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Possible Retirement – Checklist

DelianLeague
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Possible Retirement – Checklist

#491212

Postby DelianLeague » April 3rd, 2022, 11:41 am

Hello everyone,
I invite you to comment on my possible retirement, I would especially like any tips from retirees. Was there any problems or pleasant surprises?

Delian League is getting grumpy so he has decided to seriously consider retiring by the end of this year. My Checklist so far is:

1, Book a Pension-wise appointment.
2, Tax questions. See if an accountant will spend an hour with me to discuss any tax issues.
3, Check N.I. record.
4, Check value of all my pensions and Investments.
5, Write a bucket list.

Thanks, D.L.

Moderator Message:
Moved from FIRE to Pensions Practical (chas49)

swill453
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Re: Possible Retirement – Checklist

#491221

Postby swill453 » April 3rd, 2022, 12:41 pm

Track your spending. You'll never know if you can afford to retire unless you know how much it costs.

Scott.

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Re: Possible Retirement – Checklist

#491227

Postby kempiejon » April 3rd, 2022, 1:25 pm

swill453 wrote:Track your spending. You'll never know if you can afford to retire unless you know how much it costs.

Scott.



Yup - this was key to my planning. For about a year I used software to interrogate my bank account and a spread sheet to keep a close track of all my transactions. You can then make a list of basic needs and then discretionary and indulgent spends. I regularly check back but don't feel the need to continue the granular examination and record keeping.
I was surprised at how much my motoring cost, mostly commuting to work.
Your list has so some good starting points, I don't think I'd want or need an accountant but our situations will be different. I think rather than a bucket list which sounds like ticking things off before you die you will need ongoing pastimes and projects to fill the decades of post-work life.
Have you asked yourself what you'd do with all that time, I'm currently working full time but I hope I have thought enough about what I can do once I'm not attending the office. Redundancy a decade back prompted me to itemise my spending and after a few months made me realise that not having to go to work although initially exciting leads to lots of free time that needs filling.

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Re: Possible Retirement – Checklist

#491232

Postby DrFfybes » April 3rd, 2022, 1:39 pm

As Scott says, you need to now how much you spend, before you know if you'll have enough.

Then you need to know how much you WILL spend - more time at home so more heating, more holidays, more eating out, a new hobby with setup costs, etc. We spend more in retirement than working, but we also bought a 1780s house with a large garden, both in need of work, so lots of tools and materials required, some of which are 50% more than they were 18 months ago.

MrsF is still part time, as she actually enjoys (most of) her job, so there is an option to drop hours, and if you have been saving then you simply stop and don't need to dip into pensions much.

If you have a SIPP, a lot of people concentrate on taking max lump sum from their SIPP, perhaps to put into an ISA. However if you take no lump sum and instead draw down then you only pay tax on 75% of it. That means to can take out over £16.5k pa tax free, as the rest falls within your personal allowance.

Plus you can get £2k from Dividends, and another £1k from interest (some Income funds pay interest rather than divis) so you can 'earn' nearly £20k before paying any tax.

Paul

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Re: Possible Retirement – Checklist

#491238

Postby mc2fool » April 3rd, 2022, 2:06 pm

DelianLeague wrote:1, Book a Pension-wise appointment.
2, Tax questions. See if an accountant will spend an hour with me to discuss any tax issues.
3, Check N.I. record.
4, Check value of all my pensions and Investments.
5, Write a bucket list.

Well, I'd put at 0, 0a, 0b, 0c, and 0d, "Do your own research", including both formal sources, e.g. https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk and others, and informal ones, like asking questions on The Lemon Fool. ;)

You should definitely be prepared and as clued-up as you can be before booking a Pension Wise appointment or seeing a tax accountant, to make sure you get the most out of them. Esp. so as the free Pension Wise appointment is a once-only and any tax accountant is going to charge you an arm and a leg!

Note, just for a simple example, that Pension Wise says, "To make the most of a Pension Wise appointment, it’s best to first check with your provider: if you have a defined contribution pension; the value of your pension pot(s); whether your pot contains any guarantees or special features.", so you will want to move 4 to before 1.

Note also that many/most DB pension schemes (and maybe others) will only provide you with a transfer value once a year for free, and charge you for any subsequent ones. £200-300 is typical, so find out before you ask for one.

Re 3, Check N.I. record and 4 for state pension, if you haven't already done so sign up here: https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension. That will give you access to your NI record, along with information about the cost of filling any gaps, and will give you a state pension forecast. Don't procrastinate too long as 2022/23 is the last tax year you'll be able to fill gaps back to 2006 (if you have any). After that you'll only be able to fill the last 6 years.

If the state pension forecast, and if/how to improve it, confuses you -- don't worry, it does many and it isn't as simple as DWP/HMRC would like you to believe -- then post the figures noted at viewtopic.php?p=429935#p429935 and we'll help you figure it all out. :D

DelianLeague
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Re: Possible Retirement – Checklist

#491282

Postby DelianLeague » April 3rd, 2022, 4:07 pm

Many thanks,

Some helpful stuff already. by the way, my list is in no particular order.

