Experienced In Providing Excellent Pensions Advice

Building Your Pension Fund - Looking Towards The Future

Do you already know when you want to retire? Perhaps you have a precise date in mind, right down to the year, month and day. Are you already anticipating all that free time as a permanent holiday?

No matter how young you are, you should be planning for that day already. The government is right on this one – if you’re old enough to be working then you’re old enough to be saving towards your retirement. 

Sorry, but we’re all living longer and expecting more from our lives, so you need to think how you’ll want to live in retirement – and how to fund that lifestyle. A rule of thumb might be to aim for an income of a half to two-thirds of your current one. Adjusted for annual inflation, that’s your target income in retirement.

What’s certain is that the State Pension will not fund your retirement plans on its own. Everyone reaching State Pension Age (SPA) on or after 6 April 2016 gets a maximum of £221.20 per week (as at April 2024). Would that fund the retirement you’ve got planned? 

To be honest, most people won’t even qualify for the £221.20, as you need National Insurance contributions for at least 35 years to qualify for the full amount, and 10 qualifying years to get any new State Pension at all. 

See why you need to plan now?

What are your options at retirement?

If you’re aged over 55 and looking to take some of your pension benefits, you now have a far greater choice thanks to the government’s pension reforms. Previously, many people had to buy an annuity with their pension to receive any income. Now, however, there are a number of ways to get an income from your pension fund.

• Benefits at retirement can be drawn as a Flexi-access Drawdown instead of an annuity 
• There is no need to secure benefits via an annuity at age 75
• There’s no limit to the number of plans you can pay into, (subject to your total annual allowance)
• You can take advantage of the broad investment flexibility, with a high risk/high return fund matched by a low risk bond, either to match your appetite for risk or to suit the particular point you have reached in your working life. (The closer you are to retirement the more protective you want to be of the assets you’ve already built up.)

The importance of advice

With greater choice comes increased complexity. However, the increased options available could lead many people into making the wrong decision and paying unnecessary tax, which makes professional financial advice all the more important when considering accessing some or all of your pension fund. 

By building a long-term relationship with you, we can provide the specialist advice that will help ensure financial security in retirement. 

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We can arrange a review of your existing pension arrangements, or discuss making provision for your retirement. We can help you if you have started a new job recently and want advice on whether to join their pension scheme or make payments instead into an existing personal plan. Or maybe you have built up various pensions over the years and want to see how you can consolidate some or all of them to reduce management charges?

If you are a new business owner, you may be looking to set up a pension scheme for your employees? 

The value of pensions and investments and the income they produce can fall as well as rise. You may get back less than you invested. HM Revenue and Customs practice and the law relating to taxation are complex and subject to individual circumstances and changes which cannot be foreseen.