My Pension Roadmap – Sat Nav for your Retirement!
We’ve recently launched a subscription based advice service called My Pension Roadmap. It’s aimed at the members of our group pension plans who want to know what it’s all worth and when they’ll be able to retire. We’ve extended it to all of our clients recently. You can read more about it here.
There are some really scary statistics being banded around in the media about exactly when we’ll all be able to stop 
working. Of course that’s if we even want to! We mentioned the Oddfellows survey in our earlier blog article here. Not only do people have very little idea of what kind of savings they need – they are doing nothing about it.
That’s where My Pension Roadmap comes in. We call it Sat Nav for your retirement.
But don’t take our word for it. Let us give you a real live example of My Pension Roadmap in practice. We’ve changed some of the personal details to protect the clients’ privacy.
Jim and Donna are both in their 50’s. They own their own home and the kids have all grown up and left home. Jim works in a factory and Donna is a nurse in the NHS. Apart from a short break to bring up kids Donna has always worked full-time. Jim has worked for several companies but has always been in the pension scheme. The couple have a modest standard of living and have always saved what they can.
The first stage of My Pension Roadmap is to sit down with Jim and Donna at the Discovery Meeting. This is when we really get to grips with what Jim and Donna’s ambitions are for their later years. For example we really drill down into issues like where they want to live, what they want to do with their time and what legacy they’d like to leave. We look at how they feel about taking risks with the money they’ve worked so hard to build up. We’ll also try to help Jim and Donna understand he risk v reward conundrum. The Discovery Meeting is part explanation, part education and mostly listening.
At our Discovery Meeting it became clear that Jim was becoming weary after a lifetime of work and Donna was really looking forward to reaching her retirement date soon. They both wanted to spend more time with their grandchildren. As avid caravanners they wanted to set off on a great adventure around Europe for a few months and wanted a new super duper caravan for this road trip.
We looked at the state pensions that Jim and Donna had built up and Donna’s NHS Pension. We also had details of Jim’s personal pension plans. The couple also have some savings.
Jim doesn’t think he’ll be able to retire until his state pensions kicks in when he’s 65. He doesn’t have a clear idea of how much his pensions are worth. The pensions that him and Donna have all be one payable at different dates and Jim admits he’s confused. Ideally he’d like to retire when Donna gets to 60 in a couple of years.
After the meeting we went away to start collecting all the info we needed to be able to report back to Jim and Donna. My Pension Roadmap is designed to distill all the technical stuff down into something really simple and easy to understand. At the heart of My Pension Roadmap is your Retirement Cashflow. It shows you the estimated money in and money out and help you see whether you will achieve your goals.
Jim and Donna are over the moon when we tell them at our next meeting that they can both afford to stop working and do the things they want to in a little less than 18 months. Jim said it was like a weight lifted off his shoulders and 
that he felt invigorated.
We are now in the process of implementing the changes that we recommended that’ll help Jim and Donna stand the best chance of meeting their goals. We’re moving Jim’s pensions into less volatile funds. We’re looking at getting updated State Pension Forecasts. Finally we’re moving into the discussion stage and looking at all the ways that we can turn Jim’s pension savings into an income for him.
Finally, we’ve transferred Jim’s pension plans into one pot. This means that not only will he pay less in charges but he can also pay his My Pension Roadmap subscription from his pension in product charges. And he’s still better off.
We’re really excited about My Pension Roadmap and we hope that people like Jim and Donna become it’s biggest ambassadors.
If you’d like to arrange a free initial discussion about My Pension Roadmap please contact us here.