"When can I afford to retire?"
It's the most important financial question most of us will ever ask. But for many, the answer is a confusing mix of guesswork, pension statements, and hope.
Retirement planning isn't just "saving a lot of money." It's the process of building a detailed, personal roadmap that turns your retirement dreams into a financial reality. It’s the difference between hoping you'll have enough and knowing you will.
Here, we'll cover what a retirement plan involves, the key stages, and how an independent financial adviser acts as your personal financial architect to build that plan.
What is retirement planning?
Retirement planning is the process of defining your retirement goals, calculating the amount of money you'll need to achieve them, and building a specific strategy to get you there.
It's a holistic plan that coordinates all your financial assets - pensions, ISAs, property, savings - to work together towards a single, clear objective.
A good retirement plan gives you clarity and confidence by providing a precise answer to the question: "Am I on track?"
The Two Phases: Accumulation and Decumulation
Your financial life is split into two distinct phases, and each requires a completely different strategy.
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The "Accumulation" Phase (Building Your Pot): This is your working life, where your main goal is growth. The focus is on saving as much as possible, maximising employer contributions, taking the right level of investment risk, and being as tax-efficient as possible to build your pot.
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The "Decumulation" Phase (Spending Your Pot): This is your life in retirement, and it's often more complex. The goal shifts from growth to longevity. You must figure out how to turn your pot into a "pay cheque" that will last for the rest of your life (which could be 30 years or more), all while managing tax and inflation.
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The Key Questions a Retirement Plan Must Answer
A comprehensive retirement plan should move you from uncertainty to certainty by answering these crucial questions:
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How much is enough? What is the exact "pot" of money I need to have on the day I retire?
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When can I retire? Based on my current savings, what's my target retirement date? What happens if I want to retire five years earlier?
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Will my money run out? How much can I safely withdraw from my pot each year so I don't run out of money in my 80s or 90s?
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How do I take my money? Should I use drawdown? Buy an annuity? A mix of both? And how do I do it in the most tax-efficient way?
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Am I saving in the right place? Should I be prioritising my pension, my ISA, or paying off my mortgage?
How our independent advisers can help
An independent financial adviser's job is to be your expert guide through this entire process. They are the "financial architect" who helps you design the plan and the "project manager" who helps you build it.
Here is what our specialist advisers do when you ask us to help with your retirement plan:
1. We Make Your Goals Tangible
We start by moving your goals from the abstract ("I'd like a comfortable retirement") to the concrete. We'll sit down with you and ask the real questions:
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What does your ideal retirement look like?
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Do you want to travel the world, or stay at home?
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Do you plan to help your children with a house deposit?
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What's your target retirement age?
From this, we can calculate a precise, monthly income figure that you need to aim for.
2. We Build Your Financial "Roadmap" (Cashflow Modelling)
This is the most powerful tool we have. We will take all your financial information - your pensions, ISAs, savings, property, income, and expenditure - and build a lifetime financial simulation.
This "cashflow model" will show you, year by year, what your finances look like for the rest of your life. It will give you a clear, visual answer to:
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"Are we on track?" The model will show if your money runs out at age 85 or if you're left with a surplus.
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"What if...?" We can pressure-test your plan. "What if I retire 3 years early?", "What if I give my kids £50,000?", "What if investment markets crash?" We can show you the impact of any decision before you make it.
3. We Create Your "Growth Engine" (Investment Strategy)
A plan is useless without the right investment strategy to power it. We will:
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Review all your existing pensions and investments to see if they are suitable.
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Create a single, consolidated investment strategy that aligns all your assets.
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Ensure your investments match your personal attitude to risk and your retirement timeline (e.g., "de-risking" as you get closer to retirement).
4. We Maximise Your Tax-Efficiency
Our advisers will ensure you are not paying a penny more in tax than you need to, both in the build-up and in retirement. We do this by creating a strategy that uses all available allowances, including:
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Pension Annual Allowances (and "Carry Forward")
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ISA allowances
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Capital Gains Tax allowances
5. We Design Your Retirement "Pay Cheque" (Decumulation)
This is the most complex part, and where advice is critical. When you stop work, we will design a sustainable income strategy for you, advising on:
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How to take your tax-free cash.
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Whether to use Flexi-Access Drawdown or buy a guaranteed Annuity (or a mix).
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How to structure your withdrawals to minimise your income tax bill.
Ready to take advantage of a free, no-obligation chat with an independent retirement planning specialist? Get started here.
FAQs
The simple answer is now. The earlier you start, the more powerful your savings become. But it's also never too late. If you are 50 or 60 and have never had a formal plan, that is the time when an adviser can add the most value by helping you make the critical "at-retirement" decisions correctly.