Planned to retire at 55 and hammered money into pension in last 4 years including all, back allowances. Best bit of advice I was ever given was the true value of your life between 55-65 is worth 4 x that of between 65-75, taking into account health, mortality.
So I did 2 things to help model retirement. :-
1) downloaded all bank statements for last year into a spreadsheet and tag group the amounts to house bills, car , etc etc. From that I established the minimum I needed to live a comfortable life with a more basic car, house and less hols, that I would be happy with.
2) created a 2nd spreadsheet that totalled up all my pensions, for wife and I , plus savings , plus equity release from downsizing. From that I modelled what I could “drawdown” from pension each year against my age, take from savings and also take into account state pension at 67 onwards.
For us personally we wanted a bit more money when younger so front loaded based on following calcs
- reserve 25% of all pots for contingency
- between age 55-66 drawdown approx 5% of pension and savings each year
- between age 67-80 drawdown approx 3% of pension and savings each year
- basically aim to empty the pots by 80 enjoying life , with 25% reserve in place plus state pension.
it’s a very simple model but works for us, to such an extent that whilst I’m only 53 I retired a month ago as had enough of rat race.
Note this is something that works for us, but may not for others so please do your research and take professional advice if needs be.
Now have dilemma of whether to proceed with June Emira and enjoy for a few months at minimal loss or possibly none, or just bail and enjoy the Plus 2. Either way enjoying life whilst you can is the most important thing. YOLO.