holistic

A completely holistic approach to retirement planning.

 

What makes ‘Making Sense of Retirement’ unique is that it’s not just about pensions. It’s a completely holistic view of retirement. Here’s an overview of each section:

 

  • State benefits. This covers an explanation of the main State benefits and how much they are. It covers how they are calculated, the qualification for benefits, where to get a pension forecast, the changes to retirement ages, what happens if you defer taking benefits and how Pension Credit works.
  • Pension savings.  This includes an explanation of the difference between DB and DC schemes, tax free cash, buying an annuity, conventional annuities and other lifetime annuities, alternatives to annuitisation, annuity options, trivial pensions and consolidation.
  • Other savings and investments.  This module covers risk and retirement, access to your money and liquidity, level of income required (including what is a ‘safe’ level of withdrawal), different product types, tax treatment and active and passive investment.
  • Income from your home.  Information on everything from the government’s ‘rent a room’ scheme, moving to a smaller home, equity release (and the different schemes available), plus the impact on means tested benefits.
  • Other sources of income/savings. For example, increased personal allowances, Disability allowances, Council tax benefit, free eye tests and other health benefits, Winter Fuel Allowance, free bus travel and Senior Railcard.

 

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What’s more, the site provides direct links to the forms required to claim for benefits like higher personal allowances and online tools like the State Pension Age calculator from Direct.gov, for example, plus helpful sources of further information i.e. The Pension Service

 

And that’s not all. There are interactive elements and tools. For example:                

 

  • Retirement quiz.  A 2 min quiz to help people think about the issues they face.
  • Budget calculator.  Clarifies income and expenditure needs in retirement.
  • Annuity selector.  Helps people work out the right product and options they should select.

 

There are also sections on Inheritance Tax, working after retirement, long term care, retiring abroad and much, much more.