Retirement

For many people, the fifties are the decade when thoughts turn to retirement. Whether or not you want to retire early, it’s important to know how much you have and what you can do to give yourself as comfortable a lifestyle as possible. I’ve advised dozens of clients in their fifties. Here’s what I’ve found.

Are you a freelancer, contractor, sole proprietor or otherwise self-employed? If you’ve set yourself up with a limited company, you can make employer contributions to your pension directly from your company in a way that’s very tax-efficient. Here’s how.

Abel is a research project manager. And he, like 4.8 million people in the UK, has opted to go it alone after 22 years working as an employee. We’re seeing more and more that hype around the ‘gig’ economy (a system based on short-term contracts with multiple employers) is giving employees the prod they need to give freelancing a go. Yet there were serious questions he wanted to put to us before he could confidently fly solo.

If you work for yourself, a self-employed pension will make your money work for you.

So you’ve taken the plunge. Or perhaps you haven’t quit your job yet but you’re thinking about it. You’ve got a great idea for a start-up, you’re about to become a contractor, or maybe you’re set to open that vegan bakery you’ve dreamed about. Here’s our guide to becoming self-employed.

The Nutmeg personal pension can accept transfers from a wide range of pension schemes in the UK. Before you start transferring a pension, there are a few things you should check.

The self-employed cannot simply leave their retirement strategy to employers. And more power to them for that. But this fierce independence brings challenges, many of which our Nutmeg advisers contend with on a daily basis. Here, we share our responses to your most commonly asked questions about financial planning for the self-employed.

If you’ve had more than one job, you may have more than one pension pot. Bringing all those pots together can help you understand your financial situation. But pension consolidation has other benefits too – if you choose a low-cost provider, you could improve your financial position in retirement.

Gender can often result in a big difference to your projected retirement pot. There’s a pension gap evident where women could be up to £164,000 worse off in retirement than men¹. Let’s put pensions on the agenda and close the pension gap.

The UK population is in a state of worry over personal finances. Research commissioned by Nutmeg1 found that eight in ten people in the UK are stressed about money matters. Not only are we dealing with the rising costs of outgoings, such as bills, food and transport, but many of us are concerned we are not putting enough aside in pensions for our retirement.

If you start planning and saving early enough, you might hope to have built up enough of a retirement fund to ditch the rat race and retire at 65. But what if you could retire in your 40s – or even your 30s? Or at least be in a strong enough financial position to switch things up and start working on something you’re more passionate about?

The 25% government bonus for Lifetime ISA (LISA) customers was an attractive hook, but what happens with your bonus could make a difference to your investments.