[Closed] Retirement plans - who's actively working toward one...

put what I can away, hope for the best, see what I inherit? work till my brain gives in then off to dignatas?

Currently my plan mikewsmith - same then but with no planned outcome.

I have a very simple plan, saving every penny I can, whilst I can. Max out pension and ISA allowances every year...

Inheritance wise, I have two brothers, who don't have pensions, and 5 nephews (mainly why they don't have pensions), so I expect my parents to leave their money to them rather than me.

put what I can away, hope for the best, see what I inherit? work till my brain gives in then off to dignatas?

44 years old, mortgage £1350 an month which runs 'til i'm 66, no savings, no prospect of any inheritance as parents live in a rented flat.
Kids currently 7+10 so another 15+ years supporting them..

Retirement? - hahahaha!!

I was chatting to my Dad yesterday about his pensions (now retired), one of his had a guaranteed increase of 8% per year over it's life. Paid out in full as well!

You won't see the like of that ever again........

Hopefully, we'll be mortgage free by the time the kids go to uni, so we can help them out with the spare cash. After that, we want to go part time and spend long weekends walking, camping and cycling. So, not a retirement plan but a "work/ life balance" plan.

I have a very simple plan, saving every penny I can, whilst I can. Max out pension and ISA allowances every year...

I wouldn't say every penny, but definitely saving for retirement and overpaying mortgage

Retiring at 55, in just under 5 years. Based on a mix of pension, investments and property.

Sold two properties recently so that pays off the mortgage on our home with the rest going into investments. I also have another property that I'll sell when I do retire, again the income from that will be invested.

When I do retire I'll then change my investments from growth to income.

My wife retired this year (teacher) so we also have her lump sum invested.

Plus over the next 5 years I'll be saving hard.

A 'place in the sun' appeals, Pollensa in particular, but we'll need to see what happens post brexit.

And I'll add that we're in a very fortunate position.

I'm paying into a not-as-good-as-I-signed-up-for Teacher's Pension and so is my wife, though she's only paying in at 0.7 of full time.

15 years left on our relatively small mortgage, which is also how long the is until our youngest theoretically finishes uni.

No hope of any substantial inheritance and anything that does come out way will probably be used to help our kids get on the first step of the housing ladder, which is a lot higher up than it was in 2000 when we bought our first house.

Public sector gold plated pension in 2 yrs time

Erm. Bascially just pension at the moment. But even that isn't fantastic.
I'm paying about all I can afford at the moment & the company I work for makes a generous payment on top.

But, the predicted income from that isn't going to be particularly amazing.

With a 2 year old daughter, a mortgage & my Wife not working for another couple of years, then there won't be much in terms of savings or overpayments on the mortgage!
The mortgage has got about 18 years to run, I think. I'd like to overpay & get shot of it but with the low interest rates, I think I would be better off putting any 'excess' into the pension.

My wife's dad died in 2008, 6 months after retiring aged 61. My dad died at the start of this year, 7 months after retiring aged 66.

I have no intention of working towards a retirement at those ages. I am currently looking at trying to drop days and work less. Ideally, find something that doesn't feel like work.

34 here. No inheritance to look forward to, but maxing out my ISA allowance (all in low-cost index linked trackers) and putting in as much of my salary as required to keep me below 40% tax threshold as additional contributions to my civil service pension. No mortgage and very modest house owned by girlfriend.

My real plan is a win on the premium bonds.

As jonba above, my mum died less than two years after retirement, so there's no way I'll be working until 60, nevermind 68. I'm aiming to get to a point where I can expect c. £10k/yr passive income from stocks and shares (hopefully 40), and then packing in my civil service job and topping that up as necessary with the odd job here and there.

Needless to say, I don't have a car on PCP or a phone on contract...

Plan A = win at least a million on the lottery
Plan B = blow all my money (inc. pension lump sum) on travelling around the world then top myself
Plan C = survive off a fairly meagre pension and become more and more of a burden on the NHS/relatives

Currently in the process of getting a financial adviser to sift through my pensions and look at the best option.

As for actual "retirement" I'm not sure that this is something I've really considered. Plan to work full time as long as possible then taper rather than quit completely.

My plan:

Will get a Piss poor pension if any so I am seriously looking at selling house car etc and buy a widebeam canal boat and live on that till I'm too old, frail or mad to carry on.... then I might just get drunk and fall into the canal and do everyone a favour.

