how much do you think you will need to retire on?

[SingSam]

I am spending the last few days before going back to work looking at how much I think I will need when I retire.

I have read all the advice about how much you are likely to need (a lot say 2/3 of current income which for me is not going to happen), some say work out what your bills are likely to be and go from there...

I am in London so I assume for now I will stay where I am and potentially be mortgage free (v small property). There is the potential to sell up and buy somewhere cheaper but I don't want to consider that option yet (without doing some more research).

I just make a spreadsheet of what my bills are likely to be - excluding food, excluding mortgage - and I was quite surprised by how high they are. This would be assuming I stay in London. I am also sure some bills might go up (like electricity) as I'm in the house all day but then I assume my travel costs would go down (not commuting to work, getting a bus pass eventually!).

has anyone else done this sort of exercise and thought what sort of monthly amount they are likely to need when they retire?

I too have been looking into my pension pot. I’m 49 and teach full time. By the time retirement comes (hopefully at 60) I will have been teaching for 40 years. There is no way I want to teach 5 year olds beyond 60.

Up to 2015 all teachers were paying into a final salary scheme but since then it’s changed and it’s now an average salary scheme. So my pension will be a pension of 2 halves.

So I can retire on about £9k a year (plus a £29k lump sum) at 60 but then have to wait until I’m 67 for the second part of my teacher pension to kick in along with my state pension.

I do also have a very small pension when I worked for social services which is about £900 a year.

My house will be worth around £200k so I could downsize and maybe end up with £80-100k in equity. I reckon I need about £8k to survive day to day but would like an extra £5k for holidays and days out.

My partner of 3 years has no pension whatsoever but some savings and will get a full state pension. Luckily he may be able to make some money in his retirement.

I definitely need some help to work out how to manage the 7 years between retiring and my second pension pot kicking in. I need to find a good financial advisor specialising in teacher pensions.

BG2015 I am not a financial advisor. I am a teacher too. I took out an AVC to try and build up a fund to draw down to cover the years between the 60 and 67 teacher pensions. I also opted to pay for the actuarial adjustment so I can take the one usually available at 67 at 65 instead. Not sure if this will be available to you (depends upon when you migrated to the new scheme).

AVC is good but other PP may have been better but I went for the easiest option that I understood. This may be your best option too.

My understanding is that the whole teacher pension scheme changed in April 2015.

I did actually pay in some AVCs when I first started teaching, it’s worth about £3.5k now. Unfortunately life took over and I got married, bought a house and had a baby so the AVCs had to stop.

My mortgage also has 17 years to run and I’m 11 years from retirement so I need to make those two line up, there may not be enough money to add to a AVC. I’m also trying to do some house maintenance as well.

I am fully paid up for my state pension, am a member of a final salary pension scheme and have been paying additional contributions and paying full amount into ISA each year. I hope to have in the region of the same amount of income in retirement as when I'm working as I won't be making all those extra pension contributions and will pay less tax. Depending on health and working environment, will keep going as even waiting an additional year or two before you take your pension can make a difference. We live quite frugally in a lot of ways, although I have never asked for money from DH for clothes, make up, theatre tickets, flights etc. and certainly don't intend to start in retirement.

TPS did change but whether the changes affected you depends upon your age. I'm 50 and it affected me immediately, my DP is 53 and he doesn't move over onto the new scheme until August this year. The new AVC is flexible and allows drawdown but I think the old ones don't. !! years from which retirement date? 60, 65, 66 or 67?