The Tool Desk
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Start with what you will spend each year
Build the estimate from your household’s actual budget, not from a generic retirement-income figure. MoneyHelper recommends estimating costs and planning how to provide income in retirement (MoneyHelper’s retirement-cost guidance).
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Use current spending as a baseline, then adjust it
- List essential costs such as housing, utilities, food, transport and insurance, alongside discretionary spending.
- Remove costs that will genuinely stop when you leave work, and add costs you expect to take on or increase.
- Include irregular expenses and one-off costs, rather than treating every year as an average year.
- Include the tax you expect to pay on income and withdrawals. A gross withdrawal is not necessarily the amount available to spend.
- Allow for a contingency that reflects your own circumstances; do not assume every future year will match your current budget exactly.
Keep the estimate in today’s money so you can compare spending and assets on the same basis. If you model future cash amounts instead, apply consistent inflation assumptions to both sides of the plan.
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Make an inventory of resources, then assign each one a first usable date. A pension balance that cannot yet be accessed is not part of the cash available to fund the first years after you stop work.
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| Resource | When it can fund spending | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Cash and accessible investments | When the money is available to you under the account’s terms | How much is available, what tax applies, and how investment values could change |
| Private pension | When the scheme and applicable legal rules allow access | Each scheme’s access rules, withdrawal options, tax consequences and any applicable employer contributions or scheme benefits |
| UK State Pension or other later income | From the date that income is actually due | Your personal forecast and the rules that apply to your circumstances |
Check the UK pension access dates
In the UK, private pensions can usually be accessed from age 55; the normal minimum pension age is due to rise to 57 from April 2028. Exceptions can apply, including ill-health or a protected pension age, so check the rules for each scheme and your circumstances (MoneyHelper’s pension savings timeline).
State Pension is separate from private pension access. You can claim it only when you reach your own State Pension age, and the amount depends on your National Insurance record and the applicable rules. Check your personal forecast rather than assuming a particular payment or start date (GOV.UK’s State Pension guidance).
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Build a year-by-year cash-flow calculation
For each year from the date you plan to stop working, compare your expected spending with income available that year. The shortfall is what your accessible savings or investments must cover, after allowing for tax.
Annual net shortfall = planned spending and one-off costs − net income available from other sources.
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For each year, record these items:
- Your age or the year in the plan.
- Planned household spending and one-off costs, expressed consistently in today’s money or future cash amounts.
- Income that starts or stops that year, including the relevant amount after tax.
- The remaining shortfall to fund from savings, investments or a pension that is accessible by then.
- The gross withdrawal needed to provide the required spendable amount, including any tax due.
- The value of each funding pool after withdrawals and the investment assumptions used.
Make the sequence explicit: draw only from resources available at that point, and add later pension or benefit income only from its actual start date. This shows whether accessible assets can carry the plan through the gap before later income begins, rather than hiding that gap inside a single total.
Model pension withdrawals as spendable income
UK pension withdrawals can be taxable. A large withdrawal may push some income into a higher tax rate, so do not treat the gross amount taken from a pension as money available to spend. Model the tax consequences for the amount and timing you expect to withdraw (MoneyHelper’s guide to investing pensions in retirement).
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Stress-test the plan, especially its early years
A projection is conditional on its assumptions, not a promise that a portfolio will last. Inflation raises the cost of future spending, and weak investment performance early in retirement can make a drawdown plan harder to sustain (MoneyHelper’s retirement-cost guidance; MoneyHelper’s guide to investing pensions in retirement).
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- Increase the spending assumptions for costs that could plausibly rise faster than your baseline.
- Test weaker investment performance in the years soon after you stop work, not just a smooth average return over the whole plan.
- Check whether the plan still funds the shortfall until each later income source becomes available.
- Look at when and why the plan runs short, if it does; a single end-of-period total can conceal a cash-flow problem much earlier.
There is no universal target pot or guaranteed withdrawal rate established for retiring at 45. A plan that may need to support a long retirement cannot be validated by applying a rule of thumb as if it were certain.
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Use the result as a decision test, not a guarantee
Before resigning, check that your projection includes all the years before pension access and later income, and that the stressed versions do not depend on money being available earlier than it is. If the model only works with optimistic spending or investment assumptions, revise the plan rather than treating the base case as a promise.
Confirm access dates and benefits with each pension scheme, check your personal State Pension forecast, and revisit the calculation as your spending, forecasts, investments or applicable rules change. Be especially cautious of offers to release pension money early: the FCA warns these may involve pension liberation or pension loans, with consequences and alternatives to understand before acting (FCA guidance on pension scams).
Quick Recap
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