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.

I retired at 54 from secondary teaching. I have about £37k in my personal savings but I get by as now 61 on Teachers Pension £850 pcm, Fostering Allowance £1209 every 2 weeks mostly tax free (obviously a lot of this is spent caring for child but rest is renumeration), income from 8 btl houses plus PIP which is £139.10 per week. I also have about £11 in a second pension I haven't drawn yet of which 25 percent will be tax free. Plus DH still works and is ok paid.

Maybe I'm missing something but why would people need a large pot of savings in retirement?

We're planning on doing any major repairs/refurbishment needed on the house before we retire. And keeping probably around 50k emergency cash in a savings account.

Other than that we'll just live on our retirement income of probably around 40k pa net between us plus an additional 20k between us when we qualify for the state pension.

Not planning on retiring particularly early though. Probably 62 for both of us. Retiring in our 50s feels too early for some reason.

many peoples pension incomes will not stretch to paying loans in way you can afford when working, to spread costs.
yep, do up house while working, but will that mean No maintenance costs for next 20-30 years? Doubtful!
how many replacement cars will you need over next 20 years?
what about gifts to children or grandchildren for marriages, births etc
what about paying for additional home support like cleaner, care workers when you get older
what about new boiler
what about home adaptations when you develop mobility issues.
and so on
And then the big one : how are you going to fund keeping your partner in a “ nicer” care home at £1400-2000 per WEEK until they die.you’d need a massive pension to afford that. . right now no government has come up with legalising the £80k cap they’ve all touted. My dad was fit and well till last year, he’s now been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia. He needs specialist care as very delusional and hallucinations, he’s a danger to himself and others, right now he’s under nhs, but we know this will end soon and his savings will vanish very quickly…my mum is frantic with worry as she still quite young ( early 70s). Yes, they can’t force her to sell her home, or use her meagre savings but they’ll need his and his income.

add to that, private pensions, unlike state pensions, are not tripled locked. I retired in 2019, my pensions have risen an average of 2% per year. Ok, that’s better than some people’s pay rises, but none the less , with inflation, I’m worse off than when I retired nearly 5 years ago. Typically pensions do not rise in line with inflation or even salaries and are eroded over time.

a lot of people end up doing equity release to pay for unexpected liabilities they find they can’t cover in their pension income. that is an incredibly expensive waste of money as charges screw people over

sure, most people have very limited savings and can’t afford to improve this situation. I’m fortunate that I have a lot of savings, but even I, without even care home costs, project equity release if I live a longish time and all the future liabilities that I have identified come to fruition…mind I’m in a crap money sink house I can’t afford to move from now and no it will need more basic work on it like rewiring!

I should add, I also didn’t know I was going to have to go though divorce after I retired- that was an unexpected expense when you add in costs including selling and buying a home, stamp duty, and stuff needed for new house like curtains etc. sure couldn’t have met that from just my pension income

@EmilyBolton saved me a post.

Her post word for word.

Your full state pension is over 10 k so why only 49k to 57k?

@ Runaround50 · 27/08/2022 22:37
No disrespect, but is there ANYONE on MN who isn't rich ( either in money or assets?)

 If you think there are no poor,  struggling, unemployed , debt-to-their-eyeballs posters on MN, you just havent been paying attention.

About 750k and a pension of 67k per year(from 55)

Are there several posters on here with 8 btl’s or does the same poster keep telling us this? Strange.

Seem the theme is ‘Much wants more’ for many people - I’m aghast at the monetisation of child care as a source of tax free income ie fostering 👍🏿☘️

@eveoha

Do you think foster carers should work for free

@EmilyBolton all good points to think about.

We'll downsize to a flat at some point and that will free up a big lump sum. So maybe we'll keep this aside for care costs/home help etc.

I don't think the house will need anything major between doing it up and downsizing.

If it does need anything doing even after the refurbishment we'll dip into the 50k cash.

It hasn't generally been a money pit in the 17 years we've been here so hopefully that will continue. We have had an extension and did some upgrades then so maybe that's kept us going.

We have a big pension pot, are going to give the kids a deposit each for a property from pension tax free cash and also any excess income that we don't need on an ongoing basis for IHT efficiency.

I don't think they need extragavent presents on top of that. I'm also saving into pensions and ISAs for the kids so I think they'll have enough when they're older.

