Retirement - there's more to think about than money.

When you think of retirement, what comes to mind? Is it those extra rounds of golf, spending a few months each year basking in the sun, and relishing quality time with your grandkids? Or do you find yourself worrying about your pension funding, fearing it might not be sufficient to cover all your dreams and aspirations?

As financial advisers, we understand the crucial role we play in alleviating these financial worries. Our daily mission is to help clients build robust pension funds that enable them to live their retirement years on their own terms. However, our commitment goes beyond just finances. We believe in helping you adopt a holistic view of retirement, ensuring you thrive in all aspects of this significant life phase.

Let's assume that together we've successfully addressed the financial side, ensuring you have the means to enjoy your retirement fully. What else should you consider?

Be aware of your partner’s space

Imagine waking up on the first day of your retirement. There's no alarm clock; you wake up at your leisure. Your spouse, who may have been at home full-time, continues with their usual routine. How do you fit into this new dynamic?

The transition requires careful consideration. Avoid assuming that everything changes just because you’re now around more. Your partner may cherish their routine and prefer minimal disruption. At the same time, they need to understand the significant shift in your life and the potential struggle you might face in establishing a new routine, encompassing both individual and shared activities.

Communication is key. Discuss your expectations, respect each other’s space, and collaboratively plan your days. This mutual understanding will make the transition smoother and more enjoyable for both of you.

Avoid empty, long days

Retirement brings a significant increase in free time. Your working day, often including commute time, might have occupied 11 or 12 hours daily. Now, you need to find fulfilling ways to fill these hours. Will you play golf, take up a new hobby, or engage in volunteer work? Perhaps you’ll finally visit all those places you’ve longed to see.

Planning is essential. Fill your days with activities that interest you and promote a sense of accomplishment. Keeping your mind and body active is crucial. Avoid the trap of monotonous days spent napping in front of the TV. Instead, pursue hobbies, volunteer, travel, or study. A well-structured plan will make your days fulfilling and enjoyable.

Look after your health – mental and physical

During your working years, the simple routine of getting up and going to work contributed to your overall health. Now, with more free time, it’s vital to maintain and even increase your focus on healthy habits. Incorporate regular physical exercise into your routine, whether it’s taking brisk walks or visiting the gym. Many gyms offer fitness programs tailored for seniors, ensuring your activities are safe and effective.

Physical exercise benefits your mental health as well. It boosts your mood and keeps you feeling good about yourself. Stay mentally sharp by engaging in activities like reading, solving puzzles, or learning new skills. Social interaction is also crucial—spend time with friends, join clubs, and participate in community events.

With more time available, you can also pay greater attention to your diet. Take the opportunity to prepare healthy meals from fresh ingredients. Transform cooking into a hobby, experimenting with new recipes and enjoying the process of creating nutritious dishes.

You still have a lot to offer

Retirement can sometimes bring a perceived loss of value. In your working years, your company and colleagues relied on you, providing a sense of purpose. Now, you might feel this is gone. However, your value extends far beyond paid work.

Your experience, expertise, and time are invaluable. You can continue to contribute meaningfully through volunteer work, coaching, or mentoring. Choose areas that interest you, work on your terms, and at times that suit you. This approach not only allows you to give back but also provides a profound sense of satisfaction and fulfilment.

Having your finances in order is undeniably crucial for a happy and satisfying retirement. However, it’s the non-financial aspects that truly enhance your quality of life. Cultivate a balanced approach that includes meaningful activities, maintaining your health, and nurturing your relationships. By doing so, you can enjoy a fulfilling and vibrant retirement, living life to the fullest for many years to come.

How tidy are your retirement affairs?

As part of our work with clients, one really important element of an overall financial plan is retirement planning. Of course, it happens quite often that clients are some way along this journey before we come into contact with them.

What we see sometimes leaves a lot to be desired… Some people think they are well on the road to a comfortable retirement. However when we investigate, we don’t see a plan, we simply see a lot of policies. These clients often don’t know what they have – they know they have “bits and pieces” of pensions and are assuming that they all add up to a satisfactory picture. Quite often, this is not in fact the case.

Sometimes of course, having lots of different policies makes perfect sense. That is, when it is part of a planned retirement strategy where it is beneficial to have multiple policies. A client may have multiple sources of income for example, each requiring a different approach. Or a client may have a specific drawdown strategy that is easily facilitated by more than one policy. Sometimes it makes sense in order to pursue a specific investment strategy.

On the other hand, we come across situations where people have multiple policies with no strategy behind them. This happens because they forget about some benefits previously built up or maybe where they get advice from multiple sources and end up with multiple policies as a result.

It always makes sense to get solid advice about your overall retirement plans, and for us to establish whether the range of policies that you have are actually serving you well. While not always the case, we often find that some consolidation of policies makes sense.

So why might you consider consolidating some of your pension policies together?

It’s easier to plan

Building a solid retirement plan begins with your aspirations and objectives in life, and then specifically focusing in on those later in life. Once you decide what your desired retirement looks like, we can help you identify the financial goals to achieve that desired retirement. We can see how much you need to save, the best structures to use and the optimal investment approach.

