How much pension for a comfortable life?

Surely it depends what you expect out of life? You going cruising round the world - you need a lot, you staying home and gardening, producing your own food, you need less. In any case who knows what the future holds. If you have enough coming in to fill your needs then you are probably 'comfortably off', but it depends on your needs. When we first started saving for a pension £1,000 year income was considered a good income! Times change.

abbey Printmiss is right - it depends what you want.

Try to work out how much you spend on food, council tax, energy costs, house maintenance, your car, clothes, going out, other miscellaneous expenses.

Then see if your £28K will be enough to cover it.It helps if you keep household accounts so ou know what you're spending.
Something to bear in mind is that it actually costs you money to go out to work and you may find after you stop work, that it costs less to run your car, if you use that to go to work, you spend less on clothes and you can spend less on food if you cook more from scratch than when you're working.

Have a look at your savings and see if that money could work harder for you and provide some income too.

Before I retired I had always run spreadsheets detailing the household expenditure with projections forward so I had an idea of what we would need. This enabled us to retire a couple of years earlier than planned as we didn't need as much as we had first thought. I would always recommend do the accounts daily (I use internet banking so its easy)so no surprises and good forward planning. As others have said it all depends on your lifestyle and expectations. We aren't wealthy by any means but have a good life doing what we want by and large with some compromises thrown in. My big extravagance is good food from the more expensive shops but we don't eat out a lot. Its all a balancing act. Good luck with your retirement plans.

To be honest I am really waiting to retire. My pension age was increased by call me "Dave" Cameron and co. I earn around £13K and as I said, I will get around £10K in pension as far as I have been able to establish. Hubby already has £18K

Yes, the car has to take me to work. We also runa little car from hubby to take himself about. We wont need that when I am retired.

I dont know exactly what we spend now and I will work it out but I was looking for a ball park figure. I also know we "live" easily on my £13K now. Hubby's money is not touched.

In fact in the last three years we have saved money.I have two current accounts , each started 3 years ago with £8K in thenm as a balance and now each has over £20K in it. (I moved money from the joint current account into savings and then split the account into two banks because of the £75K in one banking group rules)

I have a lot of savings and two substantial inheritances ...... so I would rather not have to look at those because frankly, I seem to always have trouble moving money to different savings accounts, something to do with not passing the "Experian test" - not because I have debts but because I dont have any debts and no passport either!. Cant provide the documentation the banks seem to need these days.

Anyway, that aside. I am not looking at big hobbies. My hubby likes to mess around with computers and does some DIY ( he was a tradesman). I like painting , having a nice home, but I have two cats so nothing fancy or show house) and a large 1/2 acre garden. Then there would be maintenance of house costs etc. although I have been doing the house up recently to save on that when I retire.

I dont need holidays. We dont do them anyway. I would be happy being at home. I hate working. I hate going out.

abby you appear to have a large garden- how will you maintain that when you are older? Would you have to consider moving? Could you cope at your present residence if for any reason one or both of you could no longer drive? Moving house can eat into the funds but many times it is a necessity especially if downsizing is on the cards.

Having a cat myself I am well aware of the cost so that has to be factored in.

By "painting" I mean painting walls and such like. Decorating.

I would say we spend around £1000 on DIY and garden a year and Hubby has his van which takes around another £700 (but we probably wouldn't need that when I retire.

I suspect we might live reasonably on around £10K including all household bills and food right now and we both have anything we want so its not frugal. But hubby listens to the BBC and their doom stories and thinks we have to have lots of money in retirement.

CharleyGirl. I could buy two houses without selling my current one if I had to. But I have no intention of moving. I have an easy maintenance garden and I would get a man in.I am sure I could afford that.

abbey If you have two 'substantial' inheritances it would probably be worth seeing an independent financial adviser.
They do charge, but in my experience they pay for themselves in terms of better returns on your investments.

Sorry Charliegirl. I dont mean to sound arrogant. I have money. It means little to me. Its just hubby and "daily living costs" I need to get around.