Widebeam boat all fitted out should be under £100k (current prices) which will leave the same or more as equity from sale of house which I could live off topped up with said piss poor pension.

I'm quite looking forward to actually and would consider doing it earlier and just working part time or as and when I need to (freelance) until full retirement. I'm 44 and can't get my head around another 20-25 years of this grind.

Boat living can be fairly cheap if you continually cruise and don't pay fixed moorings. PV covered roof would mean free lights and a radio then some solid fuel for the stove, ditch the car for just a bike and spend my days fishing, walking dog, and pottering about on the boat.... the dream sounds bliss... reality maybe not so idyllic but I've nothing much to loose really.

1. Hit 60.
2. Jump off bridge.
3. Erm....profit?

taking decisions now like not building a massive extension we don't need, not financing new cars etc.

minimising outgoings and making our house as energy efficient as possible (tricky when it was built in 1885).

living a good, balanced life now rather than flogging myself to pay for a dream of retirement. I enjoy my job now, I'm good at it and I get paid reasonably well. don't see why i won't enjoy it in another 20yrs time.

theres no prospect of myself of the other half retiring.

massive mortgage till im 67 (im 38 now) just had a little one to support.

Will wait till the little one has flown the nest then when i get to a point im loosing it go for a long walk somewhere.

soon to hit the big 40. been overpaying the mortgage for many years and while it's gone now, it will return once we've extended the home.

every month I'm trying to balance:
- maxing ISA contributions for the wife and I
- topping up company pension contributions
- overpaying mortgage (when it come back)
- over pay the mortgage on a couple of BTLs
- enjoying life & not being a total scrooge

apart form the extension we're about to embark on that we probably don't need (just a strong want) we try to live a fairly frugal existence.
- pay cash or we can't afford it (excl extension!)
- avoid 'subscription payments' where possible (sky, phones, Netflix, etc etc)
- think hard before frittering $ away on gadgets/gizmos we don't really need
- focus on progressing at work...if I'm going to work I might as well try to climb the greasy pole and get paid better

Aim to be out of the game comfortably about 50-55 if all goes to plan.

My job, whilst great fun, will begin to take its toll as I approach retirement age. (Jet lag, nights out of bed, irregular meals). Fortunately it comes with a good DC pension scheme (company puts in 12% of salary, me 6%) and I have a RAF deferred pension from 60.

I have no intention of working past 61 (1 year after mortgage paid off) but no definite plans. I imagine walking dogs, riding bikes & helping with grandkids will fill most of it!

Plan:
Sell our house in Oxford for £££s
Buy a house in Barnoldswick for £s

Live on the proceeds plus the 3 fragmented pensions I have, and the 2 fragmented pensions my wife has.
We should be mortgage free by 45 so save, save, save after that and retire at 55 or 60.

Was speaking to an actuary about retirement generally. Stats for men show that if you retire at 65 you get ill and die quicker. if you carry on working and make it through 65-70 you live longer! Seeing more and more people working beyond 65 - some because they have to and some because they want to keep going. My ideal would be part time at 60 and keep going in a different and less stressful job (haven't worked that bit out yet)

I'd be very cautious about this 'place in the sun' business. Since I took early retirement 3 years ago, our trips have been something like: Bratislava, Helsinki, Talinn, Malaga, Lisbon, Milan, Malaga, Seville, Milan, Marrakesh, London, Paris (got sun tanned there last weekend). None have been super expensive and I would hate to be tied down to one place and have money tied up in it too.
Bit of a toss up between paying down a mortgage and paying into pension funds/AVCs. I do feel sorry for the crap financial position many younger people are facing.

Top tip for an early retirement: look after a childless elderly relative esp if they have a house

Just saying like

I'd be very cautious about this 'place in the sun' business. Since I took early retirement 3 years ago, our trips have been something like: Bratislava, Helsinki, Talinn, Malaga, Lisbon, Milan, Malaga, Seville, Milan, Marrakesh, London, Paris (got sun tanned there last weekend). None have been super expensive and I would hate to be tied down to one place and have money tied up in it too.

Having a home somewhere sunny and going on other holidays aren't mutually exclusive. We have a caravan in south west Scotland, we go there but still go on other holidays.

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Other plans involve that job that will pay off all the bills

put what I can away, hope for the best, see what I inherit? work till my brain gives in then off to dignatas?

