I'm not an IFA but became interested in this a few years ago

Lots of good advice but personally I think there's three crucial questions regarding the endgame here

What do you want to do with your money? - If you don't have an idea then you need questions as below!

Do you love your job? If the answer is yes then the second question is how much money do you want to retire with? If the answer is No the second question is when do you want to stop working/retire?

If you are young, love your job and don't plan to take the investment out for many years it may be worth investigating some form of Self Invested Personal Pension as a shelter for the money rather than an ISA -

Basically, and the IFAs can correct me if I'm wrong,

Money you put into a pension is tax free and the governmemt will rebate the tax you paid on it as you invest. You get taxed on it when you withdraw it but not as much as the rebate (unless you exceed the personal allowance) But you cannot touch this money until you reach the Governments Minimum Pension Age (currently 55 but going up soon).

If you want to control your retirement then you need to keep away from a pension as Money you put into an ISA is taxed on the way in but tax free whenever you take it out, there is no age limit nor maximum figure that you can have in an ISA as long as you don't have more than one in any tax year and don't put more than £20K in in a year.

e.g. if you are a basic rate taxpayer with £100 net to invest that would end up as £125 going in to your pension as capital that you can invest but cannot touch until you are ancient or you will be able to take the profits of any investment in an ISA at any time but your starting with 20% less capital.

My interest here is that as recently retired I think everyone asks the wrong questions about retirement and the focus is on how much money you need to retire rather than when do you want to retire and how can we get you to a position when you can retire whilst working with the governments restrictions.

We all should work to live not live to work!

Posted By: Ruttles, Nov 17, 19:09:13