Wealth – How much is enough?

You can find endless pages, advertorials, articles with advice about how to invest for retirement.

The big question is “How much do I need to retire?”

The easiest way to answer this is “Just a little bit more!”. So we plod on for another year and another year….. Pay a bit more off the mortgage, pay a little but more into the pension pot, save a little bit more to…..

Why? Because that’s what we have done for many years. That’s what we are good at and comfortable with.

Change, the unknown, complete independence, control of our schedule, our own time. Not that’s scary.

So, how much DO I need?

Here is an inconvenient fact. I don’t know, you don’t know. There is no answer! We can try and break it down a bit. Look at the question from different perspectives. 

How much do I have?

• Downsize property
• Pension A + Pension B + Pension C
• Shares
• Savings
• Potential income (state pension after X date)
• Potential income (side hustles)

How much do I need?

• Council Tax
• Water Rates
• Heating – gas and electric
• Food
• Entertainment
• Travel
• Hobbies
• Car/Boat

As soon as you start this process, you will realise that there is a lot of assumptions and guess work involved. But keep this in perspective.

We don’t know how long we have, but we do know we won’t live for ever.

One strategy, may be to set a target date for retirement and work with what you have e.g. your budget.

So we have multiple ways to figure things out, but the hardest part is deciding to do it and getting on with it.