^^another vote for this I’m afraid.

Apart from I stand to inherit nothing and my brain appears to be knackered already. Therefore a casino visit might be in order

Quite a few years ago I looked at how much we were saving (dinkies on good incomes), how much we already had and worked out that another 5y would set us up for life. After the 5y we walked away from our increasingly dead-end (but still well paid) jobs and it's turned out pretty much as hoped. Part-time work for fun and the occasional return to an office environment for a month or two is plenty to convince me I wouldn't want to go back full time!

If you think about it, a traditional single earner family had one income for about 40y, so it's not that outrageous that 2 incomes for 20y is enough earning too.

Probably not really an avenue open to a couple with one proper income and kids to bring up though.

I’m with BillMC I think. Goal is to perhaps rent on a long term basis wherever you fancy, whilst still living in the uk. So maybe 3 months in Mallorca in the spring, summer in uk, autumn somewhere sunny, winter somewhere snowy. Not all necessarily in the same year!

I’m thinking that we can be done proper working in 5 years time just before 50. After that it’s just about quality of life really. It’ll be interesting to see how much money you need to enjoy retirement without penny pinching too much. Wife is worried that we won’t be able to afford the very expensive holidays that she likes, my point is that hopefully she won’t feel that she needs them without the stress of work to escape from. And wouldn’t 3 months in Mallorca be better than 2 weeks in a posh hotel somewhere?

Pension HHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

I CAN BARELY AFFORD TO PUT PETROL IN MY CAR AFTER GETTING F***D BY THE OIL PRICE AND BREXIT.

That little rant aside, I was paying anything above inflation on my pay rises into the pension with the aim of switching to a contract role at some point in the hope that I could just be more and more picky over contracts as my career progressed (plenty of managers/consultants on 3-4 day weeks).

For actual retirement the plan was to hope the house price difference between the SE and everywhere else remains and move upto North Yorkshire. Not banking on the money from that to retire on, it's just the backup.

31, the OH is currently bankrolling my half of the mortgage, no kids yet.

If you think about it, a traditional single earner family had one income for about 40y, so it's not that outrageous that 2 incomes for 20y is enough earning too.

Yea.......... That worked brilliantly whilst the babyboomers were happy building houses for themselves. As soon as they got their half acre in the subburbs with a view they went all NIMBY and blamed immigrants for the lack of housing.

Some economic growth (more jobs), more people could work, so households had two full time jobs, and competition in the undersupplied housing market sucked up all that extra money.

Some people say we squandered the north sea oil money, I think we squandered 50 years of economic growth on the boomers equity release retirement plans.

Father in Law has a holiday home somewhere nice. We've enjoyed visiting every year or two for the past decade or so, but have also worked out that the annual costs of keeping it (once it inevitably becomes our responsibility) would also pay for a nice long stay in an airbnb (or hotel or whatever) anywhere else in the world for plenty of holiday fun and variety.

(Though it could also be rented out, which he has always refused to consider.)

46 now but I always kind of expected to work in some form till I am at least 70, I'm hoping sweet Lady Death embraces me before Mr Pension Reality does.

Having paid off the mortgage and only sizable outgoing will be supporting one or maybe both the kids through Uni over the next few years, I'm attempting to slide into semi-retirement.

30 weeks working a year is all we need to pay the bills and live comfortably. As I'm freelance, part of the job is to find that work hopefully split between a few customers. Spend the rest of the time riding/doing other interesting stuff that's not paid work.

Having hit 50 this year, it's a firm decision not to 'waste' the next who knows how many years where I can be active and do what I'd rather be doing rather than working. Did okay with pensions and stuff so should be able to move from gradual to total in 10 years or so.

Not sure I've ever want to fully 'retire'. Might change my mind tho - we're only 3 months into the plan!

I wouldn't rely too much on inheritance if your parents need extended period of residential care. £700+ per week will soon eat through savings and equity in property.

Personally, I'm on the right side of history and will get a reasonable pension at 60 (and another bit of a pension at 65 and a state pension at 67 as things stand). We also got our house pre the inflationary insanity of the last 15 years so mortgage paid off and been able to save and make some through investments.

What I'm doing is scaling back my working life to 60, I've seen to many people of my parents generation and colleagues (uncomfortably close to my age) plan for retirement and either die in harness or have plans completely derailed by ill health. So I'm doing my best to enjoy my life whilst I still can.

