Frank O'Donnell

Traditionally Christmas is a time to relax, but it is also an ideal opportunity to use any downtime to discuss pension planning in advance of the tax year-end, coupled with the popular company year-end of 31 March.
With this in mind, here are 12 suggestions to increase your retirement savings…
Click on the link below to take you [...]

The housing market is experiencing big changes which could significantly effect the property market. The ‘baby boomers’ of the forties and fifties are now reaching age 65 and coming up to retirement.   Many of them intend to use their homes to subsidise retirement by selling up and downsizing.

Standard Life has calculated the real retirement age using published Government data of many people living in the UK who have no retirement savings as anywhere between aged 74 and 86.

A recent study estimated that around 17 million working Brits have never reviewed their retirement pot; despite the ongoing pension crisis. Roughly 1.3million of those people said they had checked but say it’s been more than a decade since they last checked.

Aviva have this week launched an online Pension Tracker to enable over one million pension savers to track the performance of their pension fund and plan for retirement using their new online tool.
The secure website features Lisa, a virtual online guide who shows users around the site and explains the importance of pensions planning.
Aviva customers [...]

The market has encountered two stock market collapses in the last 10 years, creating havoc on many people’s pension plans. Young people have time to repair their pension savings, but what can be done for those now coming up to retirement or already retired? It is now possible to defer retirement and carry on working past the [...]

The latest warning that comes from the Institute of Financial Planning that there is hardly a day goes by without someone telling us that we are all heading for disaster unless we save more for retirement. Morningstar is running polls for the IFP and the most recent reveals – as many other polls have shown [...]

Homeowners continue to rely on their property to fund their retirement despite falling house prices, research from Baring Asset Management reveals.
Nearly three quarters of respondents who are hedging their bets that their home will pay for retirement have made no changes to their pension over the last year. Research by Barings revealed that 1574 adults [...]

The government aim’s to keep drawdown in line with personal pension regime, which finishes at age 75. The ‘timescale for retirement’ that the pension regulator has now reported as saying is that state retirement age could rise even further than its current target of 68 by 2044 – which now affects anyone under age 33.

The pension regulator [...]

Minimum Age RisesTo 55 For Private Pensions
From 6 April next year, the minimum age for drawing a private pension will rise from 50 to 55. This change will come as a shock to some. However, there’s action you can take now to ensure you seek advice to make plans for your pension before the changes [...]