Once all of this is clear, we decide what is best for you in terms of policies going forwards. It’s not about what you have, we’re interested in what you need now. If having all of your existing pensions in place makes perfect sense – great! If not though, we’ll suggest a better approach that may mean consolidating some of your pensions. It all comes back to the plan.

Isn’t this a lot better than simply blindly saving money with “bits of pensions” all over the place and no end goal in sight?

A more structured investment approach

Another reason for consolidating some pensions together is to achieve a better, or easier to manage, investment approach. Once we identify the very best investment strategy to help you achieve your retirement goals, this then needs to be activated within your pension policies. It also requires ongoing monitoring, rebalancing of the asset allocation from time to time and sometimes some other tweaking. This can become very cumbersome when there are too many policies. Consolidation of policies can result in a more agile investment approach.

More cost effective

This is not always the case, but will always be considered by us when carrying out our due diligence into different potential pension plans on your behalf. Sometimes less policies can be more effective, where structures have the following features,

• Higher entry investment allocations for higher amounts

• Lower recurring charges over a certain asset threshold

• Flat per policy / account charges

Your retirement savings are your money. While some charges will always feature, it is our job to ensure you hold on to as much of your money as possible for yourself!

These are a few headline reasons as to why it might make sense to consolidate your pensions together. To our mind though, it’s all about the plan. Get the retirement goals clear and then get the financial plan right. The pension policies are then simply a means to an end – achieving the plan. Whether that’s easier achieved with one policy or loads of them, that’s our job to tell you.

Is it time for you to empty all those policies out of the drawer and come and see us, and let us build a structured retirement plan for you?

In your 30s and thinking of retirement - are you mad?

Well the short answer is no, you’re not mad to be thinking about retirement in your 30’s. Of course it is not going to be foremost in your mind as there are lots of competing priorities – a house to be bought, maybe a wedding to be celebrated or a family to be started. And these also don’t take into account the holidays, cars and social life that are there to be enjoyed!

So planning for retirement is probably well down the list…

But it’s a problem that won’t go away, instead the challenge gets significantly greater as time marches on for a couple of reasons. First of all any savings made in your 30’s have more years to benefit from the magic of compound interest and will have a much bigger impact on your retirement outcomes than money saved in later years. Secondly, the state old age pension scheme is under enormous pressure due to Ireland’s ageing population. By the time people who are in their 30’s today actually get to retirement, state benefits will look very different; will they be paid later, paid at a lower level or means tested? Maybe people will face a combination of all of these…

So what can you do to positively impact your own retirement outcomes?

Adopt a savings mind-set

This is an important starting point – to recognise the importance of saving for different timeframes, including retirement. We’re not suggesting that you stop spending, as life is definitely for living! But we are suggesting that you take a balanced approach to your finances; spend money on things that matter to you, avoid frittering money away and take a strategic approach to your financial future rather than simply hoping everything will turn out ok! Saving money is a key pillar of a strategic approach to your finances.

Pay yourself first

We sometimes find with clients who are in or around their 30’s that while the intention to save for retirement is there, the reality is that it just doesn’t happen. Saving for retirement falls to the bottom of a long list of priorities and usually doesn’t make the cut. So our advice is to reverse the priorities. Pay yourself (by saving) first, immediately after you get paid each month. As a result, something else will suffer – this will usually be a discretionary spend (such as that 2nd coffee bought every day, the extra takeaway dinner every week) that actually adds little value to your life.

Understand the impact of debt

Debt plays an important role in all of our lives, whether it is a mortgage for your house or a loan for a car etc. We all know the folly of running up credit card debts and also borrowing to fund your lifestyle. However simply the availability of debt can really hurt your retirement planning too. Take the example of someone who gets a salary increase. This increases spending / saving power. Some people unfortunately see this as an opportunity to immediately change the car and borrow more money as additional repayments can now be afforded. Yes you’re driving a nicer car, but your salary increase now has no impact on improving your financial future. We’re not killjoys who think you should save every extra euro, but salary increases should reward you both today and tomorrow.

Don’t waste windfalls

Similar to the last point, windfalls that quite often are in the shape of pay bonuses are an opportunity to dial up your enjoyment of life today (after all you’ve earned it), while also improving your future. Set yourself a personal commitment to save x% of any windfalls you get for your long-term future, while enjoying the balance of that bonus today.

And really achieving balance is the key point that we are attempting to make. Yes enjoy the financial opportunities that present themselves to you today. But don’t do it at the total expense of your financial future later in life.

Avail of any “free” retirement support

This final point applies to anyone who is fortunate enough to have a benevolent employer who agrees to pay into a pension scheme for you. This will often be done on the basis of “matching” your own commitment, up to a certain limit. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by!  This is effectively free money for you and a reward for sound financial behaviour carried out by you. Always avail of this opportunity to the maximum that you are able, as it is usually offered on a “use it or lose it” basis – if you don’t avail of your employer’s matching contribution in a given year, you can’t come back looking for it later.

As we said at the outset, we understand that planning your retirement is not going to be at the top of anyone’s wish list while in their 30’s. However by embedding some good financial habits, you can hugely improve the quality of your life, both today and in the future.