Tbh though we're not big spenders. Current car is 19 years old and still going strong, ulez compliant. When it dies we'll buy something small for around £5k. I'm not interested in clothes or buying stuff in general. Nor is DH. Maybe we're weird but we're perfectly happy and content.

We're going to live on rental income from 3 BTL, small DB pension and state pension. So not really dependant on DC pension pot.

Could sell a BTL if we really needed a big lump sum but don't see how with combination of pension lump sum and cash from downsizing.

I've been learning about how best to plan and save for retirement through YouTube. I'd highly recommend Meaningful Money and Pensioncraft.

Bloody hell. This thread!
Heres my reality. Nearly 60 and still paying a mortgage on an upstairs flat. Have a tiny amount in work pension due to moving jobs a lot and doing some jobs that had no pensions at all. Have the most money I've ever had in my life saved at 7K. Will work till I'm 67 if I'm able, to get my state pension which I will need to live on.
That makes me top loser on this thread so far!

I thought the same! Seems odd that they each have the same amount - 8.

At last, someone on this thread like me! Hi @Hedjwitch

It was really hard, no food banks back then or financial contribution to nursery places. I’m glad we survived it.

Had to laugh at this 😂 Yes, it’s so easy for those of us with young kids now, thanks to all those food banks and the funded nursery places (which cover less than half the cost in our case and didn’t kick in until we’d been paying £1200 a month for two years).

Why does it all have to be a competition between the generations, maybe it’s hard for us and was also hard for you?

Why on earth are you claiming pip if you have the income and savings that you have?

I’m well aware I’m in a fortunate position and the massive MAJORITY of women are not in position to have decent pension let alone savings.

. Did you know that men receive 75% of the money the government uses on tax relief of pension contributions or that women’s pensions are typically less than half of men’s, and their pension pots are just 35% of men’s ?
it’s bloody outrageous . It’s not bloody surprising that these threads will be frustrating and depressing for most women

i did a STEM subject at uni, worked in industry and was exceptionally well paid as a woman…But my salary and pension was still below my male peers ..so while I’m fortunate compared with many women, I don’t feel fortunate to get what I got - I was not treated equally

you and MOST other women are in the trap of not having much disposable income and your future pensions will also be suffering. I know the people replying here with savings are the true exceptions- but in fairness this was a post about savings in retirement, not pensions themselves, so majority of posters will be like me and that’s what you’re seeing.

christ, it’s a mess, women should not be paying a pension penalty. My only advice is to squeeze every penny of spare income into your pension to ensure you pick up some of that government tax giveaway ..little by little it does mount up, it’s what I did as often as I could - but I couldn’t start saving until my late forties and first kid had flown the nest

@Thankfulforthenewday

Because at the time I could not pin down HMRC to pay my missing years. I have done now.

So..... for full disclosure when I qualify for my state pension we will have an pre tax income of in the region of £59,500 (can't be arsed to work it out exactly)

Nice to know you are reading this thread so forensically.

Anything else I can help you with ?😂

After reading this i feel screwed.

i’m not working at the moment, DH still 45years old. We only have 5k in saving which will be gone because we going to holiday soon.

we got 2 properties. Our main house mortgage free and 1 BLT flat.

dh dont have private pension as he scared to put money in the private pension and prefer to buy buy to let property. So our pension is the BLT property. I always think it would be enough but it is not, isnt? 🥲🥲

I retired on ill health at 44, I get my CS pension, PIP & ESA. Because of being on benefits, I'm unable to have more than £6k in savings, I've worked out that when I reach state pension age I will be better off than I am now. I'm in social housing so don't have a mortgage.

II am pleased you managed to pay the missing years and now have your full state pension. I believe there was an extension to do that this year.

Will have about £80k plus defined benefit pension giving about £2k a month and equity in the house. Not a fortune but enough for me to be comfortable.

I only have 2 small part time job pensions. No other big savings or houses or anything. I don't think most people do.

49 so decades a few years off retirement but we have bugger all in savings (literally about £200 and that’s to help minimise impact of overdraft to have a cheap summer holiday). We’re both self employed and only recently started paying into a pension because we didn’t earn enough to have spare before and I think total pot is about £40k. That’s total not per annum 😁. Our only saving grace is we bought our 3 bed house a long time ago and live in the SE so have hugely benefitted from massive price increases and have a £600k house with £500k equity so plan to sell and move/downsize when we fully retire.