Have you got enough to retire on?

Some 4.3 million over-50s have returned to work having already retired, realising that they are unable to afford the lifestyle they had hoped for. So how can you avoid this?

The relentless flow of bad news for anyone approaching retirement age continues. This week's victims are mainly women. According to insurer LV=, 6.5 million people aged 50 or over intend to work for an extra 6.2 years on average past standard retirement age (currently 65 for men and 60 for women, but 66 for both from 2020). Of these around four million are women. A happy few said they planned to keep working just because they loved their job but about half of those surveyed blamed a lack of retirement funds. Meanwhile, some 4.3 million over-50s have returned to work having already retired, realising that they are unable to afford the lifestyle they had hoped for.

So how can you avoid this? What factors do you need to take into account when deciding whether and when you can comfortably retire? The first thing to consider obviously is your income. If you are lucky enough to be a member of a final-salary pension scheme, this is likely to be defined as a fixed proportion of your final, or working life average', salary. So you'll have a decent idea of what you might get. But for those in money-purchase schemes, where you and your employer make a fixed monthly contribution to a savings plan, the estimate is trickier.

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