I don't think you really need advice, abbey, you seem to know roughly how much you need to live on and obviously have plenty of savings.

It certainly doesn't sound as though your DH needs to worry about the extra £2,000 p.a. he's going on about!

Retire as soon as you can. It appears you have ample funds, so to be honest I can't see the dilemma. If you enjoy working carry on but if you have had enough of working, stop. If your pensions fall a little short of what you need why not use some of your savings? You can't take it with you.

Frankly, you are far better off than most pensioners, both in terms of savings and income. Your husband is worrying needlessly. However, you say he lived in abject poverty and think this is why he worries. This is the real problem, not the actual money. It may sound daft, but would he consider talking to a counselor about his worries? He'd need to find one who understands the financial concerns older people can have. It seems such a shame that his retirement years could be spent worrying about a concern which really, in your and his case, doesn't exist.

This is a case of " we all should be so lucky".
I agree your husband has a problem and it needs sorting for both of your sakes

Just tell him that the interest from your savings more than covers the shortfall, and your inheritances etc. will still be untouched. (Although if you are that rich, why not spend some of it while you can?)

I could only dream of an income of 30k and both my husband and I work full time (or in my husbands case around 70 hours a week) .

I do hope your husband has many many years of counting his money (or studying his bank book) abbey but he should remember that no one knows when the time is up and you sure as hell can't take it with you.

Abbey, it sounds as though our expectations are very similar to your own. Our combined pension is circa £30 after tax. That enables us to live very comfortably and be reasonably generous to our children and grand children. We do eat out a lot and we could reduce out outgoings considerably if we did so less, and were more careful with our daily spending. However, we don't have any savings (I have just spent 90% of them on a new car), but we have enough over most months to put a little by for holidays etc. We are in this position because I put a lot into my pension from early on, so it is not luck, I always planned to retire at 60, as it was I retired at 57.

Your £28 should be enough to give your a very pleasant life style, if you have a little savings to cover emergencies, that would give you peace of mind. Many live very well on much less, some live no better on very much more. Friends of ours complain that they have to pay high rate tax on their pension, I don't see them living any better than we do.

Regarding needing a car, we do more private mileage (about 12000/yr) now that we ever did when working, hence we need a reliable car. (our children both live a long way off)

All our income is pension, do not have any investments.

Forgive me abbey if I am going off in the completely wrong direction here, but it is a case of your husband not wanting you to retire and making the retirement fund the excuse to keep you working. I know it sounds mad, but maybe he is happy being at home alone and is worried that his life is going to change again once you retire too. Just a thought, you would be surprised how many partners have this problem when retirement looms, or happens

Stop work and get out and enjoy yourself!!!

£28K is more than enough to live on if you are mortgage free - we do it very happily on less than that. We dip into savings now and again for big items.

The issue here is not income but OH's anxiety I think!

If you have two substantial legacies to fall back on then you are laughing!

Our circumstances sound similar to yours abbey we manage to run a car each have several UK holidays a year plus short trips to visit family, can't afford to give cash sums to family but do treat them all on occasions and our income is much less than yours in the lower 20K per year. We a bit of saving but that will dwindle over the next few years but we manage to live comfortably and enjoy life on it.
I agree with the others retire and enjoy it now while you reasonably healthy because non of us know what is round the corner and I know that only too well.

I think that the 30K is for people who are paying a mortgage or rent - with none of that to pay you can decrease the amount by about 6K I would think.
Has he ever said why you need to make up what he considers a shortfall and more importantly how he expects you to do it? I would say that if he were that worried he would get back out there and earn a bit more himself.
The 75K you mention is per person so for a couple it is twice that - but I think it went up to 85 a few years ago.

We have a very nice life on less than he is suggesting and rarely need to touch any savings - unless we wish to upgrade the car sort of thing.

Suggest you get on and enjoy your life, seems you have nothing to worry about. Just go off and have fun, you don't know how long you have left!

Good advice Nonnie.

You have hundreds of thousands in the bank but go out to work, and hate it, for £13,000 pa. I'm trying to get my head around that one.

If you enjoyed your job that would be different.