How many more Monday mornings?
Let’s hear how Steve stopped guessing at his retirement date and found the actual number…
It used to be great, didn't it?
These days it's a form a week, at least. The pay's still good, though it feels like ha
lf of it disappears before I even see it. And somewhere in amongst all that, there's a pension I've been paying into for decades, quietly building in the background while I got on with actual work.
I'd better check where it's got to.
It's a decent chunk, as it turns out. But the advisers all say the same thing, in the same slightly ominous tone: keep adding to it, it needs to last, don't assume anything. Which is true, and also not remotely specific enough to actually plan around.
The question I actually needed answering
I know my expenses properly. I've even built in a discretionary chunk for the things that make retirement worth having — holidays, the golf membership, not worrying quite so hard about everything.
What I don't know is the one number that actually matters: can I retire at 60? Does it have to be 65? Later, even?
That question doesn't have a rough answer. It has a real one, buried in the actual numbers — and I wanted to see it, not guess at it.
What I did
I opened GiltEdge, set my retirement date to 60, and watched the Wealth Trajectory chart respond. A reference line dropped straight onto the year I'd picked, labelled with my name, showing exactly what happens to my money from that point on.
Then I did the thing every spreadsheet always made painful: I changed my mind.
Tried 60. The Pension Runoff Chart showed the pot draining faster than I'd like — gone by my late seventies if I wasn't careful. Tried 65. It eased considerably. Landed on 63 — the number I could actually defend to Beth over dinner — and checked it properly.
The pension holding up. The State Pension arriving at 67 to take some of the weight off the drawdown just as the private pot needed it most. The numbers doing what the advisers had only ever gestured at vaguely.
I didn't need to build a new spreadsheet tab for every scenario. I just changed one date and watched the whole picture redraw itself, instantly, as many times as I wanted.
What I found
At 63, there's a bit left over — enough to actually leave the kids something. I checked the estate value against the Inheritance Tax threshold on the GECard. No warning. Under the limit. Nothing extra for HMRC to take a further cut of.
Not a hope. Not an adviser's reassuring tone of voice. A number, checked against my own real figures, that I could actually trust enough to tell Beth: "63 is about it."
I've still got that meeting with HR in a few minutes. But for the first time in a while, I know roughly how many more of those there actually need to be.
GiltEdge is a financial planning tool, not financial advice. It is not regulated by the FCA. 14-day free trial at getthegiltedge.co.uk