In one of my previous articles, you read about why you shouldn’t underestimate the cost of your retirement and why planning ahead and budgeting can be so important. As a follow up to that, this article should help get you thinking about how much income you’ll need once you stop working, and some of the key factors that could dictate your financial commitments. How you plan your time will be important A point I made quite strongly in the previous article was that an assumption that your outgoings will automatically decrease once you retire is often an erroneous one. At a very basic level, while you’re working, you aren’t spending money. But once you retire you’ll have more time on... Read More

Growing your wealth is an important part of financial planning. Ensuring that your money keeps up with (and hopefully outpaces) inflation is crucial, as it means that what you save now will help you to afford your lifestyle in future. One of the most prevalent issues that I find clients to have, though, is in deciding how to grow their wealth. Some common options that you might be considering include: Investing on the stock market in shares, funds, bonds, and other assets Creating a buy-to-let (BTL) property portfolio Running a business. Each comes with various advantages and drawbacks in terms of what you’ll have to spend and the returns you can generate. But in my view, this begs a more... Read More

To effectively plan for the future, it helps to try and connect with your future self. One reason you may find it difficult to imagine your future self is that most of us feel significantly younger than we actually are. Even when looking in a mirror, it can be hard to correlate our real age with how we look or feel. In fact, according to a US study of more than 500,000 people, most feel around 20% younger than they are, KFF Health News reports. A key problem with this struggle to imagine our future selves is that it can make it harder to commit to saving for retirement. In our 30s, most of us consider our 60-, 70-, or... Read More

“When are you going to retire?” It’s a common question you may have been asked, and at some stage it’s one you’ve probably asked yourself. Compared to previous generations, the answer many people give these days is not as clear cut as it may have been before. For example, an obvious answer to that question for our parents would have been when their State Pension started. Now, with amendments to State Pension Age, that is likely to no longer be the case. Likewise, Pension Freedoms legislation makes taking retirement income from your pension fund more flexible, meaning that the date you choose to stop work can be equally flexible. I recently read a book that adds an extra dimension to... Read More

The whole process of making your own predictions or being guided by the predictions of others is a key part of our lives. From what the weather will be like tomorrow to how long it will take to drive to a certain destination, forecasts and estimates are part and parcel of what you do and when you do it on a daily basis. At that level, the worst outcome you might face is getting caught in a rain shower without an umbrella or arriving late for a meeting. However, problems can arise if you start relying too heavily on predictions when planning your financial future. This applies in two key areas where such predictions are commonplace: economic outlook and investment... Read More