Retirement Planning Advice
Retirement Planning…
Ensuring your wealth affords you the type of retirement you want.
Retirement Planning Advice Cheltenham
Retirement Planning…
Ensuring your wealth affords you the type of retirement you want.
How the process works
You work very hard with a view to retirement one day. Working out when this might happen and whether finances permit can be difficult. Often people defer doing the things they wish to do in life as they are fearful that they will run out of money and it will threaten future financial security.
By looking at the whole picture and finding out what you want out of life, we are able to provide sound retirement planning advice and put in place a financial plan and a strategy for taking a pension to help you achieve or maintain your desired lifestyle. We will consider your pension options alongside your other resources. We work with clients from all walks of life using the same principles whatever their pot of money and goals for the future.
We tailor your solution to your circumstances
We tailor your solution to your circumstances
“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
Some interesting facts about retirement
20%
of employed people, that’s one out of every five people, do not have a pension.
~ Money Age
£13,884
was the average retirement income in the UK in 2023
~ Unbiased
£12.9bn
in taxable payments was withdrawn from pensions flexibly in 2022-23, up from £11.2bn in 2021-22.
~ Pension Age
Some interesting facts about retirement
17%
According to Unbiased in March 2022 at least 17% of people in the UK aged 55 and over admit to having no pension savings (other than the State Pension).
£15,080
According to the Government’s most recent data, the average annual net retirement income works out at around £15,080.
£10.6bn
From 2021 to 2022, £10.6 billion in taxable payments were withdrawn from pensions flexibly.
Book your free 30 minute consultation
Let us help you achieve your life goals by thinking ahead today...
Book your free 30 minute consultation
Let us help you achieve your life goals by thinking ahead today...
Get in touch
If you would like to find out more about planning for retirement, please get in touch with us using the enquiry form below giving us an indication of your current situation and requirements.
Frequently Asked Questions
- There are no limits on how much you can pay into a pension each tax year, but there is a limit on the total amount that can be saved each tax year with tax relief applying and before a tax charge might apply.
- The standard limit is currently £60,000. However, if you are a higher earner, you may be subject to a lower limit known as the tapered annual allowance.
- There may be scope to Carry forward any annual allowance that you might not have used during the previous three tax years, provided that you were a member of a registered pension scheme during the relevant time period.
You don’t have to take your pension at the age reflected on your pension statements. Instead, you can leave it invested and draw on it at a later date. When you do come to draw from your pension, you have several options to choose from (which you can mix and match depending on your circumstances at the time).
- Secured Retirement Income (Annuities) – You have the option to take a tax-free pension commencement lump sum (usually 25%) and can use the rest of your pot to buy an annuity to guarantee an income for you. This may be for the rest of your life or for just a short period of time.
- Flexi-Access Drawdown – You can take a tax-free pension commencement lump sum (usually 25%) and leave the rest invested to give you an income in retirement. Any subsequent income payments will be taxable at your marginal rate of income tax. How long the money will last will depend on investment growth and the number of withdrawals you take.
- Partial Lump Sums – Rather than taking a one-off tax-free lump sum from your pension, you can take something called ‘uncrystallised’ lump sums. These are lump sum withdrawals where 25% is tax-free with the remainder subject to income tax. You can cash your entire pension pot in this way, but be cautious as you can’t change your mind!
Not all of these options are provided by the various providers.
If you take a drawdown income payment or make a lump sum withdrawal from your pension, under current rules you will be subject to the money purchase annual allowance. This means that you can only receive tax relief on pension contributions of up to £10,000 per year and a tax charge will apply if you exceed this limit.
Combining pensions into a single ‘pot’ can help to simplify the ongoing administration and management of your retirement plans, however, it is not always the right thing to do. Each pension plan will have different charging structures, investment choices and retirement options. There may also be transfer penalties and you might lose valuable underlying guarantees in the event of a transfer. There are a lot of factors to consider before consolidating existing pension plans.