invest21c wrote:Shelford wrote:I'm sorry for your predicament. My view is not all financial here.
In your shoes, my first consideration would be a bucket list - what would I like to do in next 12/24/60 months. Be generous with yourself. Take the kids and their families on a great holiday; get that dress; stay in swanky hotels etc.
In your shoes, I would not be looking at an enhanced annuity, given you have sons whom (I presume) you wish to leave any surplus to.
To be hard-nosed about it, if you have Stage 4 cancer, you would be an outlier if you lived another 10 years.
You have £12500 in state pension. I'm assuming a huge amount here, but I assume £50K p.a. would be fine to live on.
Why not take £50K per annum to complement this for the next five years.
If you need to pay for a care home, selling your existing home will likely more than cover any fees.
One thing to consider is to enjoy life now while your health is relatively good. It may not always be like this.Dod101 wrote:If I were the OP I would plug in some figures into a site on the internet. There are a number of sites but I found My Pension Expert (about which I know nothing). Plug in your numbers (basically your age and the amount you have or want to commit to an annuity.) That will give a number for a standard life at the OP's age. Then ring them up and explain the health situation. They will probably want a lot of detail because the best rate can only be derived from the full health situation.
She could probably improve on that but annuity rates vary all the time and especially at the moment where the trend in interest rates is not exactly stable. That number though will give her something to think about. Of course the capital is more or less gone but there are a lot of different sorts of annuities and some I think involve a guarantee of a minimum number of years of benefit and so on. This is a very specialist area though and it is vital to get advice from someone who is a specialist and up to date with what is available.
Annuities are a bit of a gamble with the capital but it is like buying anything. If you buy a new car the money is gone but you have a nice shiny new vehicle. With annuities your capital is gone but instead of the new car which can sit on your drive, you are getting a financial guarantee of an annual payment for life with no effort on the part of the purchaser, and as has been said, only a modest part of the annual payment is subject to income tax so in some circumstances they can be a valuable arrangement. With relatively high interest rates at the moment annuity rates have suddenly improved dramatically. They can of course be index linked and coupled with various guarantees but that will affect the immediate benefit that she will receive.
Hope some of that may help.
Dod
Yes exactly and thank you Dod....
..... and just so that this isn't all 'doom and despondency'..... with 'a scandalous waster of money' as my ex would say, I went out last week and bought another (nearly new) BMW 218iMSport convertible........ much to the delight of my sons I am pleased to say........ it gives a message out that Mum is fine at the moment, so life is for living......... (now what else was on that bucket list?..... fortunately very little so focus on making house comfortable...) It is hard to break habits of a lifetime of financial prudence.... but it's fun trying!
I am not in the same position as you although I have prostate cancer but good for you. Exactly what you need to do in your situation. Enjoy life!
Good fortune to you and I hope you will be around for a long while yet.
Dod