How much pension did you retire with, if you retired early?

[loveawineloveacrisp]

I need to get some pensions advice. Trying to decide if I can afford to retire at 56. I will have a £350k pension pot, plus defined benefits of £5k a year which will pay out when I'm 60. Could top up with a part time job until 60. Annuity rates look fairly good right now.

So, if you retired before 60, how much did you have?

@LizzieSiddal - but op says her dh will retire in a couple of years and be on a pension of £24k.

It's impossible to advise because we don't know things like

• how much op and her dh will need to maintain their current lifestyle or a reduced lifestyle they are happy with
• how happy they will be to dip into their savings for big bills
• how feasible downsizing is
• what sort of post-retirement life they want (holidays, meals out etc)

Just had a look at this and it's really useful - thank you.

I'm retiring in July when I will be 64. I've got a very small pension pot of around £110,000. I will be drawing down around £1000 a month until my state pension kicks in July 2028. This should hopefully leave around £60-70,000 for emergencies. DH has already retired early but has a good pension of approx £40,000 and a little part time job of around £5000 pa just to keep him off the golf course 7 days a week! His state pension kicks in 18 months after mine. I'm hoping to get a part time job just to keep my mind going. I also work in education (not teaching) but it's been very full on and I don't think it would be healthy to stop work entirely, I want to ease myself in gently.

We are mortgage free and have no debts but I still worry we will have enough money, but then I'm a bit of a worrier.

And after posting I just realised you asked about people hoping to retire before 60 so my post is irrelevant 🤦🏻‍♀️ Apologies - see the mind is going already!

We have between us defined benefits pensions of almost 40k PA, we are in our fifties, no debts and the mortgage paid off years ago. We have various savings and investments with the majority being in Tax free ISA products. We made 42k last financial year. Have never bothered with a financial adviser. DH has been offered some short contracts with his last workplace, he reckons he could negotiate 2k per week.

I retired from teaching at 56 OP. I couldn't get my Teachers Pension until I was 60. I had a second pension I took as a small annuity over 11 years until my state pension kicks in. I got £689 per month annuity. Now I'm 63 and get my Teachers Pension of £890 pcm for life plus it's inflation proof. At 60 I also got a lump sum of about £32k Both of these amounts are after tax. I have savings which I've not had to dip into. With DH I do have 11 btl properties and gain an income of about £33k a year from those. I manage quite well. My DH recently retired from civil service last September at 60 and he gets more pension than me £23.5k per annum plus his share of btl, although he only co owns 6 of the btl properties and the rest are just mine. He gets about £7.5k per annum. He also paid into a second pension which was tax efficient and took this as a 7 year annuity. He gets about £400 a month. He got a good lump sum of a little over £70k. He has not dipped into this yet but we will be planning more holidays going forward out of school holidays. We have both always prioritised pensions. Now we're seeing the benefits. I've always told my kids to pay into their pensions big when you first start working and have no kids to consider. This is what my Dad told me and I followed his advice. You are right that annuities are really good ATM. Well work investing in an annuity in my opinion. Depending on any other savings you have, keep some money back for emergencies though, don't tie it all up. If you think you don't have enough you could always take a few years out of work then get a part time job 1 or 2 days a week if you think you need to until your state pension kicks in. I've seen too many colleagues carry on to 67 then retire too unwell to do anything or go anywhere.

@caringcarer why couldn't you access your teachers pension at 55? I'm a teacher and I'm taking mine in September - I'll be 56 and 6 months by then.

If I took it at 55 it would be reduced. I didn't leave because of Ill health.