[The Jester of Wibbly]

Well, got me thinking today.  I have a fair few customers who are retired and many seems very comfortable with their way of life, nice cars and seem to have many holidays.    Others are on the breadline and are always moaning.  The one I was chatting with today is really struggling.   A retired self employed builder. 

It seems us self employed have it the worst with no help from employer contributions, or those magical final salary pensions that see so many people retire comfortably in their early 50's.

The press always shows the pensioners who can't afford to either eat, heat their homes or have any social life.

So have you covered your retirement?   Are you stashing loads into a plan?  Are you just depending on state pension?   

I have been investing slowly in a pension over the years and paid my mortgage off, but with 15 years to go, I need to seriously up my game to enjoy retirement in the full.

Plan ahead chaps before it's too late.

[Splash & dash]

Well, got me thinking today.  I have a fair few customers who are retired and many seems very comfortable with their way of life, nice cars and seem to have many holidays.    Others are on the breadline and are always moaning.  The one I was chatting with today is really struggling.   A retired self employed builder. 

It seems us self employed have it the worst with no help from employer contributions, or those magical final salary pensions that see so many people retire comfortably in their early 50's.

The press always shows the pensioners who can't afford to either eat, heat their homes or have any social life.

So have you covered your retirement?   Are you stashing loads into a plan?  Are you just depending on state pension?   

I have been investing slowly in a pension over the years and paid my mortgage off, but with 15 years to go, I need to seriously up my game to enjoy retirement in the full.

Plan ahead chaps before it's too late.

Personally feel property is a better investment than a pension pensions can end up worthless depending what they are invested in . Property long term will always provide a significant increase in the amount invested most of my customers that are very well off have multiple properties and they live a very comfortable life style .

[windowswashed]

Paid mortgage off, pension starts in just over a year, totally debt free and almost grid free with electric bills, house insulated to the maximum. Trying to reduce unnecessary future expenditure through pre planning before the day.

[NBwcs]

What really annoys me most about saving for retirement is that there really isn't any "independent financial advice" , everybody wants a piece of the pie so its really difficult to be 100% sure your doing the right thing.

[dd]

In my experience it is best to be your own financial adviser. It is not overly complicated if you just choose to use tracker funds (or equivalent etf).

For most on the forum simply putting one or two days earnings each month into a pension/isa would build up a decent nest egg over the years.

[Shrek]

The recommended amount you should be saving is half your age as a percentage of your wage - as in , if you are 40 , then you should be saving 20% of your wage until retirement.
The people who struggle in retirement really haven’t planned ahead and not lived within their means , there’s no excuse really but it is very important

[Splash & dash]

Just been an interest bit on the news say the minimum pension pot is 14 k per year but to live comfortably in retirement you need 40k , but again that’s all dependent on the % rise of everything if bills increase 4x in a few months then all that goes out of the window

[DJW]

I’ve just retired 🎉🥳
If I had my time again I would have invested in property just so I could have more control. My pensions lost over £10k at the time Liz Truss got in charge. The state pension isn’t enough to live on. Independent financial advisors want up to 4% of your pension pot. You have several options depending on your health and needs.
Pensionwise are good to talk to but won’t advise.
Everyone is after your money especially the tax man.

[The Jester of Wibbly]

Reading up on pension returns for every £100k in the pot will give you after 25% tax tree lump sum, approx £4k a year.   So add that to the 10k a year state pension you can see why the Self Employed are struggling after retirement.   I now see why I see so many elderly window cleaners out there working still.

[deeege]

Embarrassed to say I’ve never paid into a pension and done zero retirement planning until I hit 40.

Last few years I’ve started investing heavily into ETF’s and index funds in a  S&SISA. Probably not the most tax efficient way of saving for retirement but I like to have full control of my finances and ISA’s are tax free (on the way out) unlike pensions.

Play with  compound interest calculator and its unbelievable what compounding can do to investments over 10-20-30 years.

Will also be mortgage free by 45 and have the Mrs teachers pension, aswell as 2 x state pensions.

