What Is Retirement Planning?

You may see on different websites and newspapers people talking about retirement planning. But what does that mean for you?

Depending on where you are in life it can mean one of two things.

Firstly you have pre-retirement. Pre retirement is all about growing your savings, pensions and investments to achieve as large an amount as possible to allow you to retire comfortably. Typically the main objectives in pre-retirement is about saving regularly, putting lump sums away, using your disposable income and taking risk – for example defined contribution schemes to grow the money as much as you possibly can up to your preferred retirement date.

This can be assisted by cash flow modelling to determine any gaps in your plan to plug the hole and give you the lifestyle you require in retirement. Someone pre-retirement it’s effectively anybody who is yet to retire and are still saving towards the goal.

Post retirement is slightly different. This is someone who has now retired. They have completely different objectives to pre retirement. Typically this person has saved most of their life in pre retirement and worked most of their life to accumulate a pot of money to allow them to be where they are today.

The change in mindset for this individual is that they are now spenders and they’re not savers. Their questions are, ‘how much money can I spend?’ and ‘where to invest my money that gives me a regular income to ensure I don’t run out of money and cannot enjoy life?’.

This can be difficult when you have created a habit of saving most of your life and now you worry about well, if i spend all this money I don’t have anything to replace it.

As advisors working with post retirement strategies, we work on income strategies and devise an investment solution that accommodates ongoing income to enjoy your life and also allowing for ad-hoc withdrawals along the way to support lifestyle spends or indeed family changes.

Most people want to enjoy the early years of retirement whilst they have their health whilst having peace of mind that they don’t spend all the money in the short term so that the later life requirements also looked after.

You’re not alone in this thought. Our role as advisors is to essentially look after this for you to enjoy your best life without worrying when or if you are ever run out of money and pass on a legacy to future generations if you so wish.

For more information, get in touch.

Strategic Wealth Solutions LTD  is an Appointed Representative of and represents only St. James’s Place Wealth Management plc (which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority) for the purpose of advising solely on the Group’s wealth management products and services, more details of which are set out on the Group’s website www.sjp.co.uk/products