Just about to retire.

The civil servant responsible for increasing the state pension age to 67 is Retiring at 61 with a £1.8 million pension pot he will receive £85000 a year and lump sum of £245000
He's permanent secretary for Department for Works and Pensions. His name is Sir Robert Devereux. Hope you all share this, shows what the establishment think of ordinary people who can work till they drop while tossers like him just pen push and ruin people's lives.

#notme

Bit of a half arsed plan, as it seems a long way off at the moment (currently 36), but basically boils down to 3 key ingredients.
A) Don't waste cash on frivolous stuff I don't need
B) Use surplus from A) to pay off mortgage by mid 40's
C) Once B) nearly complete figure out where to make investments

Some interesting reading. We've been looking at the "place in the sun" option (or possibly Wales). Ideally something that'll pay its way as a rental then gives a little get away. The numbers seem to add up so it may be an option. Other than that we have a mix of paying off the mortgage, isa, BTL and traditional pension. Not enough yet but heading in the right direction. Still want to enjoy life now though as dying young(ish) is still an option

Aiming for 60 to 65 not really in a rush to stop as I quite like work. I only do 30 hours a week now (@50) and may contract in years to come.

That said sometimes it is difficult to maintain interest so sometimes wonder if I have another career in me yet.

Moneywise I have a pot in a DC pension that seems to be doing very well in terms of earning intrest, another 10 yrs of compounding will make it reasonable amount.

I’ll never get as much as public sector mates who are telling me they expect to get 40/50k pa so my plan is to blow it all as quickly as possble then either become a burden on society or shuffle off this cruel world.

The civil servant responsible for increasing the state pension age to 67 is Retiring at 61 with a £1.8 million pension pot he will receive £85000 a year and lump sum of £245000
He's permanent secretary for Department for Works and Pensions. His name is Sir Robert Devereux. Hope you all share this, shows what the establishment think of ordinary people who can work till they drop while tossers like him just pen push and ruin people's lives.

Factually incorrect.

[url= https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-12/pensionshl.html ]Parliament approved[/url] the changes to pension ages in the [url= http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2011/19/contents/enacted ]2011 Pensions Act[/url].

The Civil service merely implemented the legislation.

It is almost comforting to hear that there are others in a similarly crappy position as us..
Our only potential get-out-of-jail option is to sell our house and downsize/release equity, but don't want to do that unless we really have to.

Aged 37 and aiming to be retired (or semi retired and still doing a bit of contracting) by 55ish.

Got a small and rapidly decreasing mortgage after we paid off the one on our old house, saving what I reckon is considered quite a lot per month but as per other people, not scrimping and saving and living very comfortably.

Aim is that by 55, both kids will be at an age where they'll have left home/going to uni or whatever so we can sell up, downsize (slightly) and buy a place in the Isle of Wight and spend the rest of our days by the sea, fishing, eating, drinking and taking the dog for a walk or driving around in my old Beetle. If need be I can hop across to the mainland and commute to London a few times a week contracting.

* Beetle and dog are yet to be bought.

not got any significant pension to speak of and savings are currently depleted but me and the other half have a property each, hopefully mine will be finished in a year (new kitchen/bathroom/floors etc thats why savings are down) then it will be rented out and we will live in hers while somebody else pays the mortgage on mine.

i have plenty of equity in mine and i want to pay the mortgage off early, effectively pay over with the spare £500/month i have by sharing the mortgage payments on her property and a lump sum every time i remortgage. so i want to be mortgage free on that one early so we have £12k a year coming to us and £350k in a fixed asset (my flat) at todays values to help fund living once work slows down. i presume we might do the slowly moving out of london thing to liberate funds too.

i appreciate relying on property is not the wisest thing and upsets a lot of people but being self employed i have never had an attractive employers pension scheme available and the returns were so poor on the one i started i never kept up the payments.

Good Facebook story though eh, I mean..

I'm planning on following my parents example.

Sell large family home and buy a retirement park home (effectively a small bungalow). Free up equity. Spend winters in Spain in a motorhome, and summers back in the UK with family.

No point in keeping money/property in retirement if it just gets taken off you to pay for your care in the later years.

We piled as much as we could afford into pensions, BTL and other investments. Meant doing without some "luxuries" but paid off in the end as (aided my a nice redundancy payment0 I was able to retire last year at the age of 52. Best thing I ever did.