[DJW]

Return on Isas and savings is very poor, make better money in a pension …..usually.
So many people seem to bury their heads in the sand and think the state pension will see them out! It’s no where near enough.
Self employment has drawbacks and pensions are a major one.
I should have had a final salary pension from my printing days except the directors destroyed the pension with their selfish greed.

[deeege]

Return on Isas and savings is very poor, make better money in a pension …..usually.
So many people seem to bury their heads in the sand and think the state pension will see them out! It’s no where near enough.
Self employment has drawbacks and pensions are a major one.
I should have had a final salary pension from my printing days except the directors destroyed the pension with their selfish greed.

Stocks and shares ISA’s are very different to cash ISA’s. My S&S ISA has returned 20.36% last 12 months. Whilst that’s obviously not sustainable it’s far better the the 3% or 4% that’s you’ll get in cash ISA. Not even beating inflation.

[The Jester of Wibbly]

After working all out lives, its so important to enjoy our retirement years without financial worry if we are lucky enough to get there.   Affording a nice car and having plenty of cruise ship holidays 🤣 each year is my dream and now is a target of mine.

[Shrek]

Return on Isas and savings is very poor, make better money in a pension …..usually.
So many people seem to bury their heads in the sand and think the state pension will see them out! It’s no where near enough.
Self employment has drawbacks and pensions are a major one.
I should have had a final salary pension from my printing days except the directors destroyed the pension with their selfish greed.

This is poor advice regarding isa’s - I presume because you don’t have one or you’ve only heard of cash isas’s maybe?
A stocks & shares isa can be invested in exactly the same fund as your pension and is tax free when withdrawing

[DJW]

Yes, I was referring to a cash Isa. Stocks and shares Isa although can give good returns puts your investment under similar risks to a pension. It could go up or down. Fine if you have the years in hand to wait for it to come back up.
Personally I hated paying fund managers to lose my money.

[deeege]

Yes, I was referring to a cash Isa. Stocks and shares Isa although can give good returns puts your investment under similar risks to a pension. It could go up or down. Fine if you have the years in hand to wait for it to come back up.
Personally I hated paying fund managers to lose my money.

There are dozens of funds now that are passive and track your chosen market, and charge less than 0.50%. You’d need a really good reason to be paying fund managers 3%+ these days as they very rarely beat the markets even before the charges.

It’s been a while since you researched ISA’s hasn’t it DJW?

[Dry Clean]

Pensions for the self employed are a waste of time, when I was employed I paid £100 a month into a pension got a £30 tax rebate and my employer also put in £100, they had to by law, also because it was a company pension I also saved on pension management charges, the growth  rate was as useless as most pensions but the £130 and no charges made it worthwhile.
For the self employed there are better ways to save for retirement.

[DJW]

Yes, I was referring to a cash Isa. Stocks and shares Isa although can give good returns puts your investment under similar risks to a pension. It could go up or down. Fine if you have the years in hand to wait for it to come back up.
Personally I hated paying fund managers to lose my money.

There are dozens of funds now that are passive and track your chosen market, and charge less than 0.50%. You’d need a really good reason to be paying fund managers 3%+ these days as they very rarely beat the markets even before the charges.

It’s been a while since you researched ISA’s hasn’t it DJW?

I was referring to paying fund managers every year to lose my pension.
When you get to retirement age it’s a matter of luck how well your pension is doing at that particular time.
Yes I know very little about tracking the market and am unlikely to start.
Fair play to you if you know what you are doing.

[dazmond]

The truth is none of us know how long we're gonna live!if we knew we were done for at 70 then there's no need for a pension.

The ridiculous amount of money the media bleat on about that you need to put away to get an even modest income is enough to put any young person off!

State pension plus savings and hopefully I'll be able to carry on working part time well into my 70s....

[dazmond]

The irony is that lots of people have put money away and been sensible all their lives only to get swept away by a malignant tumour in their late 60s/early 70s.....

My motto is save regularly,try and look after health and pace yourself(don't work too hard)and go on the trips,places you want to go NOW!don't wait til retirement......you might not reach it(or be in poor health to actually go!)