D.L.

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Re: Possible Retirement – Checklist

#491302

Postby stevensfo » April 3rd, 2022, 5:32 pm

DelianLeague wrote:Many thanks,

Some helpful stuff already. by the way, my list is in no particular order.

D.L.



I think that the secret is to keep yourself very busy, albeit with things that you 'want' to do.

I will probably retire in just over a year, though I can in theory, leave whenever I like with 3-months notice. The reason I chose to stay another year are complicated and funny. We have a horrendous audit coming up and if I were to leave at the earliest date, I'd be dropping my colleagues in at the deep end. We have a great atmosphere and after years of staff cuts, we all help each other. There are other reasons as well.

All my retired aunts and uncles seem to be having the time of their lives, and one couple - two retired teachers - have upsized from a house in Yorkshire to a bigger house in Scotland, to be closer to their daughter and grandchildren.

My poor old mum (86) has had so many parts replaced that I think she's more cyborg than human, yet she's enjoying herself and planning the next holidays with her cousin, sister or daughters.

I don't have a bucket list, but I do have plenty of hobbies and stuff that I'd love to do. Loads of family tree research to sort out and put into readable form, go back to my music and blow the dust off a few instruments, improve my French, Italian, Swahili etc, learn to sing, re-visit Cambodia and spend more time at Siem Reap, then at an amazing French hotel in the south, same with Vietnam, Laos, Thailand. Visit relatives in Australia, New Zealand, a good tour of southern Italy and Sicily, photography and mastering Darktable.

Not sure about the afternoon. :lol:


Steve

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Re: Possible Retirement – Checklist

#491309

Postby TUK020 » April 3rd, 2022, 5:52 pm

Review your will?

DelianLeague
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Re: Possible Retirement – Checklist

#491326

Postby DelianLeague » April 3rd, 2022, 7:10 pm

Stevesfo,

Thanks for a great post.

My reasons for thinking about retiring this year are also many.
I know I would miss my job as its rather interesting and I have one of those skills that are alas dwindling, so I do get a kick out doing something that makes a difference. My biggest problem at the moment the commute. I am often up at 4:15 am and on the road dallying with M11/A14 etc. I have spent the last 5 years in roadworks on the A14.
My parents had 9-5 office based jobs and both retired at 55 and are still having the time of their lives even at 85.

I am not worried about filling time so much as I have family abroad and in the past I have lived and worked abroad and have kept in touch with x colleagues to the extent that I have offers of places to stay for a few months.
I think this will be the year...

D.L.

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Re: Possible Retirement – Checklist

#491327

Postby scrumpyjack » April 3rd, 2022, 7:14 pm

The most important thing is health - of you and your loved ones. Compared with that, everything else is trivial.

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Re: Possible Retirement – Checklist

#491387

Postby AsleepInYorkshire » April 3rd, 2022, 10:45 pm

DelianLeague wrote:Hello everyone,
I invite you to comment on my possible retirement, I would especially like any tips from retirees. Was there any problems or pleasant surprises?

Delian League is getting grumpy so he has decided to seriously consider retiring by the end of this year. My Checklist so far is:

1, Book a Pension-wise appointment.
2, Tax questions. See if an accountant will spend an hour with me to discuss any tax issues.
3, Check N.I. record.
4, Check value of all my pensions and Investments.
5, Write a bucket list.

Thanks, D.L.

Delian,

Can I offer some thoughts please?

What is making your grumpy? The list of possibilities is endless.

1. Identify what is making you grumpy.

What do you want to do in retirement?

2. Identify what you want to do in retirement.

How much will that cost and how much have you got coming in from pensions?

3. Identify how much your retirement will cost and how much you have in pension income.

Can you retire on the income and sustain that over the period of your retirement?

Retirement is a simple promise to yourself. Enjoy what you want to do. Make sure you can afford it.

AiY(D)

DelianLeague
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Re: Possible Retirement – Checklist

#491741

Postby DelianLeague » April 5th, 2022, 9:27 am

scrumpyjack wrote:The most important thing is health - of you and your loved ones. Compared with that, everything else is trivial.



Yes, Everyone would agree with this statement and it is one of the main reasons that I am now thinking about retiring.

I did touch on it a little in a previous post but I didn't want to go into detail. I will say a little about why:

I have been working since I was 12 years old, proper job, not paper round. Dairy farm labourer before school then working in a factory after school that manufactured paint brushes.
I have never been out of work and it has often been long hours with long commutes and often working shift work including night work. I am still doing this now. I work rotating shifts that mean I never eat a meal at a set time and even when working a late shift and get home at 11pm, I still wake up at 4am because my body clock was doing an early shift the previous week. The work is noisy and sometimes heavy, Its all I know and I have done ok financially from it. I don't have money worries.

Lets put it this way, My 85 year old parents are fitter than me.

D.L. thinks he needs some time out.


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