Retirement Planning | Independent Financial Advice

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Expert Advice To Help You Plan For Retirement

When people usually think of retirement planning, they think it’s something that should be started once you reach your 50’s. But that’s simply not the case and the sooner you plan for your retirement, the better.

Retirement planning is the process of ensuring your pension provisions can actually provide you with the standard of living you’re looking to have once you retire. That’s why the earlier this is considered, the better. As hard as it may be at times, regularly saving money in your 20’s can have huge benefits once you reach retirement age.

Unfortunately, for various reasons, many of us aren’t actively saving enough money for retirement. According to the UK’s Department For Work and Pensions, around 43% of working age people aren’t saving enough when measured against their target replacement rate (TTR), which is the amount of funds the individual would need to meet an adequate level of income in retirement.

We understand that from the outside pensions can seem rather daunting. There’s a lot of jargon, a lot of information to digest, plenty of rules to understand and of course, a lot of ways to get it wrong. That’s where we come in. As independent financial advisors, we’re here to give you impartial advice with your best interests at heart.

So whether you need advice regarding your existing pension set up, want us to help you look at other pension options out there or a combination of the two, we can help. We’ll understand your situation, analyse your pension options and provide you with tailored advice to help you save the most money you can for your retirement.

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With over 30 years of experience when it comes to retirement planning, we’re here to help with whatever you need.

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Retirement Planning: What To Consider

Pension Offerings Change

It’s important to understand that the benefits a pension offers can change over time, often without you being aware of it. We understand it’s hard to keep an eye on everything, particularly something considered to be a ‘safe’ investment. That’s why we offer ongoing advice and management for your pension, ensuring you always receive the best solution.

Pension Consolidation

Over your lifetime, you’ve likely accumulated a variety of pension pots from different providers through the process of moving job roles or setting up your own personal policies. We’ll help you to explore the possibility of combining them all to simplify management and potentially increase your lump sum.

Starting To Save Earlier

If you can, we strongly advise that you look to start regularly saving as early as possible to ensure you have the funds in retirement that you need. We understand it can be hard to save regularly, especially with rising costs and increased commitments as you get older, but we’re here to help provide advice on building your pension pot each and every month.

Retirement Viability

We’ll sit down with you to understand your retirement plans, research potential pension offerings that suit your needs and help you to put a plan in place that takes into consideration fluctuations in income and outgoings.

Converting Your Pension Into Income

It’s a misconception that every pension will just automatically start paying you an income once you reach retirement age. There are a variety of ways to convert your pension savings into income, whether that’s via regular payments or lump sums. We’ll help you to understand the various options.

Hidden Benefits Or Pitfalls

It’s very common for many people to be unaware of the benefits or pitfalls that their current pension set up has. We’ll analyse your current situation to make you aware of any benefits you should be taking advantage of or any pitfalls to look out for. If we can recommend a better pension provider for your savings and your situation, we will.

Book a call

What To Expect

1

Get In Touch

Let us know your specific requirements either via our online form, email or a phone call. The more details we know, the sooner we can start to help.

2

We’ll Assess Your Needs

Our team of experts will review and assess your specific requirements, allowing us to understand your situation and how we can help.

3

Advice Tailored To You

One of our expert financial advisors will be in touch to work with you, providing bespoke advice and a tailored retirement strategy for your needs.

How We Can Help

We understand that planning for your retirement isn’t necessarily always at the forefront of your mind. It’s often seen as something that’s reserved for later on in life. However, the earlier you start putting plans into place and regularly saving, the more likely it is that you’ll have the funds to live a comfortable life after retiring.

Not only that, but your current pension scheme may not be the best option for you and your situation. Each and every one offers different investment options, minimum contributions, charges and ways to receive your money once you retire.

Our expert team of financial advisors are here to help you make sense of the pension market and all that entails. We’ll provide expert, impartial advice, comprehensive research into your pension options and help you to create a tailored retirement plan to ensure you live the life you desire during retirement.

FAQ’s

How To Plan For Retirement?

There’s many steps to plan effectively for retirement, however the sooner you start to plan for or at least consider planning for your retirement, the better. Whilst some aspects of planning will be easier to carry out the closer you are to retirement as you’ll be more aware of the actual cost of living, you can take learnings from the average inflation increase over the decades to plan fairly effectively.

Here are some good steps to take to try and plan for your retirement.

The first step is to try and work out how much money you’ll need on a monthly basis. Break it down into essential expenditure (such as bills, groceries and day to day travel) and non-essential expenditure (such as leisure activities, eating out and any holidays).
Next, try to work out your likely retirement income as it stands. Get yourself a State Pension forecast to help you understand an estimate of how much State Pension you may get when you retire.
If you have any defined benefit pensions, ask your pension provider for a retirement quote. Similarly, if you have a defined contribution pension pot, ask your pension provider for all information on your retirement options.
Then total up any savings or investments you have and could use in your retirement.
After all these years of working, you may also have some ‘lost pensions’ that you’ve mislaid the login details for or the name of the provider. The UK Government actually runs a free service to help you track these, so it’s a good idea to check that out.
Once you’ve collated all this information, you then need to understand how you’ll choose to receive your pension funds. With defined benefit pensions, these usually start paying you a guaranteed income once you reach your retirement age. There is also an option to take a lump sum, however you may have to sacrifice some income to receive this.If you have a defined contributions pension, you’ll usually be able to start drawing from the funds you’ve built up from age 55 (age 57 from 2028). There’s a variety of options available to you in regard to receiving your money here, from regular payments to lump sums. It’s important to assess your situation and your options before making a decision.
Now you know the likely financial position you’ll be in come retirement and you’ve decided how you’ll be drawing your pension funds, it’s time to create a plan for your retirement.You’ll have to think about when you want to retire, how much tax there may be to pay, will you have any debts on retirement and much more.

