What would a retirement on £3,145 a month look like?

[serin]

DH has retired. He is 10 years older than me and wants me to retire as well. His reckoning is that if I work another 10 years he will be 77! Just 3 years off 80 and it won't give him long to have the freedom to travel much as a couple etc.
If I retired tomrw our joint income would be £3145 per month. If I took my small private pension it would be £3800 in total.
Does that sound like a reasonable amount to live on or am I deluded?

We own the house outright and do have some savings. Our DC have flown the nest.
I grew up in absolute poverty and even whilst our children were small there were times we were really struggling. I think this has affected my attitude to money and I'm terrified of not having a steady income and returning to egg on toast every night.

Does £3800 seem ok as a long term situation? My friends are of a similar age, some retired and some not, money is never discussed so I have nothing to compare with.

I would do it sooner rather than later op. Health wise you don't know what is round the corner. Over my working years and in my current job I see so many people whose health declines in their late 60's/ early 70's. I was chatting to one of my clients the other day whose husband is in his early 70's and not likely to have more than a couple of years left but she was really positive telling me how they had had at least 10-12 good years of retirement together doing all the active things they wanted to do and travelling. I am planning to retire soon ( I'm 57). I probably can't really afford it but my dh is four years older than me and has two chronic conditions one of which will likely shorten his life and we want to do things whilst we can. together. I also have an 87 year old dad who is likely to need increased care in the next few years.

Well, I don't trust Google to be your average person. First article says a million

@Bepo77
Its' clear you're at the foothills of knowledge when it comes to pensions.

The £million quoted is not per annum.

It's what is in someone's pension company 'pot' and it's then either taken as a lump sum, invested and made to last for up to 35 years (retiring at 65 and living to 100 being optimistic ) OR taking it as an annual pension, (maybe £30K pa) guaranteed for life.

If you have £1M and retire at 60, even though it sounds a lot, inflation will eat away at it over 30 years and it will not be worth what it was.

This is why people use financial advisors, to decide whether to take the pot and invest it, living off the interest as well as the capital, or to take a regular, secure pension each year.

Some people are raising families and paying mortgage/rent on less than that. Surely you must be aware of this. And also how much your own lifestyle costs?

Another benefit of continuing to work either part time or full time is it forces your DH to find his own interests.
I have been very clear with DH that he needs to have outside interests involving other people as he has a tendency to get obsessive about one thing and talk about it endlessly. He also likes strenuous hiking - I am more of a riverside rambler - and it would do him good to find like minded souls to enjoy this hobby with.
Some men - possibly women too - have a tendency to expect their spouses to provide everything they need including entertainment and activities. It’s good for both of you to have some of your own things to do.

@serin The telling part of your post is you don't want not to work.

If you can work part time, it's win-win.

You can use your annual holiday for 'travelling' and if you work (eg) 3 days midweek, you can also have long weekends away (Thursday to Monday) and add annual leave onto that too.

On that income, I’d retire in a heartbeat. My spouse is 8 years younger than me and we both plan to retire when I retire. We want to have time to do things together, travel etc. Nobody knows what’s around the corner but we have a plan and hope it all works out. Around 10 more years of full time work for me, I hope.

You'll be fine for the immediate future but need to think/plan for the time when your husband is no longer with you. Living on your projected pension would not be fun. You also need to consider the impact of inflation as an income that is fine now is unlikely to be fine if you survive 30 years. Our personal inflation rate as retired people is greater than it was during working life as what you spend your money on changes.

We have had to pay out considerable sums this year for dental care. You may need to pay out thousands, or even tens of thousands for private medical care unless you want your later years blighted by waiting for the NHS. You may need to pay for years of residential care and we budget £60k for 3 years each towards that. The retirement budgets I've seen include laughably small amounts of money for house repairs/ maintenance. There is a reason many homes that have had elderly inhabitants need substantial renovation.

When you retire you will find you slow down. However many young retired people make a considerable contribution to their community by running clubs and societies, being councillors or doing other charitable work. You dont have to be bored.

Btw at 57 an average woman can expect another 26 years of life - but not all in good health.

It's a good pension but not huge.
The last thing I read was that £25K gave a very basic lifestyle, £42K was comfortable and £60K was more comfortable.

If they are only saving £800 a month at the moment, it depends if they are having holidays, entertainment, etc etc out of their income or dipping into savings.

It depends if they have a nest egg and enough to cover unexpected outgoings or even private health care (operations maybe to avoid huge waiting lists.)

