Pension stuff, how's it all looking ? HAve you prepared ?

[Horse]

I did actually predict Covid.

In November 2019 ...

Only then?

In a less specific timeframe for predictions, we visited rellies, some time between 2005 - 2009. He was a GP and, when we arrived, was stuck in the depths of a massive folder full of documentation on managing a pandemic.

Essentially, not 'if' but 'when?'

The planning was there, but a folder of information couldn't better a government (or two) not wanting to spend to support it.

[Count Steer]

In a less specific timeframe for predictions, we visited rellies, some time between 2005 - 2009. He was a GP and, when we arrived, was stuck in the depths of a massive folder full of documentation on managing a pandemic.

Essentially, not 'if' but 'when?'

The planning was there, but a folder of information couldn't better a government (or two) not wanting to spend to support it.

Hang on Hoss, I'll check when the next pandemic is due...

[Buckaroo]

I predict a riot

[Taipan]

I predict a riot

Thats 2027. You heard it hear, and from me, first...

[IccyV2]

Most predictions are just pessimism with some relevance to current event(s).

The problem is that in the 21st century things happen fast, hundreds of years ago it took a long time for the plague to travel along the trade/spice routes, these days some sort of engineered monkey pox in China will be on Wall Street by Monday morning, so long term predictions are very difficult to come by because things change quick, so if you pull a lever today and nothing else gets in the way, you can reliably predict the outcome in two years time, but if in that two years there are things thrown into the mix then the original outcome is anyones guess.

Predicting covid cost me money so I'm not that clever, I pulled all my investments and overall made a little bit, in truth I was happy to get my money back and a drink on top, but if I'd kept them in and rode the dip and the insane QE then I'd have made a lot more.

The dream solution to all situations used to be to work towards a house all paid off and a million quid in the bank, that was our mantra and would see you through anything the world could throw at you, but these days nothing is safe, the best you can do is pack an anorak and an extra bottle of Lucazade.

[Nordboy]

I'm not sure if I previously posted this here, but COVID wrecked my household finances. We had a large expensive house and my wife was consulting and was the main earner. Because of the way the system worked she couldn't get any financial help or furlough for the whole of covid and the consulting stuff dried up for 18-24 months. So savings disappeared, couldn't sell the house and the wife eventually had to cash in her pension which she took a huge hit on.

Piss poor planning on our behalf, of course it could have been better, but apart from Iccy ( ), we couldn't have predicted COVID and the effect it would have.

So we now only have my pension, which isn't enough to live on, we have moved house so managed to reduce our mortgage etc, but we're both resigned to the fact that we're now having to work for the next 10 yrs or so. We got caught out, it could've been a shit load worse and was for others but it's had a huge effect on our future.

And if i'm honest, I've struggled badly since leaving my last job, I can't settle in my new job at all, so looking for other opportunities and maybe even going back to doing what I previously did has now appeared as an option. So we'll see.

[weeksy]

I'm not sure if I previously posted this here, but COVID wrecked my household finances. We had a large expensive house and my wife was consulting and was the main earner. Because of the way the system worked she couldn't get any financial help or furlough for the whole of covid and the consulting stuff dried up for 18-24 months. So savings disappeared, couldn't sell the house and the wife eventually had to cash in her pension which she took a huge hit on.

Piss poor planning on our behalf, of course it could have been better, but apart from Iccy ( ), we couldn't have predicted COVID and the effect it would have.

So we now only have my pension, which isn't enough to live on, we have moved house so managed to reduce our mortgage etc, but we're both resigned to the fact that we're now having to work for the next 10 yrs or so. We got caught out, it could've been a shit load worse and was for others but it's had a huge effect on our future.

And if i'm honest, I've struggled badly since leaving my last job, I can't settle in my new job at all, so looking for other opportunities and maybe even going back to doing what I previously did has now appeared as an option. So we'll see.

Ah man, that's a shame and a harsh thing to have happen.

[Count Steer]

I'm not sure if I previously posted this here, but COVID wrecked my household finances. We had a large expensive house and my wife was consulting and was the main earner. Because of the way the system worked she couldn't get any financial help or furlough for the whole of covid and the consulting stuff dried up for 18-24 months. So savings disappeared, couldn't sell the house and the wife eventually had to cash in her pension which she took a huge hit on.

Piss poor planning on our behalf......

Wouldn't beat yourself up on the planning front...there's a vanishing small number of people who would have a contingency plan that took all that ^^^ in its stride!

Can't live life thinking 'better not move to a bigger house/buy this or that/have a holiday...just in case..'

Good luck with the job thing whichever route you go. Yours must have been one of those occupations where getting back into 'civilian' mode is a bit of a reorientation exercise.

[IccyV2]

Wouldn't beat yourself up on the planning front...there's a vanishing small number of people who would have a contingency plan that took all that ^^^ in its stride!

Indeed, I saw something as it was actually happening, but it was too late to do anything except sit still and hunker down.
Only the people that created it knew it was coming before it was actually released.

Unless you win the lottery then it's the long years before the event that usually carries you through it.
It was the thirty years of grafting my arse off and sacrifice that got me through it, not seeing it just a month or so before the BBC reported it.

[Yorick]

We were OK during Covid as Pen's teacher's pension had just kicked in and we were living off savings and rent as budgeted for, before we moved here.

