. If you do want to know what your current state pension age is, look at the government website which will give you a forecast.

With a defined benefit pension you can usually take benefits from age 60 or 65 depending on the scheme you have. It will state on your pension summary when the normal retirement date is. You can sometimes take income earlier at age 55, but you need to be careful because this may result in reduced income.

The other main pension type is the defined contribution pension. With these you can usually take benefits at age 55, but again rules are always changing. This is planned to increase to age 57 from 2028.