We thought retirement planning meant adding up the pensions and seeing whether there was enough. It didn't. So we worked through it, challenged it, got things wrong, changed our minds - and learned a lot.
Get the free guideOur storyOur experience, not financial advice.
We got together in 1999. Then two became four. Careers, kids, mortgages, school runs, holidays and ordinary family chaos filled the next couple of decades. Retirement wasn't top of the agenda.
The money matters because the life matters. We're not trying to win retirement with the biggest spreadsheet. We're trying to make the next set of photographs possible.
The kids got older. We were still us. And retirement stopped feeling like something that happened to other people in the distant future. We wanted to know what sort of life we could afford - and whether all the bits of money we'd accumulated actually fitted together.
Old jobs, pension pots, guaranteed pensions, State Pensions, savings and debts.
What each pension actually does, when it can be used and what could be lost.
Put the mortgage, pensions, ISAs, tax and spending on one household timeline.
Ask what happens when markets, work, spending or life refuse to follow the plan.
You can't plan around money you don't know exists.
The best decision for one pension may be rubbish for the household as a whole.
When income arrives can matter as much as the annual amount.
Where retirement spending comes from can change what you actually keep.
ISAs, pension pots and guaranteed income can do different jobs.
A smooth spreadsheet is not the same thing as a robust retirement.
We've turned our retirement-planning journey into a free PDF - the questions we asked, the things we got wrong, the assumptions we challenged and what we learned about pensions, mortgages, ISAs, tax and guaranteed income.
Download the free guideNo personalised recommendations. No magic retirement number. Just the questions and lessons that helped us understand our own plan.
