How to invest £45k in a SIPP at 65

[notquiteruralbliss]

As I am approaching 65, I thought I should plan for retirement. I have an old final salary pension that should be enough to live on comfortably and I'm putting 5k a month into my current (defined contribution) company pension as a sort of mid term investment. My current plan is to retire at somewhere between 67 and 70.

I do have 3 pension pots (totalling maybe £100k) that I won't necessarily need to touch for a few years. Two are company pension pots in 'nearing retirement' funds. One (about 45k) is a SIPP I am no longer paying into that is sitting in cash. I would like to invest the SIPP in something but am not sure which fund. Would the Vanguard 80% Equities lifestyle fund be a good option or are there better options?

Could move the SIPP into one of the defined contribution schemes. Combining DC pensions can be useful to minimise admin. If any of the DC pensions is under £10k it can be useful to keep them separate, as a very small pension can be taken as a whole without triggering the Money Purchase Annual Allowance (can do up to 3 times with small <£10k DC pensions).

In terms of investment risk, look at when you would access the money. Some money within the pension you may access in a couple of years time where as other you may not access for 10+ years.

Book: The Meaningful Money Retirement Guide, by Pete Matthew
That book has details of how to construct a ladder within a pension/ISA wrapper so some is invested at a higher risk level than money that would be accessed sooner.

Image: example of a cashflow ladder.