Hi all. I'm 52 and thinking about later life. I have a fairly small (£48k) pension that including employer and tax contributions I'm putting £350 a month into. I earn £29k a year so not masses but have low outgoings as I live in a housing association flat and until a couple of years ago I used to earn a lot less (hence the small pension pot so far) so I guess I'm just pretty careful. I'm currently waiting for sale after probate to go through but it looks like I'm set to inherit £60k. Have one child at uni who comes home in the holidays.
I did think of trying to use the inheritance as a house deposit and belatedly trying to get a mortgage. But two bedroom places here are loads, at least £200k and on my wage at my age, on my own, it's just not doable. I don't want less than two bedrooms because for the next few years at least I would like to have a home that can accommodate my child as they move into adulthood, have them stay for Xmas and breaks etc.
I also thought about putting the whole thing into my pension to try and bump it up but pension money is less flexible than other money.
So now I'm thinking that I will invest it and in 15 years' or so time use that to supplement my eventual pension, having spent another 15 years paying into it, hopefully to have a few nice years of being able to take trips to places before I get too old to do so. The rest will go on rent and council tax etc, same as my pension will.
I can pass the flat on to my child both during my life and by succession, so they will always have somewhere to live if they want to take on the tenancy. So that is kind of taken care of. And I of course have this secure tenancy myself so I am taken care of.
Does this sound sensible? I know that received wisdom is it's always better to own property, but doing it this way means I have security for me and my child plus maybe a bit of enjoyable retirement time for a couple of years.