Preparing for a Longer Retirement

I’ve mentioned in previous articles that we no longer refer to ‘threescore and ten’ (70 years old) as an average lifespan. The UK has over 11m people aged 65+, and over 500,000 aged 90+.

The average life expectancy for a baby girl today is 91 years; 2/3 of boys will reach 95, whilst 1 in 5 one-year olds are expected to reach 100 (Aegon).

Put another way, The Queen was known for sending Birthday Messages to those celebrating their 100th birthday.

In 1961, only 479 such messages were sent. In 2021, this had risen to 13,924!

Traditionally, we may have divided our lives into three parts:

Education | Work | Retirement

But as we spend longer amounts of time in retirement, perhaps we should divide our life into two parts instead:

Being Active | Being Less Active

Advances in medicine and technology such as AI mean that ailments currently considered life-threatening or disabling are expected to see cures that could extend our life expectancy considerably. With longer lives to live, we’ll need to save more money for our retirement, and perhaps even delay when to gift our assets and estates.

This is why making plans for both your retirement and estate is important. You’ll need to make sure your finances are prepared for both ‘Active’ and ‘Less Active’ phases of your life.

In 2023, the investment markets were difficult - it looked as though it was going to be a terrible year until a very strong recovery in November and December.

This recovery meant our average investor ended up with just under 7% growth. That said, this brought little comfort against the panic experienced over the last two years.

How and where you invest, and understanding the risks, forms part of how you plan for your future. It’s important to review how you invest for your different phases of life.

To speak with one of our expert Financial Planners, please call us on 01480 869466 for a free initial, no obligation chat.