Plan Retirement

• You may have various pensions and investments which you have acquired over time, but no clear idea what they’re likely to deliver.
• There may be a lack of real structure to these plans. Contributions made with no goals set, no understanding of charges being applied, or even if the investment is performing well.
• You could have an idea of when you want to retire but no idea if you will be able to afford it.

Retirement income targets

Retirement income should be targeted to meet two categories of retirement expenditure; basic expenditure and lifestyle expenditure.

Basic expenditure is the basic cost of living; the utility bills, council tax, running a car(s), food shopping, telephone, etc. These are effectively unavoidable costs.

Lifestyle expenditure is the extra expenditure which reflects the quality of life you aspire to. For example, holidays, meals out, socialising, hobbies, entertainment, treats, etc. These are effectively only costs which can be afforded when basic living costs have been covered.

Retirement income provision

We need to obtain up-to-date details of your existing assets that could be used to fund your retirement. These include but are not restricted to:

• Pensions – company schemes
• Pensions – personal schemes
• Pensions – auto enrolment
• Pensions – state
• Investments
• Deposit-based savings
• Property – buy to let
• Property – home (downsizing potential)
• Business – sale
• Business – income provision

Assumptions

Appropriate fiscal assumptions need to be agreed, such as:

• Inflation
• Growth of investment and pension funds (net of management costs)
• State pensions
• Rental income (net of overheads)

Report

All the data needs to be sense checked, analysed and mapped out to provide a summary of your retirement provision. This is presented in a report, listing your provision, targets and assumptions. It includes diagrams to clearly illustrate what retirement looks like financially.