If you are retired and have a good life, can I ask how much pension you draw?

[User5512]

I tried some calculators and they all gave me vastly different numbers.

I’d like to know (roughly) how much money does a couple need to have a good life in retirement.

If you are retired, would you be kind enough to give me a rough idea of your lifestyle and how much pension you get?

thanks :)

I’m in the same position, no worries financially, as we had good pensions (I get 36k pa, after tax). and savings, but I can’t say I’m happy in any way - it’s just removed financial stress. 😗

It’s high risk relying on a partners pension. Three of my friends are divorcing, all very different circumstances financially. Children have left home and nothing in common in two cases and an affair in the third. All of these marriages were over 20 years with one at 30 years.

When planning work out what would happen in awful circumstances as well with death or divorce. My sister was widowed quite young, the business her DH and her ran died with him.

DS has a job with defined benefits and started paying in at 21 just like me. My Mother gave me sound financial advice and I am grateful for that.

40% of your salary into pension? That's.... a lot 😂 Your monthly bills must be extremely low, right?

I worked until I was 70 and deferred my state pension. I now have to pay 20 percent tax on my state pension. State pension should be exempt from tax or a reduced rate applied.

We spend about that as a family of 4 so I know we won't need that much a week on food when we retire. My in laws however probably still spend that cos they buy so much and branded stuff too, so it depends.
It does make me wonder though how they come up with these figures.

I will have £24k a year including my state pension, occupational pension & disability benefit at today's rates. It doesn't sound much, but is nearly £500 a month more than I get now.

This is my plan, currently.4wband speaking to financial advisor to check in where I am.

I said that in today's terms I'd like £2k a month after tax as I know from my parents that all their bills and food are covered by just one state pension so one is spare if they end up using more gas for heating and their private pensions allow them enough for holidays etc. They are still able to save!

I also read thst you should do all major reno before you retire as that should last you through to the end and it's best to do it then so you don't have big expenses later.

you should do all major reno before you retire as that should last you through to the end and it's best to do it then so you don't have big expenses later.

I* *wish we'd done this! But we were so busy with work and still bringing up kids. The whole house needs refreshing and there are big jobs like the roof which probably needs replacing soon.

I'm in my second year of retirement, and it's been in inflationary times. I would say it's more expensive, but worth looking at index linked pensions.

This year mine will go up about 7%. Over time what looks like a generous pension will be eaten away if it doesn't keep up with the cost of living (the state pension does of course).

Mine is looking like it will be about £58k per year just for me. I don’t have a mortgage and the children will be off my hands so I think it will be ample. I also have a lot of savings and will inherit at some point so I’m pretty confident. I will most likely downsize too at some point so that will be up more cash.

We will have about £50k a year ( retire in 2 years). No mortgage. We are planning to downsize this year to get about £125-50k which will help massively.

I’d say we’re very lucky and live comfortably on my DH’s final salary pension from which we take around £3k per month. Neither of us gets state pension yet, another 6 years for him and another 7 to wait for me.
We paid off our mortgage 12 years ago and moved to a less expensive part of the country several years ago. We also have another mortgage free property elsewhere that we’ll sell at some point which will give us another £250k (at today’s figures).
We have no debt, DC grown up and no longer living at home, our outgoings are around £1200 per month, including food shopping so we are lucky enough to go out to eat every week, enjoy lunch and coffees out, pub once or twice a week and generally enjoy a good life. Cars, any big household purchases & holidays will come from savings, which we have a really decent amount of and we can help our adult DC if needed.

I'm still surprised at how much people think they will need to live comfortably. As a retired person I have fewer outgoings and I live very comfortably on £1700 per month. I run a car and have one holiday per year, occasional weekend away and friends to visit. It depends what you mean by a comfortable lifestyle.

I'm 55, I have 4 pensions and when I retire I'll have £2k a month to live off, this includes state pension.

I have no mortgage or debt now, I think £2k a month is plenty. I'll also have lump sums of around £50k to take at retirement.

Thanks @BronwenTheBrave and @owlsinthedaylight ! That's a very depressing amount I'm going to need! 😬

If you haven't already, starting paying into your pension or start saving. Imagine how much you'd have at retirement even if you did £100 a month.

My friend who is 55 thinks she can retire on a state pension and a very basic council pension. Her council tax alone is £300 a month!

She refuses to think ahead and actually think about her options. She has a good lifestyle now while working, but this will have to change I'm sure!

