Planning for Your Retirement

Posted on: 12 Nov, 19

Welcome to our Guide to Planning For Your Retirement. When it comes to planning for retirement, the earlier you start, the more potential your money has to grow. Retirement planning is not simply about paying regularly into your pension and forgetting about it. Instead, it is essential to review your progress against your retirement goals and take account of changes that may affect your plans.

A critical aspect of retirement planning is structuring your affairs to ensure that you can meet your desired level of income when you stop working. With ever-changing pension legislation and increasing life expectancy, it makes sense to use all the tax-efficient options available to create a flexible retirement plan.

The Ancient Greek historian Thucydides wrote that ‘the secret to happiness is freedom’ – and now you have more options than ever when it comes to your retirement savings. In our guide, we consider what these are and the revolution in pensions that transformed the retirement prospects for millions following the passing of the Pension Schemes Act 2015. April 2019 was the fourth anniversary since the introduction of the pension freedoms – a fundamental change in the approach to retirement savings.

Announced by then Chancellor George Osborne in Budget 2014, pension freedoms now give over-55s full control of their retirement savings. The changes which commenced on 6 April 2015 mean individuals with a defined contribution pension have the freedom to access their pension as they wish from age 55. Under these changes, those with a defined contribution pension scheme are no longer required to purchase an annuity.

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