Well worth making a few sacrifices early on to get the benefits later in life.

No point in keeping money/property in retirement if it just gets taken off you to pay for your care in the later years.

Where will you hide the cash from the sale of your home? You do know cash can be used to pay for your care too.

Where will you hide the cash from the sale of your home? You do know cash can be used to pay for your care too.

I'm planning on spending it before I need long term/full time care.

Not retirement as such but definitely a more lifestyle related job which has the added benefit of some income in the next 2 years at 45. I'm too young to stop totally but do want to do a max of 3 days pw and enjoy life at a more leisurely pace. Have been slaving away and saving like a beast to make it happen (despite having a few luxuries).

Planning on winning some premium bonds too...putting couple of hundred a month for both my son and myself on separate accounts, sods law states he'll win more before he reaches 18, cant even crawl yet...

Just upped the pension payments to around 12% p/m although started paying for childcare vouchers for when the Mrs goes back to work which has taken another chunk off the salary.

Haven't even thought about over payments on the mortgage yet, only just had the first payment for a 30 year mortgage, will be 61 when its paid off if we stick to that plan 🙁

Also just had notifation from the Mrs that despite being on maternity leave for the financial year, will not only get a pay rise, but get her 10% bonus and be able to reduce her hours for more pay...and her pension is still better than mine.

Come on premium bonds...

Yes have always saved / made a plan. Any inheritance from my parents will go to my kids.

As above selling the main home was always part of the plan although in my case this was done as part of a divorce a bit sooner than expected (not good for retirement planning !).

Most of my friends who are “retired” from traditional work do consulting or other fun ventures, eg an ex-Uni Chancellor and PhD taught himself phone app programming and has a leading niche app (he is in his late 60’s). Have many friends who left bankng in last 10 years in their 40’s and 50’s and do other such “part time” work.

Two small pensions( one index linked ) paying out now & property investments..(btl)..not showing any major growth ..but there is time yet !

Paid off mortgage 2 years ago - 52 now and hoping for a 'lifestyle' career change in 2-3 years when my wife's caring responsibilities for elderly, disabled mother cease and angling for a decent redundancy - current VR offer is £65k which is very tempting, as is final salary pension to stick around. Will probably involve either selling-up / downsizing and moving to Scotland although I'm tempted to simply rent-out our current property and exist on the income. Fortunately, have no kids so just need enough for a 1-way ticket to Dignitas if it gets that bad / failing health! Can't see me actually stopping work, just getting away from the BS of corporate life.

I wouldn't call it a plan as such.

As others had said we're not quite a JAM, but not far off. I had a 'Gold Plated' RBS pension from 2000 to 2009, between a couple of redundancies, a wedding and a baby we've been all but potless since, 2 months ago we started a NEST plan in work which I've done the max on, which is pittance at the moment, but will ramp up a lot over the next two years. I haven't a clue what my RBS pension will pay - it was 'final salary' and cost £300 a month as I recall, but it'll be a long time dormant before I retire.

Wife, has a 'Gold Plated' NHS pension, which costs a fortune and for some reason means she has to pay a different amount of NI because of it.

Inheritance? Well my Folks are loaded, but there's 4 of us and well, I don't really want to rely on my parents dying to retire, that's kind of messed up.

yes and no

saved aggressively into an ISA for some years, which should take care of the 'lump sum' bit, and also provides a fan/shoot/converg1ence contingency fund.

sticking as much as is feasible into current pension.

meanwhile, mortgage, mrsm & the offspring are busy eating every other bit of cash available

if all goes to plan the savings & pension provide a reasonable level of comfort as I and mrsmonkfinger drift slowly into madness and a sea of rising heating bills which end up freezing us to death

we will never be able to pay the kids through uni or any of that, they are I'm afraid on their own with that one

edit: no reliance on inheritance, as that could well be zero and anyway relying on parents death isn't a plan in my book

I'm 37.

I have 11 years' membership of the "old" NHS pension scheme, which should give me a basic annual sum from age 60 - assuming my job is at the same grade as present in the last 3 years before my NHS service ends. The post-2015 NHS pension is linked to State Pension Age, which I assume will be at least 70.

I don't want to work until 70+... I am also paying much more towards a pension that is watered down (6% contribution, retirement age 60 in 2010; now 13.5% and age 70+).

