What can you do to ensure a comfortable retirement?
My mother is retiring next year.
What can she do now, within the UK personal finance spectrum (savings schemes, tax credits, pension scheme tricks and tips, discount schemes for pensioners) that will mean she can enjoy a nice lump sum on retirement?
She worked for the NHS for a time, but now works in a private health care and I’m pretty sure she has a private pension scheme too. Does that change things?
All answers ABOVE BOARD please! :o]
On the personal finance level, I can’t advise you – but in terms of your mum thinking about her health in future years, she should definitely look at setting up some kind of arrangement with you / other kids/ trustworthy relatives whereby she can sign her house over to you (that is, if she is an owner-occupier).
You probably know that if your mum goes into care, she will have to use any savings above 18k to pay for her care – i.e. in effect she would need to sell her home to pay for it.
IN the long run it may well therefore make a lot of sense for her to ‘give’ the house to you – and she uses the money for herself over the years – I think legally you would need to charge has a small nominal rent.
This is all entirely legal. It means your mum could enjoy the capital in her home right now and in ‘nearer’ future years, and then if she does need to move into local authority or housing association sheltered accommodation or a care home, the state would have to pay, rather than your mum using her own money.
Something else your mum could look at is whether her existing home is in tip-top condition to prepare her for retirement – increasing age and fraility etc. Check out if you have a ‘Home Improvement Agency’ in your area. They specialise in helping over-60s and/ or disabled people stay living in their own home for as long as possible – i.e. they are entirely trustworthy and will do repairs, adaptations – sometimes for free, sometimes for a small fee.
On the personal finance level, I can’t advise you – but in terms of your mum thinking about her health in future years, she should definitely look at setting up some kind of arrangement with you / other kids/ trustworthy relatives whereby she can sign her house over to you (that is, if she is an owner-occupier).
You probably know that if your mum goes into care, she will have to use any savings above 18k to pay for her care – i.e. in effect she would need to sell her home to pay for it.
IN the long run it may well therefore make a lot of sense for her to ‘give’ the house to you – and she uses the money for herself over the years – I think legally you would need to charge has a small nominal rent.
This is all entirely legal. It means your mum could enjoy the capital in her home right now and in ‘nearer’ future years, and then if she does need to move into local authority or housing association sheltered accommodation or a care home, the state would have to pay, rather than your mum using her own money.
Something else your mum could look at is whether her existing home is in tip-top condition to prepare her for retirement – increasing age and fraility etc. Check out if you have a ‘Home Improvement Agency’ in your area. They specialise in helping over-60s and/ or disabled people stay living in their own home for as long as possible – i.e. they are entirely trustworthy and will do repairs, adaptations – sometimes for free, sometimes for a small fee.
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Whatever you do, all pension scheme’s are a rip off. The best you can do is try to get ripped off as little as possible. Read ALL the small print NOW. If you take out a lump sum, how much will they penalise you? If you leave all the money in the pension scheme, then EXACTLY how much will you get? If your mother dies while there is still money in the pension scheme (and I promise you there will be, lots of it) where EXACTLY will that money go? Don’t forget that if you have any money in the bank when you retire the government will refuse any state pension until you have spent most of it (and no you can’t just buy a car or something and get around it that way). Effectively stealing your savings. Its very wrong, it always has been.
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