After retiring how much in savings do people have

[Umatsu]

I just wondered after retiring and paying for, perhaps moving house etc how much do people have left in savings for their retirement.

Income 15000€/pa including 2 small occupational pensions one of which has no increases ans full state pension. Waiting for 77000€ from my share of house after divorce. Have about 65000€ in lump sum from divorce. Hoping to but a house BUT also need to change a car. Have a relative, 99, who may have left me something but this year he promises me 40000€ but the chèque seems to bé lost in the post. Not holding my breath!

Bit worried about the future tbh. Late mother lived to 96.

No disrespect, but is there ANYONE on MN who isn't rich ( either in money or assets?)

😆

Threads about earnings, investments and pensions on MN always turn into a reverse of The Four Yorkshiremen sketch. In RL the majority don't earn six figure salaries or have 8 btl properties ...

@EttieWarbler are you sure ?? Sure as hell looks like most MN are minted!! 😂

That's what I'm saying
MN: minted
RL: not so much!

We don’t have a lot in savings, maybe £25k as we’ve ploughed a lot of money into our home and given our son £35k towards a flat purchase. My husband’s pension is £50k but mine is poor as I job hopped a lot. I’ll probably end up with £16k plus another £10k when he dies. He is 10 years older than me so I have another 10 years to go before retirement. I’m not working at the moment but aim to get a job next year with a view to working for 5 years. It will all go directly into my savings/pension and I’m aiming for £250k. We only have £40k on mortgage which would have been cleared if we hadn’t upgraded the house/gifted money to our son.

My husband stayed with his company for 40 years and did very well with his pension. I wish I had stayed in jobs longer, but saying that, I’ve had a much more varied and interesting career.

We are in a fortunate position which makes the really hard years worth the struggle. We have a friends who lost their homes during the credit crunch, we were close but just managed to survive. When we got married 30 years ago, interest rates suddenly went sky high and we had £400 per month to live on after regular bills were paid. It was really hard, no food banks back then or financial contribution to nursery places. I’m glad we survived it.

I’m not retired yet, but I am planning to retire hopefully in 2026 when I will be 57. I will have mine and my OH’s pension and we currently own a rental property that we will sell hopefully in the region of £300k - property is currently valued at £250k so unless the property market dwindles drastically then it will be realistic to achieve this amount.
Both properties will be MF by that date.

I’m not going to be able to add to my savings so I hope what I have will last. I didn’t budget for high inflation, and my DB pension rise is capped at less than half current rate.
I also didn’t budget for private dentistry and medicine, which have been my highest costs in the 5 years since I stopped work. Who knows what the next surprise will be!

We spent hundreds of hours pension planning in our high earning years, quite literally. And for 20 years, we've done very little other than make our SME a success. Now we're 66, we'd like to sell it. It's successful, but it ain't ICI. We also want our loyal employees looked after long term.

Working out the exit plan is the most difficult business issue we have ever faced. Fewer than 30% of entrepreneur enterprises are transferred to another generation. We've looked at trade sales, employee buyouts and just shutting the door. Shutting the door means leaving several huge and valuable customers high and dry. Trade sales remain a possibility if a valuation can be negotiated. The employee buyout looks the likeliest option for the company's continuation, but it's the version that means we shan't walk away with any money because we'd have to settle for an income.

This probably sounds crass if you are reading this as a low or middle income earner, I appreciate that, but this transaction represents 35 years of short notice cancelled plans, holidays and arrangements I dont want to total the money wasted- or the periods when we didn't take any money for ourselves (the longest was 18 months in 1995-96 but there was another in 2000 and a third tough phase in 2009). Our retirement fund, apart from the state pension, is ENTIRELY based on selling the business as a going concern. And meanwhile the opportunity for an enjoyable retirement recedes as we age. The time may come when every penny has to be spent on care. And sooner than we expect.

Have 60000€ in the bank, waiting for 77000€ from sale of marital home, but need to buy house and car.