My last pension statement said I would get £21k a year if I retired at 65, plus a large lump sum. It's a public sector pension.

I earn currently twice as much a year. But by then a lot of my costs will (hopefully) have gone down by the time I retire.

I've still got 20 years to go and don't plan to marry (again) so it's a good enough amount as a single person.

I am also trying to save whatever I have left over each month in my rainy day fund. Not much, as it goes. 😭

My dmum has £1600 a month and it is literally piling up in her

My parents had about £1200 a month from my dad's private pension (he worked for 50 years and always paid in) and state pensions although my mum got less than full
They lived well. Modest house paid off at age 60, ate out a lot. Not so many holidays as were in 70's and 80's by then. But more than comfortable
Small amount in savings
Dad died last year and mum gets about £750 a month from his private pension plus state (she gets more now Dad has died) and she's doing fine financially
Not extravagant but can spend money without worrying
I think we will be OK but only in our 40's and I am still hoping to get a state pension. Without state pension life will be much less comfortable

I have three relatives who are pensioners, all now are widows. Two get an income of around £2000 per month, one has an income of around £3500. Mix of state pensions, private pensions, income from investments etc. Two of them are old enough that they still get a state pension from their deceased DHs, which is included in the figures, otherwise they'd be on quite a bit less.

All manage just fine on these incomes, although it helps that all are now mortgage free. They live comfortably, all though not extravagantly, and can afford holidays, days out, meals out, to run a car etc.

To say that you need £50k for a couple just isn't true, in my opinion. We bring home less than that now, and we have 3 teenagers and a mortgage. Again, we manage, and we have far more outgoings than my pensioner relatives.

In an ideal world I would say that you should have whatever your income is now (if comfortable) minus your mortgage payment and travel to work costs, assuming you'll be mortgage free when you retire. And hopefully have some savings built up as a back up, in case you need to do work on the house etc.

But depending on how long until you retire, you'll need what your income will be the equivalent of at retirement, as what you earn now will be worth less by then, due to inflation etc.

Never understood those calculators. My OH and I have about £20k between us in pensions. We both work part-time and bring in another £10k between us and we find it plenty to live on. Our mortgage is paid off - council tax ridiculously high which is annoying but we're careful with our spending. We can afford to go to the theatre, take the grandchildren out etc. We go abroad 2 or 3 times a year (I arrange and book them myself - I reckon I save about 1/3 of the cost doing that). We don't eat put or have takeaway etc but we've never really done that

I guess if you have expensive hobbies (my husband goes to football and has an allotment, I'm part of a local band and go walking and to lunch with friends and I'm a governor of a local school) or love fancy cars or want to fly business class, you might need more but we consider we have a great life on our £28/£30k.

We will have more of course, when we turn 67 in 4 years time and get our state pensions. We'll probably give up our jobs then 😊

That's assuming you don't want a drop in living standards. If you have a very high income then I'm sure you could survive on less and still be comfortable.

Maybe work out what your outgoings are now (minus the mortgage and travel costs), including the cost of your annual holiday(s), money for Christmas, birthdays, car insurance etc. Basically anything you know you'll need to pay out for as standard every year.

Very dependent on whether you plan to have the mortgage paid off, acquire a new car before you retire, have made sure the house is future proofed (boiler been replaced, roof maintained with a 25yr guarantee etc) and so on.

I’d do a schedule calculating things like annual cost of fuel bills, TV licence, council tax, car maintenance, dental check ups, vet fees, how much you’ve actually spent in the supermarkets in the last year; then add 10% to cover unexpected inflation (another war/oil crisis etc) to get your basic/essential living costs; then I’d add in an amount for holidays, activities (rambling assoc, rock choir, golf club fees etc), annual clothing/shoe spend, hair cuts, make up.

Think you can use templates on line as an aid.

All of these costs will be particular to you - only you know how much it costs to heat your house, which brands/how much you like to spend on clothing, how often you like to get your hair done (once every couple of years for me as I just can’t be bothered until it gets too long).

But once you have this figure you can start planning.

A lot depends on where you live. Housing is cheap in my area, so we downsized to a very nice bungalow. All of our energy bills have halved as a result. We gave up one of our cars. We have an income of around 40k + state pension. We live a very comfortable lifestyle, restaurants, theatre visits, gym memberships, several holidays a year including long trips abroad. I was, like you, very worried before retirement about how we were going to manage. Turns out everything is more than fine. We do not have 2 thirds of our previous joint income, it's probably half.