77% of savers don’t know how much they need to retire on

Maybe you do know the value of your pension pot right now?

But do you know how much income it is likely to provide in retirement?

As more and more of us shall rely on defined contribution pensions for income during retirement, rather than final salary schemes which provide a guaranteed income, this figure is crucial.

Now, expectations for retirement are very individual. Some want to maintain the house and lifestyle they already have, while others want a second home or to try a different life elsewhere.

Whatever your post work aspirations, it’s a good idea to have a pension figure to aim at which you are confident can give you the retirement income you require.

Research by the Pension and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) in 2018 found that 77 per cent of people saving into a pension don’t have a clear idea how much they need in retirement.

To bridge that knowledge gap, the PLSA created its Retirement Living Standards (RLS). These are based on the cost of a range of common goods and services, and aim to show what life in retirement would look like at three different income levels.

I’m not even going to give you those figures, as to me they are pretty meaningless. I don’t know about you but I hate being pigeonholed. We are all different, have a range of lifestyles and different ideas about how we’d like to spend that renaissance period after work.

One person’s interpretation of comfortable may feel constrained to another.

That’s why at Oaklands Wealth we never work on the basis of the PLSAs “minimum, moderate or comfortable standards” when looking at how much a client needs to live on.

We resort to the only safe way of knowing – detailed cashflow planning

Pension Cashflow Planning

Most folks are capable of whipping up a spreadsheet these days. A basic analysis of income and expenditure shows the amount left each month and year.

Though what a simple table won’t show is the effects of inflation, growth rates of your investments and what happens after ad hoc expenditure such as cars, children’s weddings, holiday homes etc, is taken into account.

And it won’t account for the tax situation on investments and personal income,

Nor will it model multiple WHAT IF scenarios:

What if there’s a stock market crash?
What if we buy that place in the sun in 5 years time?
What if our daughter gets married in the next 10 years?
What if inflation returns and eats away at our spending power?

You get the point . . .

That’s why we use a specialist cashflow modelling tool to create a personalised cashflow plan for you.

The cashflow plan builds a picture of your financial journey in graphical form, with all assumptions and inputs listed. It will calculate tax rates and help us achieve 3 objectives for you:

Our first objective is to ensure you never run out of money.

Our second objective is to ensure you can live the lifestyle you want.

And as we are optimistic, our third objective is plan your cashflow to age 100.

Does that sound like a better plan?

Call us now on 0121-355-4455 or email us at appointments@oaklandswealth.com to arrange for your cashflow discussion.