Countdown to Retirement – What do you need to do? Retirement can sneak up on you faster than you would even believe! Laura Richardson considers some of the key points that you may like to consider as part of your countdown to retirement . . .

Although many people have a financial plan in place for their retirement, it is advisable to have a full financial review about two years before you plan to retire to ease your countdown to retirement. Here’s how to go about your review:

  • Complete a full budget plan for your retirement. You may find that many costs will change. For example, work-related costs may disappear, however, you may spend more time at home so as to mean an increase in utility bills such as electricity and heating.

You can now compare this to the amount you will have access to upon retirement:

  • Find your latest State Pension statement, or request a new one. This gives you an approximate figure of how much State Pension you will be entitled to claim. This figure is based upon your National Insurance contributions throughout your working life.
  • As above, find your latest statements from any other pension schemes that you have contributed towards at any time during your working life.
  • If you have switched pensions or stopped contributing to a pension, it is worth tracking these down in order to include any payouts from these in your retirement fund calculations.
  • Compile a comprehensive list of all savings and investments at their current worth.

Once you have made your calculations, you may be wondering how to increase your pension over the last years of your working life? The simplest way is to increase how much you pay in now, and you could increase your countdown to retirement to give you more time to boost your pension pot. Putting back the date of your retirement will also shorten the length of time that your pension fund needs to be able to provide for you as your years in retirement will be lessened.

Another way of boosting your income during your retirement years is to minimise any debt repayment that you will be left with after your retirement. It is useful to compile a list of all debts that you currently owe. It may well be worth looking at options to lower your overall repayments, for example by switching credit card debt or settling more expensive debts with a loan that has a lower interest rate in an effort to make your countdown to retirement easier

Pension planning can involve complex financial calculations, and therefore if you are in any doubt about your financial plans for retirement, you should contact a qualified financial advisor such as our trusted partners at Andrew Douglas Wills and Legal Services. We offer a free initial consultation to discuss your financial requirements after which our trusted partners will be able to work with you to ensure that your plans for today ensure you have the life you want after your countdown to retirement. Call today!

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