Planning for the future 

Do you know how much you’ll need when you retire?

A national campaign called Pay Your Pension Some Attention launched this autumn and it focuses on getting “financially fit” for your future.

Linking up with this we’ve been talking to members who are retired and getting closer to retirement to get their thoughts on how much you need when you retire.

We spoke to Jon, who used to work in Estates, at Manchester University, who recently retired early aged 62 and Harriet aged, 55 who through some effective retirement planning, is on the cusp of early retirement. She’s currently working in HR at Cranfield University.

We asked both members, firstly what they thought of the Pensions UK estimates, that the average person will need £31,700 a year for a moderate retirement lifestyle, or whether you could get by with the minimum - £13,400 - set out by Pensions UK.

Jon felt the lower end would mean you’d need to rely more on savings, particularly if you’ve retired before the state pension starts. He said: “I think if you're looking at the lower end. I would say you're going to need some money behind you just to bridge up, certainly until you get your state pension.”

Harriet said: “The starting point for working out how much you're going to spend is how much you're actually spending at the moment."

She added you should then be “Looking forward, are any of those expenses going to change in the future like children leaving home? At what point are those going to change?”

She doesn’t think spending habits will change much in retirement: “If you’re generally a frugal person, you’re unlikely to be changing that when you move into retirement.”

When it comes to other planning guidance they’d offer other younger members Jon said: “You need to get into it a little bit deeper and think about your own finances, what USS will offer, when are you thinking of going…the planning for me...is really, really critical.

“USS is really good at having reasonably accurate modelling tools - so you can get a good forward position in terms of your ongoing contributions and potential retirement dates.”