These kind of things are just as important for quality of life as much as holidays are. No one want to wait 2 years in pain for a hip replacement age 60+ if you can pay £12K and have it done next week.

They need a good savings buffer and to consider replacing cars etc if that's relevant.

xd posts @anyolddinosaur

Health care is very important and even taking out private health insurance at 50+ is worth looking at.

Your pot for care homes /care is on the low side. Most are £40K pa or more.
Our FA suggested a figure of £200K each ( 4 years @£50K) to ensure a good care home not LA.)

What does pension planning look like though?

Ive googled over the past 10 years or so about pension advisors but it seems to be on the basis that someone is actively investing for a pension

We just have LGA pensions, he is 10 years older than me, so he'll retire in gthe next few years

I would like to retire at the same time but simply cant afford to, not sure what an advisor can advise

What should I be doing or looking for?

We have a joint account for bills but keep our own personal accoutns and saviings separate.

Yes exactly this 👆 If he died you'd be on your pension alone. I'd continue to work until it felt like the right time to leave.

Can I just put a word in on behalf of egg on toast? Hard boiled, on granary, plenty of salt. Bloody lovely.

This has to be satire.

@soupyspoon You need to start your own thread as your circs are different. And find yourselves a good FA.

Wow I wish I had that amount so I could retire. Do it if it’s affordable I would in a heartbeat

On the face of it, yes, that is enough to live off quite comfortably for the pair of you in retirement.

However, some serious number crunching will be required. You need to work through what your current outgoings are and look at how things will be when your husband dies. Will you be getting a full state pension or will you need to buy credits? How much do you have in savings/investments? Will you be able to afford to get a new boiler, roof, white goods, car etc. Some of those may be challenging without adequate savings especially as you want to spend on travelling.

We are not in a dissimilar situation to you, similar age gap, with a number of years before I will get my state pension. Our joint income is not dissimilar and we manage fine, although I would not have retired without a decent buffer of savings/investments (I don’t include interest as income). As some others have said, it’s a scary prospect going from being able to save to then looking to deplete those savings for the rest of your life. Economically things are certainly challenging and we are likely to get to a state where savings are eroded by inflation and could become a depreciating asset. It could well be worth sitting down with a IFA and if any public sector pensions are involved, you need to find someone who fully understands them (a lot don’t). You also need to make sure that you fully understand your pension and your husbands pension (its amazing how many people don’t). You also need to look at how much income you will have when you are on your own and work through if that is affordable. My income will certainly drop significantly at that stage but I do have a significant savings buffer. Without that, I would not have left work when I did.

I would also consider if a career break, or unpaid leave is an option so you could fit in a some extensive travel sooner rather than later. You could then go back to your current role. Part time may be a good halfway house, but that would depended on what part time looked like and how that would fit in with wanting to travel. That was my plan, but both were refused. Don’t underestimate how challenging it can be to get back into work at your age after having given up your job.

How much interest can you generate from your savings to supplement income if necessary? But yes you need to calculate your essential monthly our goings, utility bills, house insurance, food shopping, car expenses, etc and see what you have left as pocket money.

I manage very well on 1,200 a month . House paid for , run a little car and never had debt ( I too was brought up in poverty so am good with money ) you'll be fine .

Where have you got tge £750k yields £25-30k per annum? My pension pot was quite a bit less than half that and I get £36k per annum (after tax) currently as its index linked, been retired 7 years.

Think of inflation and the possibility your husband pre-deceases you by decades and you live until your mid - late 90s. Obviously everyone is different and if you are about to head off together to see the world, which a few of my colleagues have done, it may make sense to go, but otherwise 57 is very young to give up work. Maybe it is just time to look for a different job. I’m still working full time in my sixties and the past few years have made a huge difference to my pension.

I’m nearly 56 and my husband is 12 years older and retired.

i’ve taken partial retirement (civil service) and gone down to 4 days a week. Like you I couldn’t imagine being at home 7 days a week

Could you go part time instead?

My mum developed Alzheimer's at 74, and is now just a shell of herself. My dad is in deep depression and tells me every day his life is also over too and he never really got to enjoy his retirement. He was a workaholic and squirrelled all his money away, for what? So they can afford a nice care home for mum which she'll be going into by the end of the year?

My dh is planning on retiring on 2 years at the age of 55 and we won't have such a large pension pot as yours but we are still going for it.

Well, yeah. It's more than the average salary, and lots of people on average salaries are paying mortgages and raising children.

I would go part time on a zero hours contract somewhere like a coffee shop or supermarket. Then you are still earning some money, and have flexibility to travel and do your own thing.