Retirement Planning & Strategy in Cheltenham
I’m thinking about retiring and want to make sure my money will last…
Retirement Planning & Strategy in Cheltenham
I’m thinking about retiring and want to make sure my money will last…
Ensuring your wealth affords you the type of retirement you want.
The prospect of retiring can be daunting, especially if you’re unsure whether your savings, pensions, and investments will be enough to support your lifestyle. We can help you create a clear and tax-efficient financial roadmap that lets you enjoy retired life without worrying about running out of money.
How the process works
We provide expert retirement planning in Cheltenham and the Cotswolds to help you prepare for your financial future. Here’s how we can help you manage your money as you’re approaching retirement:
Step 1: Clarifying your goals
We begin by helping you define exactly what you want your retirement to look like. We’ll ask questions about your ideal retirement age and future lifestyle expectations, including any financial priorities, passions, and big plans coming up. This way, we can be sure that your financial strategy reflects the life you want to lead.
Step 2: Taking stock of your resources
Next, we’ll take stock of all your financial assets, including your pensions, ISAs, savings, investments, property, and any other income sources. This allows us to build up a complete picture of the assets you already have, and how you can best use them.
Step 3: Comparing your options
We’ll then look at various ways that you can draw on your wealth, identifying options such as:
- Pensions, including workplace, personal, annuities, and flexible drawdown options
- ISAs for tax-free withdrawals
- Tax-efficient drawdowns i.e. managing income to minimise your tax
- Investments, taking into account dividends and interest, and any potential for growth
Step 4: Building a strategy
Once we’ve got a clear understanding of your goals and assets, we’ll design a robust retirement plan that is specifically tailored to your needs. We’ll stress-test it against different scenarios, looking at aspects like market volatility and rising living costs, so you can feel confident that the plan will work for you.
Step 5: Staying on track
Finally, we’ll work with you to help keep your plan running on course. As your lifestyle changes, we’ll review and adjust your strategy to make sure it is fully aligned with your needs.
Tailored retirement estate planning in Cheltenham
Tailored retirement estate planning in Cheltenham
“I was a director of Elizabeth Shaw. I worked very hard to turn the business around from making a huge loss to making decent profits.
At the time, I had no one to advise me about my finances on a personal level – I was taking a straight salary and hadn’t any capital to spare for investments. Selling the business was a life-changing moment for me.
I had known of Piercefield Oliver for a couple of years through the Institute of Directors. While I was selling the business, I realised I needed their skills – I was coming up to retirement and wanted to make sure I had the cash to see me and Christine, my wife, through.
They helped me get control of my financial affairs. I had eight pension pots which I’d collected as I’d moved from company to company in my working life. Just to have someone take all the work of sorting them out off my hands was wonderful. They’re very good at the detail. They explained it all and what my retirement options were, I didn’t really understand what kinds of annuity there were or that I could draw down on my pension pots.
Piercefield Oliver guided Christine and me through the process of planning what we wanted to do for the next 40 years (I was 59 at the time). We went through it decade by decade. For example, they asked about what we wanted to do in terms of travel and where we wanted to end up living and so on, though Christine and I always felt we could change our mind about things any time.
They planned everything so our finances will last us throughout our lifetimes. They made everything very logical but it was our input, our vision for the future, that was key. They are very professional, attentive and supportive; if they even sensed that we had a question, or that one of us didn’t understand something, they didn’t let it pass. They stopped to talk it through until we understood.”
Paul Keith
Did you know...
45%
of working age adults are saving nothing for their pension
~ Gov.uk
£21,164
was the average retirement income in the UK in 2024
~ Gov.uk
£31,700
is the average retirement income needed for a moderate lifestyle
~ Retirement Living Standards
Did you know...
45%
of working age adults are saving nothing for their pension
~ Gov.uk
£21,164
was the average retirement income in the UK in 2024
~ Gov.uk
£31,700
is the average retirement income needed for a moderate lifestyle
~ Retirement Living Standards
Recent pension changes to note
During 2024 and 2025, there have been several important changes to UK pensions that could have a significant impact on your retirement income and planning decisions.
- The Lifetime Allowance has been abolished, removing the previous limit on how much you could build up in your pensions without incurring extra tax charges. This means you can continue growing your pension pot, without worrying about breaching the cap.
- The Annual Allowance remains at £60,000 for most people, although it does taper down for higher earners and those who are already drawing from their pensions. We recommend making full use of this allowance to boost your retirement income.
- The State Pension rose by 4.1% in April 2025 until the triple lock, which means you’ll now receive a higher guaranteed income from the government each year.
These shifts present fresh opportunities to maximise your pension contributions, restructure your withdrawals, and adjust your investment mix – and it’s our job to ensure your plan takes full advantage of them.
Why choose Piercefield Oliver?
At Piercefield Oliver, we’re proud to have supported countless individuals across Cheltenham and the Cotswolds to effectively manage their finances ahead of retirement. Our retirement financial advisors will take the time to truly understand your values, family commitments, lifestyle aspirations, and long‑term goals, and create a plan that is built around what matters most to you.
We can help you explore various financial strategies and determine whether they are a good fit for your lifestyle, providing expert retirement advice around aspects such as:
- Reviewing and possibly consolidating your pensions
- Wills and powers of attorney
- Inheritance tax strategies
- Optimising your ISAs and investments
- Long-term care provisions
- Estate planning and asset restructuring
Whether you’re planning ahead or already drawing an income, we can help you transition into retirement with clarity and confidence in your finances.
Book your free consultation with a local retirement expert
Click the button below to book your free consultation with one of our retirement financial advisers in Cheltenham.
Book your free consultation with a local retirement expert
Click the button below to book your free consultation with one of our retirement financial advisers in Cheltenham.
Prefer to get in touch directly?
Fill in the form below and let us know a little bit about your current situation. We’ll get back to you ASAP to talk through your options.
Frequently Asked Questions
Retirement planning involves identifying your goals, reviewing your pensions, ISAs, investments, property, and other income sources, and building a tax-efficient strategy to help you maintain your desired lifestyle after you stop working.
The sooner you start planning for retirement, the better. That way, you are giving your savings more time to grow. But it’s never too late to start planning, and we can still make impactful changes to improve your financial outlook.
The Retirement Living Standards suggests £13,400 for a basic lifestyle, £31,700 for a moderate one, and £43,900 for a comfortable retirement. The exact figure you need will depend on your personal goals, spending habits, and future plans.
We use advanced cashflow modelling to test your retirement plan against different scenarios, such as living longer than expected, inflation, and market changes, to ensure your income remains sustainable throughout retirement.
Consolidating your pensions can make it easier for you to manage your money, but it’s not always the right choice. We’ll take the time to review the charges, benefits, and guarantees of each pension you have before advising whether consolidation would help or harm your long-term plan.