Quick addendum to my earlier bit -I pay an annual fee for financial care inc visits etc and there is a fairly common %age applied to your investments vale based to be honest on your funds I doubt if you’d pay much more than a grand or so - but shop around - 2k at the absolute max
Last word on this. I have yet to see a gravestone with the words 'I wish I'd have spent more time worrying about how much money I had in Bank'. Or 'If only I'd have spent more time at work.' Think on.
Or as the old granny used to say...'There's no pockets in shrouds'. I've got naff all in terms of private pensions,we'd saved a bit to try and boost our state pensions when it came (we're not of pensionable age yet,should be but we aren't due to the age hike) but we've had to use most of it to survive due to my health not being great the last year.(Better off having **** all in the bank the way things are going in this Country anyway) We'll both get state pension(God willing) and it should just about cover things,if it doesn't I'll claim the DWP,I've earned it...
One thing you should consider, if retiring early, is whether to top up national insurance payments to get a bigger state pension. See: topping-up-your-state-pension-guide.pdf At first view it seems complicated but it's not as bad as it looks.
You won't get financial advice from them, but you can get a free advice session with PensionWise and it's worth doing to make sure you understand all the options and rules https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/information/pension-wise/
How much is the annual fee? (as a %age - not wanting to nosey into your weatlh!) How much is the "fairly common %age applied to your investments? £2k on £100k is still 2%. I suspect it may be much more than that when all the charges and fees are added up. 5% as quoted earlier, plus no doubt further (more hidden) fees on actual investments, is a huge bite into returns. Cash ISA's pay around 4%. Long term returns on a sensible, balanced low cost global passive fund are around 7% p.a. Unless a situation is complicated, why on earth would anyone choose to give away 2%-5%+ per year of their returns? It makes no sense to me as to why, and the industry is good at making you think you need help. You don't, caveat, unless you have a more complicated situation or you simply can't cope for some reason with this stuff. It also takes hardly any effort or time to maintain. But each to their own.