Here at Oakworth, we can help you to effectively plan for your retirement from any age. We’ll consider each and every step, understand your specific situation, cut through the jargon and provide you with a tailored retirement plan that puts you in the best financial position possible when you retire.

How Can You Help Me Plan For My Retirement?

As independent financial advisors, we’re on hand to provide tailored retirement advice to you and your specific situation. From the right pension pot provider to choose based on your goals and level of risk to advice on how to safely and effectively build that pot to provide you with the life you want in retirement.

We can help you no matter if you’re in your 20’s and want to start planning and saving now or you’re nearing retirement and you need advice on how best to draw out your pension, we can advise and help you with all facets of planning for your retirement.

The two main areas where we can help you with our expertise though is the analysis of your existing pension and the ongoing management of your pension. First of all, we’ll analyse your existing pension to make sure you’re in the right spot financially when it comes to the amount you’re saving and your projected retirement funds.

We’ll then look to uncover any hidden benefits or pitfalls you may not be aware of when it comes to your current pension setup. Once we’ve gathered all the information we need to see the bigger picture, we’ll advise you whether to stick with what you have or consider a potentially more modern solution that’s more suitable to your needs. We won’t necessarily choose the cheapest option, instead we’ll recommend the pension that we feel is the best solution for you, your situation and needs.

We then offer an ongoing pension management solution that looks to ensure you’re invested in a pension setup that matches your attitude to risk and performs well against its peers. The rules and regulations around pensions can change rather frequently through the years, so you really need to keep on top of any changes that may affect the funds you’ll have during retirement, this is where we come in.

How To Account For Inflation In Retirement Planning?

How much of an impact inflation has on your future ‘purchase power’ so to speak depends on a number of factors from how early you intend to retire to the actual rate of inflation in the future. Unfortunately, we don’t have a crystal ball when it comes to how much inflation may change over the coming years. But we can look to the past to help guide us.

It’s a good idea to take learnings from historic patterns of inflation to try and plan for a few potential possibilities. Whilst there will have been spikes due to local or global events, having a realistic idea of the average inflation rates over at least the last 30 years or so will help. Also, when projecting any investment returns, be sure to use real rates of return (nominal return minus inflation) rather than nominal rates as this will provide a much more realistic and accurate representation of the actual purchasing power of your investments.

We can help to ensure all the bases are covered when it comes to saving for your retirement, taking all aspects into consideration to help you better understand ‘accurate’ figures when it comes to your retirement funds.

How To Plan For Early Retirement?

Achieving an early retirement takes meticulous planning, discipline and of course, the funds to be able to set aside enough money each month and still live the life you want to whilst you’re young.

It’s a big decision and not one to be taken lightly. But if it’s something you’re intrigued by or completely set on, you’ll need to consider many things.

First of all, you’ll need to work out how much money you currently have saved up across your pension pots (and any ‘lost ones’) and any other possible sources of income such as investments. It’s important to also take into account any debts you may have and understand how long it will take to pay those off or how they may impact your early retirement plans.

Next, you’ll want to plan out your ideal retirement lifestyle and work out the ‘salary’ needed to maintain it. All of this is something we can help you to plan and execute. If your intention is to retire early, then you need to start saving earlier, because the sooner you start saving, the more your money works for you and the more help you can receive from both your employer and the government.

Remember, your pension qualifies for tax relief, making it a very tax-efficient way to save money. You can currently put up to £60,000 a year into your pension and receive tax relief. It’s important to note that this annual allowance includes all your contributions, your employer’s contributions and any tax relief you receive. You can also ‘carry forward’ any unused annual allowance from the previous three years, potentially allowing you to contribute a higher amount in some years. You’re also currently entitled to 25% of your pension pot tax free (this is capped at £268,275).

What Is An Annuity?

An annuity is a financial product that provides you with a guaranteed, regular income once you retire that will be paid to you for the rest of your life. Annuities are usually ‘bought’ with funds from your pension pot, which ensures they can’t be set up until you reach the age at which you can draw on your personal pension. This is currently 55, but will increase to 57 from April 2028.

When you buy an annuity, you’ll inform the provider of your requirements, such as the duration you’d like it to pay out for and whether you’d like it to rise with inflation. Usually once you die, your annuity stops paying out. However, you may be able to arrange for it to either switch some or all of your payments to a loved one or arrange for a fixed lump sum to be paid to them upon your death.

It’s important to have these discussions prior to any agreements and ensure you have considered a variety of annuity providers and understand what you’re signing up for. Once you’ve set up your annuity, you can’t change it. We can help you to consider your annuity (and other retirement income) options and provide impartial advice to ensure the funds you need during your retirement and you effectively look after any loved ones in the event of your passing.

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Expert Advice To Help You Plan For Retirement

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Retirement Planning: What To Consider