How to increase your retirement income without exposing your life savings to unnecessary risk!

Have you ever wondered - is there a way for you to preserve ENOUGH income throughout your retirement? As a Financial Planner, I speak to people all the time who are worried about running out of money in retirement or not having enough money to sustain the type of lifestyle that they are hoping for. I will show you some key TECHNIQUES AND STRATEGIES FOR A PROSPEROUS RETIREMENT.

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?

​If you are over 40 then you are probably in the second half of your life. Don’t you want Part Two to be as good or even better than Part One? When will YOUR retirement start? At age 55, 65, 75..? When is the earliest that you CAN retire? Do you worry about whether you will have enough money to fund your later years?

What will the state provide? The full New State Pension weekly payout = £168.60 Not a lot is it?! 

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.​

Do you have old pension pots that have been neglected for years? You worked very hard for it. Could your money have been working harder for you? How much income are YOU going to need in retirement? How much is ENOUGH money for the rest of your life? According to research conducted by Insurer Royal London in May 2018 you’d need a pension pot of just over £260,000 to provide an income of just over £9,000.
(This assumes that you use your pot to purchase an annuity).

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.

​Secondly, you could do it yourself? Many people self-manage their pensions or use Robofunds or an off the shelf product. From my experience most of these just get mediocre results though as they haven’t got the specialist computer software to source or the professional expertise and knowledge to make the best decisions. This is way too important to get it wrong!

You also need to be careful. I have seen companies out there who have fees as high as 4% or would try to 

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.

​We work best with clients who have accumulated a reasonable pension pot and are now looking to maximise it as they approach their retirement. We work with people who are committed to building their wealth and looking to build a real life, ongoing relationship based on trust. We want you to have peace of mind, financial security and be able to improve your life - especially in your later years.

What are the next steps if you’d like to learn more? Failing to Plan = Planning to Fail.

Not doing anything could be devastating to what should be your Golden Years. We can help you to use proven strategies and tactics to finance your BEST retirement.

Take action NOW. Your future self will thank you massively! We want you to sleep soundly at night not worrying about your pension. Get in touch to schedule a FREE Discovery Call. It will be the BEST THING you will do for yourself today!

What will the call involve? The purpose of the call is to find out a bit about your situation so that we can decide if we think we can help you if we both want to work together and take things further. I look forward to speaking to you very soon. Thank you very much for your time.

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

A pension is a long term investment. The fund value may fluctuate and can go down. Your eventual income may depend upon the size of the fund at retirement, future interest rates and tax legislation. Crystal Wealth Management Ltd is an appointed representative of The On-Line Partnership Limited which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority