It's been a week since I set my notice of retirement
to my employer. That's been quite a rollercoaster
for Tracy and I. I mean from nasty surprises
in my pension valuation letters to what comes
next really for retirement. I mean also excitement
at beginning such an important chapter of our
lives really. So I'll start off with the nasty
surprise of my pension valuation letter. So I
received a letter from Aviva regarding a defined
benefit pension I had. I was at 12 years of PwC
and I checked this pension online must be a hundred
times. So I was pretty sure I knew what was about
to arrive in the valuation letter. So I started
reading and the amounts I would get when I retired
was pretty much exactly what it said in the online
version. The options to take tax -free lump sums
were pretty much the same as well. I was about
to give a sigh of relief and then I spotted a
little short paragraph tucked away under a table
at the bottom of the page that said basically,
when you reach stage 65, your pension will be
reduced in line with the basic state pension
reduction. Write to us if you need to know more.
No more, of course we need to know more. My...
My pension calculations all assume that when
I start getting my defined benefit pension, I'll
get it basically until I die. I mean, isn't that
generally the idea of a defined benefit pension?
And I basically expected to go up in line with
CPI or RPI, but I wasn't expecting it to reduce
by this undisclosed amount when I reached 65.
And I certainly wasn't expecting to have to guess
by how much. So of course, I wrote to them to
get some more detail. And after getting the second,
third and fourth opinion from basically everyone
I know who knows about pensions, the response
from Aviva Aride was just gobbledygook and I
still didn't know. how much of a pension would
reduce by when I reached 65. The closest guess
everyone came up with when trying to decipher
the legalese they sent me was that the pension
would reduce by 16 % of whatever the basic state
pension is at that time I reached 65. I mean
I don't actually get my state pension until I'm
67 so that's quite a blow really. I mean having
looked this up on forums the advice is to go
back to them. and ask them to apply the reduction
now while I'm 55, rather than get a surprise
when I'm 65. And then at least I'll know what
I'm getting and I'll have some certainty on my
numbers. So I have written again and now I'm
just kind of waiting for their response. I think
I'll try and find a bunch of Philadelphia lawyers
to help me interpret their response when it does
eventually arrive. Trace and I thought we'd been
through everything and we never spotted this
BSP reduction notice anywhere when looking at
our pension statements online. And it just goes
to show you can never be 100 % certain of these
things. I'll let you know what their response
is as and when it arrives and expect this is
going to impact a lot of people getting defined
benefit pensions. Okay, so other things. I had
a couple of days off this week, Monday and Tuesday.
I purposely didn't plan that much really. I know
when I retire, it'll be hard to plan something
for seven days a week for the rest of my life.
So I thought I'd try a couple of unplanned days.
I mean, Monday was great, chilled, watched a
bit of TV, sat around. By Tuesday, I was really
bored. And that doesn't bode well, does it? When
I'm planning to do for the rest of my life. I
keep having to pinch myself though that my time
is about to become my own and I won't be tied
to this kind of tight work schedule or wake up
every weekday morning running through my mind
and what kind of work activities I've got on
for the day. I think I'll just have a second
cup of coffee and a leisurely read of the news
and that sounds good to me. An important saying
you'll hear a lot in retirement planning is that
it's important to retire to something and not
away from something. I've never really disliked
work, so I don't feel that I'm retiring away
from something, and that's good. As far as retiring
to something goes, I certainly have lots and
lots of hobbies, but they ... do tend to be indoor
hobbies, sitting down type hobbies, and that's
not going to play well into my aim of getting
fitter in my retirement. Things will be different
when Teresa retires, as we have a lot of joint
activities we enjoy, you know, walking outdoors,
that kind of thing. So I do need some discipline
and making sure I don't spend all day sitting
in front of the keyboard, whether that be a piano
keyboard or a computer keyboard, really. So a
mixed week for me, and I'll let you know how
I get on as I get closer to finding out what
my final pensions are actually going to be as
I trawl through the mountains of paperwork coming
through my letterbox. So I'll see you on the
next one. Cheers guys.