My plan is therefore to save enough to give me an income in the "gap" between age 60 and 70+. Ideally, I will also save enough to achieve financial independence before that - hopefully at 50. Essential to this plan is a) saving and b) keeping a lid on expenses.

I have the sum in mind that I need to "pre-tire" and have a made a good start by saving for the last 10 years. I will have also paid off my mortgage within 3 years and will save more from that time.

I don't know for sure that I can achieve this (I have a wife and 2 kids), but feel like the more people I tell the more likely I am to succeed.

well I've got about another 6 years to go on my student loan. Mrs Doris has probably got hers for at least another decade, by which time she'll be well into her 50's (mature student). But after THAT, we'll start hammering the savings...

It occurred to me recently that I am utterly, utterly screwed. I have very little in my pension, nothing going into it... and I had a horrible realisation that I was contracted out of SERPS back in 1998.

There is a possibility that I can turn things around by selling up and moving somewhere cheaper, keeping working part time until I drop to make ends meet and hopefully not living that far into old age! I don't want to wind up a burden on anyone, but fortunately my immune system is collapsing so that shouldn't really be an issue!

Sort of, though having kids late on (I'm 46 with 3 kids under 9) has scuppered it a bit. Have a pension and I save what I can, but obviously the kids will get more expensive as they get older so the amount that gets saved will probably decline. Would like to think I can retire at 65, but too many variables at the moment. Will have the mortgage done by the time I'm 60, assuming nothing changes between now and then!

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50 next year and plan to work for maybe another 5yrs or so until boy has gone off and left us to it. The only "problem" is I'm really enjoying work and can't see myself leaving it completely

My plan is based on selling my house, which I've invested a lot of time, effort and money in over the years and getting something smaller. A place in the sun was not of interest until such time as I had a few months at a time to spend there.....in the meantime, there's a whole world to explore.

However lately, I've come to believe that the whole Brexit, euro/gbp disaster might be a great opportunity to buy a place in the sun. With Brit buyers having run for cover, now is the time to find a property that has to sell, take the money from the house (extended mortgage) and rent it out. That way, it pays for itself, we get to use it occasionally and it's ours when financially its actually viable. Who knows what the future holds, the chance may not come up again!

Take up clay pigeon shooting when I get old and give it Big Vern.

Building trade must be one of the worst for a pension, i'm mid 50's and when you hear of the figures ex polis, fireman how many put out fires these days or get their sleep disturbed during the night, teachers, bankers or one of the utility companies
Why were we not told at school where to find a job with great pension rather than the Bayeux tapestry or singing Frère Jaques ?

Building trade must be one of the worst for a pension, i'm mid 50's and when you hear of the figures ex polis, fireman how many put out fires these days or get their sleep disturbed during the night, teachers, bankers or one of the utility companies
Why were we not told at school where to find a job with great pension rather than the Bayeux tapestry or singing Frère Jaques ?

Agreed, a lot of my mates are ‘fancy’ builders, I’m not sure what they actually do, but they’re not laying bricks anyway.

They most think it’s a load of old bollocks or whatever and are opting out of auto enrolment like they owe their employer a favour.

Financial planning is coming into schools now.

Cpt Kronos. Your SERPS pension will still be somewhere, and you wre most likely contracted back in by the provider afer 10 years or so when the rates dropped. Mine is worth about £40k now, after growth / re-investment
So well worth investigating.
My retiremnt plan keep the SERPS money in pension #3 . Keep pension #1 with Scot M going till 55 . Keep pension#2 ging with Equitable till 57. Then cash in P#3 at 59 and P#4 at 61
To achieve this I will pay large AVC's into the company compulsary scheme (P4) which is a Standard Life SIPP product and has lowish costs.
Trying to build up several £100k pots - 10 years to go .

MTG free , Kid free , frugal lifestyle.

I do wonder how many of the own it now generation pay more on their phones / Sky subscription / Car PCP than their pension contributions . Bet its a staggeringly high figure in the under 30's.

Good on the many people here who have planned ahead and saved.. I'm well jealous!

I started saving into a pension 10 years ago not really thinking about it, that's currently valued around £60k (has cost me around £10k of takehome income!). That buys me depressingly little in retirement. I am continuing to pay 5%/5% matched into a pension.

I'm 37, have about 9-10 years left until mortgage is paid off, and also £1k/pm childcare bills for 2 kids so properly tackling retirement stuff is going to have to take a back seat in the short/medium term.

