Retirement Income Planning

Retirement income planning helps you prepare for the future long before you’re ready to finish working. As people approach retirement age, it’s easy to feel as though you’re standing on the edge of a cliff. However, by sitting down with an independent pension adviser, you’ll be able to shift that perspective and see your pension as just another form of monthly income you’ve worked hard for.

Planning for retirement

It is never too early to start planning your retirement. While the state pension is available to everyone who has paid National Insurance across their career, this is likely not enough to support a comfortable quality of life after you retire. Workplace and personal pensions pots, combined with savings and a sound investment portfolio, will help increase the value of your retirement funds.

Our financial planners are here with you for your life’s journey. We develop long standing relationships with our clients, supporting them throughout their careers, into their retirement, and helping them to provide for their families for when they are no longer here to do so themselves.

Pension cashflow forecasting

Some people don’t know where to start when looking into what income they will need in retirement. In your meeting with a financial adviser, we will look at your current expenditure patterns and assess what lifestyle you want in retirement. You might want to travel more, spend more time on your hobbies or make some changes to your home when you retire. Whatever your vision for the future is, we will build an expenditure forecast to understand the life you want to lead in retirement and show you what you need to do to get there.

We use sophisticated cashflow forecasting tools to show our clients what their financial future looks like. In a forecasting meeting, we can adjust for different savings strategies, lifestyle alterations, and projections for your investments. We can also show you the real-life impact on your finances if you are considering creating trusts or giving gifts. These forecasts will include the assumed rate of inflation, the growth of your investments, and any outstanding debts and interest rates you may still have by the time you reach retirement.

Types of pensions

There are lots of different ways to draw from your pension, depending on the value you have available, where and how it is saved or invested, and your attitude to risk. Over the course of your career, it’s likely you’ll have different pensions pots to factor in, and we’ll also help you consider the tax implications of different pension withdrawals to help you mitigate costs where possible.

When you reach the minimum pension age for you, there are many options available. It might be that you’re not yet interested in retirement, in which case you can do nothing and leave your funds where they are, or investigate an investment strategy to grow your funds for the future.

You might choose to withdraw a lump sum from your pot, or buy a pension annuity to establish secure payments for life or over a defined time period. Alternatively, you can access your pensions flexibly with a drawdown strategy that leaves some funds accessible and some invested.

If you have worked in the public sector, you might hold a defined benefit (DB) pension, as these were very popular in the industry. Also known as final salary pensions, this scheme offers payouts based on your final salary (or in some cases, a salary average) and how long you were a member. These types of pension schemes offer good financial security into your retirement, but don’t offer as much flexibility as some other types.

Of course, you have the option to blend different pension approaches too, if appropriate. Your retirement income planning meetings with an independent adviser at YorWealth will explore these options with you and take into account your unique financial circumstances. We will factor in your lifestyle, family commitments, and contingencies for future care requirements.

Get advice with retirement income planning

In the complicated world of pensions, having the support of a trusted financial adviser is invaluable. Contact the independent team at YorWeath today to get professional, easy to understand advice for your retirement income planning.