Is 1500 per month enough pension

[Muddle200]

no mortgage or rent

Enough for what?

How much money do you currently need to cover your monthly outgoings? (Utilities, food, council tax, leisure, house maintenance, clothes etc..)

Is that more or less than £1,500? If it's more, are there any expenses that could be cut?

Bear in mind inflation - £1,500 in ten year's time will buy a lot less than £1,500 today.

Only you know what sort of life you want when you retire

Everyone replying on here will have different ideas ~ some will enjoy frequent holidays, run a car, enjoy treating grandchildren to expensive gifts or have a hobby with associated expenses

My advice would be to look at your current expenses. What is likely to change when you retire?

Is this before or after state pension is added in ?

so many details missing

but there is a guide that Which! Produces once a year to show how much you need for a frugal, medium, and luxurious retirement. They do it for a single person and also a couple. Very useful to see how I compare

There are still a lot of variables though, so it's only a rough guide.

E.g. someone living in a small flat/house will have lower utilities/council tax/upkeep costs than someone living in a large family home. Mortgage isn't the only cost associated with housing.

The best starting point is to look at your current living expenses and what they add up to.

Sounds like loads to me.

I reckon I need to put aside 400 pm out of that to cover inflation so basic income for one person I have savings
to cover running my flat clothes etc
No car or hols

How much does living currently cost you ? The current food and basic bills ?

How much do you spend a month now ?

Is this now that you are asking is £1500 a month ok to live on - or is it in the future say 2045?

I manage on £1200 a month and have 2 cheap foreign holidays a year

It wouldn't be for me. How old are you and what are your current arrangements?

Surely your investment growth would more than cover the inflation. It depends how and what you invest in and your timescale. The younger you are the better your £1,500 is.

https://www.nutsaboutmoney.com/pensions/average-pension-pot-uk

No one can know this for you, it has to be based on budgeting for you individually.

Many variants here that would impact this. However, assuming now mortgage or rent to pay and if you are single and alone, then that would not be a significant amount after council tax, gas, electricity, water, insurance, car insurance, tax, petrol, food, etc and on these essentials you would have no money left. So I would say no!

It's way more than many people have now so yes, it's fine.

I think with no mortgage or rent it could be okay. My mum only has around £1000 income per month and manages okay. She doesn't have expensive hobbies etc and no interest in going on holiday. She goes out with friends a couple of times a week for coffee or a light lunch, msybe out for dinner every 3 weeks. She has some savings which she uses for anything big needed around the house but day to day manages fine on £1000.
If you have some savings to fall back on it should be okay.

Thanks so much so what to do with the 400 quid a month to beat inflation

basic income for one person I have savings
to cover running my flat clothes etc

Can you be clearer about this point?
If you have savings that will cover the running of your flat, then £1500 a month for everything else is plenty! But do those savings cover your running costs forever? Or do you mean something different by running costs than council tax, utilities, lease charges, etc?

You appear to have plucked this £400 out of thin air!

If you have £1500 to spend every month, are you saying that you would spend £1100 and save £400, so that you have savings to cover inflation when prices go up?

That would work for a couple of years - it’s not really inflation-proofing your income, it’s just making sure that you have savings so you can cope. But long term, that’s not going to work. If you saved £4800 (12 months of £400) then left it just sit with little interest in a bank account, then by the time you needed it, your £4800 would be eroded by inflation and won’t buy as much as it would have done in the year when you saved it.

It would help if you could be clearer about this £1500 income, where that’s coming from.

The ideal situation is that you grow the amount of money that you have (by investing it) so that it increases by more than inflation. Easier said than done! But the minimum you want to do is have enough growth that your money increases at the same level of inflation.

If your £1500 is coming from you having cash in the bank and planning to withdraw £1500 a month, you might want to look into buying an index linked annuity product. This means that you buy a product that pays you £1500 a month. But the “index linked” part means that every year the £1500 is increased by a specified measure of inflation. So if that measure is 2%, then next year you’ll get £1530 a month. So your income goes up with inflation.

These are complicated products and I’m not saying that you should do this. What I’m saying is that it sounds like you’re just taking a guess at what you could set aside, when you might be better to talk to a financial advisor.

I looked at your other posts (it can help to answer a question if there’s more info) and it looks like you’ve just bought a £185K flat without a mortgage. So it sounds like you have quite a bit of money at the moment, and would really benefit from proper financial advice.

If this is an occupational pension it will go up each year, which is meant to cover inflation. My teacher pension went up by 6% in April

You also haven’t answered a previous question about your state pension and whether that’s included in the £1500 income - to be honest the whole situation has so many variables, but that’s an absolutely critical one to understand to comment!

That’s not correct for all occupational pensions. Occupational just means it’s provided by your employer. It can be a defined benefit scheme (like TPS, which had annual increases) but it can also be defined contribution / money purchase. For the latter - which is more common in private sector employers - there are no guaranteed increases. There’s just an invested pot of money, and any increase is dependent on how well those investments perform.

It’s an important point though, and why it would be helpful if @Muddle200 would tell us where this £1500 is coming from.

You seem so vague and a bit all over the place...
Can you be a little more precise about your pension(s) and your outgoings?

And maybe get a book about retirement finances from the library.

Also, how old are you, and when do you plan to retire?

Also...
to put aside 400 pm out of that to cover inflation so basic income for one person I have savings

Not sure what you mean about putting aside £400 - do you mean now or once you are retired?

And how much savings? How are they invested? Do you currently make maximum pension contributions? Do you invest in ISAs - if so what kind (cash vs S&S)?

Go to the Money Saving Expert site and check out the Pension Planning board called 'The NUMBER'. This is where people discuss how much they think they could reasonably live on per year in their retirement (and how to get there), incl questions on state pension, how to account for inflation, whether they can afford an earlier retirement age, etc. It is very informative, both for people with much equity and/or on high incomes and folks on more modest ones.

1500 (incl. state pension) would be between a basic and moderate pension (but more closely to basic) for a single person at current rates in the UK. You can check out the Retirement Living Standards website for reference.

Have a look at this to give you an idea:
https://www.retirementlivingstandards.org.uk/