Planning for retirement? Enjoy the journey!

If you’re reading the news, chances are you’ll hear about a pension scandal or a scam. There’s always a story or two about someone who put their hard-earned retirement fund in a scheme which ‘just couldn’t fail’. And it did – the next thing you know, the fund has gone bust and they’ve lost all their money; like Arch Cru for example where £400M was lost in 2009 and investors were left with very little.

With all this news, it can be really scary when you’re starting to think about retirement – especially if you’re trying to plan by yourself. At the last count there were thousands of funds you could invest in, and it’s easy to get bogged down trying to keep up with what is currently on offer without going round and round in circles and then shelving the idea for another year because it’s too complex!

Retirement should be a positive experience and planning for it should be exciting, not stressful. Here are the top things we encourage our clients to think about when they start planning for life after work:

• What’s your end goal? Thinking about where you want to be and when are always good starting points. Calculate what your monthly outgoings are now, and make necessary adjustments e.g. subtract mortgage payments. Add in extras like holidays or hobbies and you should have a clearer picture. The figures may be more or less the same once you’ve made your adjustments, but now you have a basic framework and can start adding other building blocks
• Will retirement be an immediate stop for you, or will you gradually stop working over a time period? If you want to phase work out, how many years do you want to spend doing this?
• What have you already got saved towards retirement? Your existing pension details should include a valuation, where your pot is invested and how much is being contributed by you and your employer
• Find out your State Pension entitlement; this can be done online. If you’re in a relationship, your difference in age may affect when you can access your pension, so look into this
• Do you have any ‘spare’ income or assets, which could be used to support a retirement plan?

Once you have these building blocks (and it may take you a while to get them on one piece of paper), it’s time to seek out the help of a professional adviser. They will review your information and convert your spending target into a suitable goal before working out what you need to do in order to reach it. Then they will help execute the agreed plan to fulfil your retirement goals. It really doesn’t need to be complicated, stressful, or difficult. Like anything in life, just starting off may be the hardest part of the journey!