[Sunny]

I got Cursor to build me a retirement planning app today. It reckons I should be able to get my pot up to half a mil by 55 without a huge amount of effort, so I'm feeling slightly more hopeful about the future.

Though my hopes of a career change to something more morally fulfilling are dwindling away.

[MyLittleStudPony]

Was talking annuities with my wife this morning, who's an IFA, she reckons if you can get 7% you are doing well.

We are both focusing on exit strategies from our respective jobs, got to get off the merry go round.....

Is that as simple as it sounds? E.g. I put £500k in and I get £35k (7%) a year for the rest of my life?
If it was literally that black and white I'd probably go for it, that's £3k a month for life.

Every time I've looked I've ended up being put off by the return so I ended up not reading much past that point.
I heard some will only guarantee for a certain time, like ten years, then you're at the mercy of a B0fE rate?

The FAs I've spoken to weren't great, they want you to sign up because of a big commission and are very coy about what happens in the future.

It depends on a number of things, age and health issues being key.

I think you can get close to 7% these days. IIRC you need to be at least mid to late 50s though. There are plenty of sites listing the best rates. IIRC not long ago it was more like 4.5%, so a big change really.

And fuck the financial advisors. They're the pension stealers.

[Count Steer]

There are different ways FAs make money (well, there used to be when I looked into it. Some charge you nothing (or very little) but take commission from the product supplier so they sell you whatever makes them most £.

Some charge up-front but don't get commission on products. Maybe fixed fee, maybe % of sum involved.

Some may even offer the option of either the above.

Cheaper to DYOR if it's a relatively simple thing but a good one will know a lot of stuff about eg inheritance planning and stuff. A recommendation is probably the best way of finding a good one. IMHO of course, as ever.

[Taipan]

You can't really resent a FA for charging a commission or receiving a fee for providing information you needed them for! Nobody works for nothing! That said, how do you measure, or research, how good one is? I'd not put a lot of stock in one doing home visits and turning up in a 15-year-old Fiesta, but then I'd not have enough to invest to warrant visiting one in swanky offices in the city!

[MyLittleStudPony]

Pension stealers!

[Count Steer]

You can't really resent a FA for charging a commission or receiving a fee for providing information you needed them for! Nobody works for nothing! That said, how do you measure, or research, how good one is? I'd not put a lot of stock in one doing home visits and turning up in a 15-year-old Fiesta, but then I'd not have enough to invest to warrant visiting one in swanky offices in the city!

True, they're offering a service. I've used a commission based outfit some years in the past (they were linked somehow to Amex) for retirement planning and I was happy enough with the service but, after a brief period I decided to self-manage it all. if I ever I thought about using another I leaned towards the fee based approach and getting advice/information and doing my own buying.

We have a smallish local business that a few people I know have used and been happy with and that's about the only way of knowing who to use or avoid. There are one or two people on here that are much closer to the FA world than I am though so their input would probably be useful.

[JackyJoll]

Pension stealers!

[IccyV2]

You can't really resent a FA for charging a commission or receiving a fee for providing information you needed them for! Nobody works for nothing! That said, how do you measure, or research, how good one is? I'd not put a lot of stock in one doing home visits and turning up in a 15-year-old Fiesta, but then I'd not have enough to invest to warrant visiting one in swanky offices in the city!

In my experience FAs are good for telling you which products are available and what they do, but they're not very good at telling you which ones are the most profitable or which ones are good for you, that's for a personal wealth manager or for you to decide.
I don't have one anymore.

I follow the Warren Buffet style of investing and invest in stuff that makes sense, I look at the underlying asset and what it's worth.
Happy to discuss it but it's boring if it's not your thing and this is the pension thread.

[Count Steer]

You can't really resent a FA for charging a commission or receiving a fee for providing information you needed them for! Nobody works for nothing! That said, how do you measure, or research, how good one is? I'd not put a lot of stock in one doing home visits and turning up in a 15-year-old Fiesta, but then I'd not have enough to invest to warrant visiting one in swanky offices in the city!

In my experience FAs are good for telling you which products are available and what they do, but they're not very good at telling you which ones are the most profitable or which ones are good for you, that's for a personal wealth manager or for you to decide.
I don't have one anymore.

I follow the Warren Buffet style of investing and invest in stuff that makes sense, I look at the underlying asset and what it's worth.
Happy to discuss it but it's boring if it's not your thing and this is the pension thread.

I'd happily natter away on a stocks/shares funds thread. Not sure what the level of interest would be though - but investments are pension related for many folk.

All advisers can probably say which products have done well in the past but only what they think (and why) things might do well in the future. I guess we can all do that with a variable degree of success.

I gravitated back to the original stock market ethos of 'I wouldn't mind owning a share of that company' as far as stocks are concerned and the 'Long Term Buy & Hold' policy advocated by Motley Fool years ago. If nothing else it cuts down on trading charges.

Similarly with funds - I don't like paying the charges on 'actively managed' funds any more so index trackers featured quite a lot. At the moment it's mainly cash funds, cash ISAs with a smattering of investment ISAs and a small share portfolio. But that's the retired/pensioner approach rather than pension building.

I used to read Investors Chronical and pore over fundamentals etc but decided that the above approaches were a) less like a job and b) worked better

[JackyJoll]

A manager who wants to handle your investments can tell you that investment portfolios of his have beaten the market trackers eight years out of the last ten, or somesuch flannel.

Trouble is, he doesn’t show you his other portfolios that were running at the same time and didn’t beat anything.