Like many on here I'm planning to keep going as long as I can, while maybe scaling back somewhat. I've managed to get out of the corporate world already after about a decade and have a completely awesome job now ... I can't think of a job I'd rather be doing, has decent life balance and it pays reasonably well too.

Historically I've always saved like crazy (I've a lot of savings) but the older I get the more I come round to the YOLO attitude particularly due to things like the impending brexit doom and the fact that successive governments have been so far off getting the country's books balanced (and have their head in the sand) that we are going to need to take some increasingly painful corrective action in the long term (I'm not sure what, but I guess the worst case would be doing bat-shit stuff like seizing liquid assets or prohibitive tax rates etc)

I think people who have strong provision are more likely to post in these threads than thise who haven't which is about 30% of people over 40 ( from memory).

My advise to my kids has been start early and let the interest do the work.

£1k to start and £50 a month for 50 years @7% is over £300k.

I had my workplace pension summary through the other day. A grand total of £248. Per annum.

I'll be 63 at current rate of progress by the time the mortgage is paid off. I pretty much expect to die at my desk to be honest.

Had a bad few years after uni with debt. Still have some. Hoping for a fairly sizeable pay rise at work so I can get what's owing paid down quickly then try and get some in a pension before it's too late...

I would guess about a third of my peers are still renting as they haven't managed to save a deposit because of wage to rent ratios and I doubt any of them have a pension either. This is the 30-35 age group that got done pretty hard post uni by the GFC in 08.

Shenanigans like [url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/pensions-retirement/tax-retirement/46332-average-tax-bill-people-saved-much-pension/ ]this[/url] makes me a bit wary about overpaying into a Pension. The goalposts constantly change year on year and many of us (well, hopefully wealthier people than me) will be caught out one way or another..

I intend to be an aged male escort.
Or ,sell my body parts to make ends meet.
My missus has started to ask about a "plan",
I can't afford to stop to make one.

be thrifty till 50, then spend to the end.

This site seems to suggest you need 1/2 to 2/3 of your full time salary to maintain your lifestyle.

http://www.which.co.uk/money/pensions-and-retirement/starting-to-plan-your-retirement/guides/how-much-will-you-need-to-retire

As for my retirement plan, I'm on the armed forces pension scheme and have been for about 10 years. If my calculations are correct, if I leave in a few years I should get about £13k pa from that, plus another £8k pa from state pension. I'll then have approx 20 years of paying into another pension scheme with whatever employer I end up with to supplement that. Mortgage is payable from my current salary and should be paid off by retirement. My wife should also get a state pension though her focus is bringing up the kids so anything she earns is negligible. Kids will be earning their own living by the time retirement comes around so if push comes to shove we can sell the house and move to something smaller. No idea if that's a good or bad state of affairs but I can't afford to pay additional contributions into another pension at the moment.

Other than that, hope but keep the webley in the bottom drawer if it all goes tits up!

Sandy the pig - that link is [u]not[/u] a reason not pay into a pension, did you see how few people it was affecting? And most people in any sort of danger will have an accountant or FA to advise them on it. Having a million quid in a pension pot would be a nice problem to have!

Depends what you mean by "retire".

I got early retirement almost 9 years ago so already draw a (obviously much reduced) pension but that was too young an age to really give up working so I started a whole new career in the world of bicycles. The income from the part time work I now do is all paid into a private pension and I'll continue to do that until I finally give up (and who knows when that will be).

I've never fancied the notion of slipping off abroad somewhere and I'm not sure that selling my current house would give me enough funds to maintain two houses so I reckon I'll be stopping here.

Folk tell me that I'm "lucky" to be in the position I am but much of that was down to choices - of career, of employer, of lifestyle, of expenditure.

tlr - that's true but the point I was trying to make is the government are constantly changing the goalposts and will (IMO) need to continue to do so to make ends meet.

tlr - that's true but the point I was trying to make is the government are constantly changing the goalposts and will (IMO) need to continue to do so to make ends meet.

Those changes, and the tax relief taper, have nothing to do with making ends meet as far as the pension bill is concerned. They ar just a complicated way of raising a small amount of additional tax revenue so that they can be “seen” to be “taxing the rich” whilst not actually achieving much other than creating confusion. Stability is what is needed in pension savings not constant tinkering!

No pension, no intention of getting one too.

We have finished the mortgage though,

Sell up, move to Goa.

Money should last 30 years. More than enough.