Retirement, are you prepared?

With most things in life, ‘if you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail’ and this principle can be applied to retirement planning and ensuring your finances are optimised to meet your sustained financial needs.

These are some key questions to ask yourself on the approach to retirement to help you prepare.

When do you want to retire?

What age would you ideally like to either start winding down or retire in full? Ideally, the longer you give yourself to prepare for retirement, the more options you will give yourself when your dependency on your wealth substantially increases, so understanding your timeframe is crucial.

What does retirement look like?

The shape of your lifestyle in retirement will determine what level of income you need to generate to maintain and sustain your quality of life.

This could include bucket list trips or new hobbies but most importantly, what is the shape of the day to day?

You will have more free time throughout retirement and we have a tendency to focus on the epic experiences, but after this initial whirlwind, life tends to normalise, a routine forms, and have you thought about what you expect your new normal to look like?

This will not only provide an indication of the level of income you will need to maintain your ideal lifestyle but also prepare you emotionally for retirement as suddenly, having a lot more time on our hands can be disorienting.

Ultimately, we want you to get excited about this next phase of life but if you enter retirement emotionally and financially underprepared, this can become a scary and stressful situation.

How will your retirement be funded?

Look at the wealth you have accrued and what you are likely to use as a source of income throughout retirement.

This could encompass, personal or workplace pensions, Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs), investments or property. This could also include some planning events such as a downsizing activity to increase your liquidity.

Finally, don’t forget your state pension entitlement. This could mean you have the ability to decrease the level of income you are drawing from your investments when this starts, if you plan on retiring before the state pension age.

You can check the level of state pension you have accrued to date via the link below and transparency around what and where you can draw an income from is absolutely critical on the approach to retirement. Check your State Pension forecast.

Once you have assessed this, does the lifestyle in retirement you are seeking look feasible with the provision you have accumulated to date?

Can you make any changes between now and retirement?

This will depend on your personal circumstances and affordability but on the approach to retirement, there are some considerations which could boost your wealth.

• Could you afford to increase your pension contributions?
• Could you afford to invest more?
• Would you consider working longer?

By making small changes over the longer term can have a huge impact on your wealth, options and wellbeing throughout retirement.

Retirement can be an exciting new chapter, to remove any uncertainty and to ensure your retirement plan remains on track, contact us today.

The above does not constitute individual financial advice and state pension entitlement may vary depending on the individual's circumstances.