We have a significant amount in pension funds but it’s scary that each £100k only yields £5-6k a year in retirement gross
We also have significant savings but again that will have to last us 40 years and we would wish to leave our children a decent inheritance
Its so important you save everything you can into pensions or other investments if your choice
owning your own home in retirement is critical as affording rent at that time is unaffordable for most
It’s generally felt pensions ( unless you’re blessed to be in the gold plated jewel encrusted public sector pension schemes ) are ticking time bombs for most people who are Ill prepared for the cost of retiring.
I’m so sad for those who can’t save anything extra as retirement will be hard for them 😞

I think the thing is to make sure you can live comfortably upon retirement income. I was a teacher for 25 years and so have teaching pension but also saved into stakeholder pension too. I had £75k. I've just bought an annuity with that. Pension and annuity give me a little under £1200 per month. I also have 8 btl houses and generate a net income of £21,000 per annum. In 5 years I can claim my state pension which will be £200 per week. I've got about £50k in savings but can sell a btl house to generate a lump sum if I need to. I pay quite a lot of income tax. I gift my 3 DC £1k each per year and 2 dgc £250 each year. DH won't retire (60) for 2 more years and he has a decent salary. His pension is civil service and much better than mine. He can get £17k pa when he is 60 plus a £51k tax free lump sum. He has a small stakeholder pension too £23k. He will draw down from that. When he is 67 he can draw rest of his civil service pension approximately another £7k pa. Plus he will get full state pension of about £200 per week. He has less savings as likes to buy stuff whereas I am a saver. We know we are lucky but have worked hard to be in such a good position. When I was a teacher I always marked A level exam scripts and tutored 2 evenings a week. We also fostered children for over 10 years as well as both working full time.

I think that if you retire at 60, you’re likely to have to pay for at least 2 car replacements and at least 1 kitchen and bathroom replacement during your lifetime, as well as multiple replacement if white goods and other general home maintenance. You’ll also need a couple of boiler replacements.

Its just sensible to recognise these larger expenditures will be required.

Some people have enough monthly pension income to cover that stuff and effectively continue to save. Others need to have lump sums for it, as their monthly pension income is only enough to live on.

I’d think £100k might be needed in order to not feel too anxious about these costs. I’d be looking at having some available as cash savings or easily accessible, but most invested to try and keep up with inflation.

The other thing is to do some of the spending before retiring. If you’ll need to replace your car, or kitchen, it will probably feel less painful to do it before retiring than after, if funds are not palatial.

This has made me quite anxious about money tbh. I thought we were okish before reading this 😂

Thanks for starting this thread-been rather educational and not in a good way!

My DF has about £100,000.00 in savings. He has chosen a very expensive nursing home if he needs one, so I don’t expect to see any of that !

Nursing care is free- check the FNC contribution figure once he has been assessed

It’s not when you’ve got £100,000 in the bank

Bugger all, we moved house last year and most of our savings went on that. I do have a with-profits life assurance thing that matures when I'm 65 and I'll get a lump sum out of that.

About £350k, mostly in bonds. We replaced our kitchen just before I retired at the beginning of this year. We no longer run two cars. My husband retired several years ago, and has a pension of about £1500 a month plus state pension on top of that. I have just retired and receive about £950 a month. I have another few years until I get my state pension. We both have disabilities so receive PIP.
We paid off the mortgage about 12 years ago and have been able to save more because of this. I'm aware that we are in a very comfortable position, but some of this is down to having planned long term (since my early 30s) for the very real possibility that my husband would need to retire early. If we hadn't done that things would have been very different.

Also, if it were up to me I would downsize now. My husband is not as keen, but seems to have realised that it's going to have to happen sooner or later. That would free up about £200k if we moved to a smaller place.

The kitchen replacement was my compromise re not downsizing now! (Although it was over 20 years old and needed replacing).

Pensions are actual savings? It's much less common (and generally advised against I think) to buy an annuity now, you draw down from your pot as required- 25% tax free lump and then maybe/ideally about 4% a year? Obviously there are still some final salary schemes, defined benefit etc but for most people gojng forward aren't pensions just a savings pot?

I'm trying to build my S&S ISA now to fund the years between hopefully stopping work and being able to access that pension pot at 57.

Nothing at all at the moment. We moved house last year and have spent a lot of money getting it right.
I have a with-profits insurance policy that matures when I'm 66 (62 at the moment) that should give me around £60,000 although I need a new kitchen out of that.
DH is only 56 so we have his salary/bonuses etc for a few years yet.

Eight years ago, we lent a family friend our entire savings (she paid us back rapidly) but at the time in terms of actual cash in the bank all we had was £3,00. We put our shoulder to the wheel and prioritised savings over nights out and slowly but surely it came together.

I have a DCS Pension. Been saving 5-9% of my income into one since I was 18. But as my salaries were lowish until my 30s I only have 200kish in them (I’m early 40s). I have since my 30s also invested about 12k a year into ISAs and have roughly 200k saved up. Based on my projections and assuming we downsize we should have enough for a comfortable retirement.