Where do you want your finances to stand 12 months from now… and what objectives have you set yourself in that timeframe?

Whether it’s deciding when you can afford to retire, helping to fund a family member’s education or – just perhaps… affording that trip of a lifetime you’ve always promised yourself… your RetireEasy LifePlan can help you do the sums.

1                 Are you the retiring type?

We are, according to some people, in the “age of no retirement”… a time when the long-held norms have long gone when a person reached a specific age and (like it or not) swopped the nine to five for a comfy chair, the allotment and daytime television (retirement used to be referred to as “pipe and slippers”… but who smokes a pipe these days?).

Around 1.25 million of those aged 65 and over are currently in work – five times the figure from 1997. And that number is set to soar in the years ahead as the State Retirement Age heads north, and more of us enjoy a healthy later life and want (or need) to remain economically active.

But being able to choose when we leave full or part time work is the aim of most people – enabling us to determine what we do with our time and energies for the later decades of our life.

One of the most popular features of the RetireEasy LifePlan is that you can – by changing the year you plan to retire – see at a glance just how much that will comfortably leave you to spend each year in retirement in line with your current savings trajectory.

If – after thinking it over – you decide you want to spend less or more than that figure each year, adjust that setting and you can quickly assess how many more years of working and saving will be needed to achieve your objective.

2                 The gift of life

If part of your future plans include assisting a younger family member – perhaps with their education or first rung on the property ladder – getting that sorted sooner rather than later can put your mind at rest… and that of your relative!

This will be particularly relevant if your estate is likely to be liable to inheritance tax.

The tricky part is knowing just how much you can afford to gift someone – and when – without putting your other spending plans in jeopardy.

Your RetireEasy LifePlan makes the calculations child’s play.

Simply test out a scenario where you make your planned gift in your chosen year – and you’ll see at a glance if this leads you to putting your future finances under stress. If it does, tweak that figure downwards until you reach a sensible compromise.

3                 Don’t miss out on that trip…

All of us harbour dreams of taking extended holidays in our retirement – visiting the sites and countries we’ve always wanted to explore.

Putting it off until – perhaps – our mobility might start letting us down means getting that trip of a lifetime booked in earlier rather than later. But when…?

Again, you can build a long-haul holiday (or two) into your future spending plans… and see at a glance whether this will mean making unwelcome economies in the years ahead.

So, get planning for 2019!

Why not dust off your RetireEasy LifePlan during this Christmas holiday and assess just what YOU can achieve in 2019.