Retirement

The chances are you’ve heard of SIPPs – Self Invested Personal Pensions – and maybe you have a good idea how they work. However, lots of people have either never heard of a SIPP or have been put off opening one because they feel they are too complicated or too time consuming to manage.

Review your pension today to get ahead with your retirement planning

How much do you have in your pension? Do you even know where all your pensions are? And most importantly of all, are you certain you’ll have enough to live on when you retire?

The question “what age can I retire” is probably one of the biggest you’ll ever ask yourself. It is arguably the most fundamental question of any long-term savings plan, as retirement is normally the ultimate goal toward which most of us save.

Retirement is an increasingly expensive business. Life expectancy and the cost of living for retirees are rising. So what you are expecting to be enough to keep you going when your working days are done is unfortunately not what you are likely to get.

If you have assets you always imagined you’d pass down to family members, perhaps so that your grandchildren could buy a first home or pay for university education, you could be in for a wake-up call.

A recent survey conducted by Schroders suggests that Brits are failing to make sufficient provision for retirement. There is a mismatch between the income people believe they need in retirement and the actual cost of living, which means those who are not yet retired expect living expenses to take up just 34 per cent of their retirement income, whereas in actuality they account for 49 per cent.

It can be a consolidation conundrum to know when it makes sense to combine different pension pots, and when you are better off keeping separate accounts. The days of a job — and a pension — for life are long gone. People in the UK now have an average of 11 jobs during their working lives, which can mean a similar number of separate company pension plans, alongside any private savings. This might include personal pensions, stakeholder pensions or SIPPs (self-invested personal pensions).

Investing for a comfortable retirement is an ongoing process, not a one-off exercise. You will need to check you are on course to achieve the required level of income when you give up work as interest rates and returns from different assets may change over time.

As a qualified chartered accountant, Leah* is all too aware how tax can eat into the value of people’s savings and investments. When it comes to her own money, she wants to make sure it is invested as tax-efficiently as possible, and this was one of the reasons she opened a SIPP with EQi.

You might enjoy the benefit of being in charge of your own work, but you can end up paying for this freedom in other ways. All companies that employ people now have a responsibility to provide pensions to their employees, but it’s just one of the many things a self-employed person will have to take care of themselves. So if you are self-employed, you risk being left behind when it comes to retirement saving, as well as other long-term benefits - unless you take a few simple steps.

For many people, the ability to achieve a regular income from investments is important. This may be particularly relevant for people who are retired and no longer have a monthly pay packet to rely on and are looking to achieve financial freedom, while other people require their investment to pay out regularly to cover a regular commitment such as school or university fees.

If you are planning your own retirement savings on top of any workplace scheme you might have, then trying to choose between the many different options could leave you confused and frazzled.

For younger people who want to save for their futures, there is now a new kid on the block. The Lifetime ISA (LISA), has been available since April 2017 and comes with the alluring promise of a 25 per cent bonus on top of your annual savings. But how do eligible investors choose between this product and a pension.

Saving for retirement can sometimes seem a daunting task. This situation isn’t helped by the fact that many of us today have a hotch-potch of different pension plans. This is likely to include various company pensions, private pensions and investments, as well as the state pension. It is estimated that the average person has around 11 different jobs throughout their career* and some will have significantly more. Thanks to the Government’s auto-enrolment programme, each time we switch jobs we ar

Many people focus on investing to reach retirement, but what about once you are retired? Investment can continue to play an important role in retirement, you may just need a new strategy.