First, ask yourself - What does your ideal retirement look like to you? It could be Travelling, Grand Children, Walking, Cycling, Part Time Work or some other Hobby or a Purpose or a Cause you feel passionate about. As you approach retirement do you ever stop and think - 

“Are we going to be okay?”

​As we get older, the years seem to fly by faster and faster. I’m guessing you’ve noticed this by now though, right? Months, Years even Decades will whoosh by and you didn’t do anything to sort out your pension!!! Seriously though, what do you want to do with the time you have left on this planet? When can you stop doing what you no longer enjoy?
When can you can start doing what you love doing?
What do you need to do to ensure you never run out of money?
What do you need to do to ensure your family are totally secure whatever happens?

Let me ask you - What do you think the HAPPIEST retirees all have in common? Well, actually they all share some common traits:
A lifestyle of at least the same quality that they were accustomed to when they were working.
Their Mortgage is Paid Off!
And ideally, they have Multiple Sources of Retirement Income.

Would you like to be a lady or gentleman of worth in your retirement? Your expenses may reduce quite significantly when you retire but you are still going to have bills to pay, food to buy, holidays to fund, etc. A good question to ask yourself is - will you need a guaranteed income? This is called an annuity or, to be able to draw money down from your pension like a bank account?

Have you noticed that people are living longer these days? On average, people aged 55 today will live to their mid-to-late 80s. Around 1 in 10 men and 1 in 5 women this age will live to 100 and receive their telegram from The Queen. What if YOU live to 100 - will your money run out? Whether you’ve got £5M or £50K, people’s biggest fear is running out of money.​

Isn’t it about time you took a proper look at how you are going to fund your retirement?

• Are you putting away enough money each month?
• Are you invested appropriately to your Capacity for Loss?
• Are you invested appropriately to your Attitude to Risk?
• Are you exposed to any Unnecessary Volatility in the markets?
• Are you still in the Best Performing Fund?
• Is there a more affordable product that gives much better value?

So, how then do you ensure that you do preserve enough income in retirement? You may have heard of THE 4% RULE. Taking a maximum of just 4% has been accepted as a safe withdrawal amount that won’t erode your savings. But you may well need to draw more than 4% of your fund every year to be able to afford YOUR best retirement.

So, what else can you do to preserve your wealth? Well, Compound Interest is your friend - the power of compound interest over time is the most powerful way of growing your savings but this does require time. Well, what other options have you got? Never retire - not ideal is it?! Or you could be frugal… Downsize… Equity release? How what about Saving More? Well you certainly should increase your monthly and annual contributions as much as you can afford to.

What about having your pension work harder for you? The key thing you should be doing is to invest it in the best performing funds on the market subject to your attitude to risk and capacity for loss. You can’t afford to take big risks as you get close to retirement so you need to make smart, educated decisions. So, what is the best thing you could do right now? Well, firstly you could continue to do nothing. Not Good - your future self will thank you if you TAKE POSITIVE ACTION without further delay. Sadly, the majority of people don’t do enough to help themselves. The good news is that it is never too late to make a difference.

convince you to put your life savings into risky investments that will benefit them but could leave you with a massively reduced pension or even nothing at all! 

I am an Independent Financial Planner who specialises in Pensions. I work at Crystal Wealth Management in Portland Square, Bristol. We have thousands of happy clients and over £150M under our management. We were established in 2003 and are an appointed representative of The On-Line Partnership Limited who are authorised and heavily regulated by The Financial Conduct Authority. 

How can we help you optimise your retirement? We can professionally actively manage your pension - helping you to make better decisions to get you an optimal rate of return.
We use high street name companies that you will be familiar with - Blue Chip companies that have very strong credit ratings.
We can use cash flow modelling to project accurately what income you can afford to take in retirement and how sustainable it actually is.
We look to get you a superior return without exposing you to any unnecessary risk in the markets so that your pension can grow healthily to get you more money.
Ideally, we want you to be able to live the lifestyle you want without fear of ever running out of money, whatever happens.
We can also help you ensure that in the event of your death, your pension will be passed on to your chosen beneficiaries.

New State Pension - What you'll get 
(As of May 2019 for those who retire after 06/04/2016. The Basic State Pension for those who retired before this date = £129.20/week increasing with inflation)
What are Your Chances of Living to 100
What is a good Pension Pot

One of the few times I have ever seen him weep was during the early 90s recession, when I came down to breakfast one school morning and he announced that he had been made redundant and that this would affect our lifestyle for the foreseeable future. Desire and an innate ambition gave me a hunger for freedom and tasting the finer experiences in life, forging my own attitude to money.

That type of pain and humiliation can create a subsequent need to impress, that is the  best example of the drive inside the most  motivated and some of the wealthiest self-made individuals I have ever worked with. It is, however, an itch that it seems can never properly be scratched.

​The only people that understand what money can’t do are people who have it. People who don’t have it believe that it can do things that it cannot. The most rewarding thing I do is show you how to best use the money you have accumulated to live the life you want. I explain how you can make the logical decisions so that you can make those important emotional ones yourself.