A Thanks for your question. This answer is a long one and should be based on many different pieces of information that I don’t have yet I’m afraid. I’ll send you a list of the outstanding information required to answer your specific question, but I can provide some generic advice and information in the meantime.

A recent survey conducted by Royal London found that six in ten workers would like to retire at 60 or before and less than one in five want to wait until the state pension age of 66 to retire. It also found twice as many men would give up working today if they could.

While many dream of giving up work well before the normal retirement age, early retirement may not be as blissful as people expect. People often underestimate the amount of money they need to have saved up for retirement, as well as the amount of money they will spend at that stage of their lives.

Early retirement is attractive but for most will remain a pipe dream. Affording the longest holiday of your life takes an immense amount of planning, and time. Often, the nearer people approach retirement, the more they become aware of the financial reality of it. But many people are also a bit clueless about how much they will need to live on, and what kind of pension pot is required to fund it.

There’s an old saying in the insurance business: “The difference between an old man and a retired gentleman is a good pension.” It’s not wrong.

There are also a lot of hours to fill when you retire so for many people, work gives them a sense of purpose and identity, as well as a daily routine – all of which can be lost at retirement unless adequate preparation is put in.

So, it is no surprise that our recommendation is proper planning. Not only do you need to know what you’d like to do with your spare time (hobbies, travel, garden, volunteering etc.) but you need to know how to pay for it.

When it comes to pension planning, it’s all about “minding the gap”. Knowing what you currently have, what you need at the other end, and filling in the gap while you are still earning, can only work if you begin early enough.

As a first step, I worked out how many pay-days you have left until your proposed retirement age of 60. As you are paid monthly there are just 120 pay days left. Shocking, isn’t it? Even if you were only 45, you’d only have 240 monthly pay cheques left.

When I hear people say they “can’t afford” a pension, I always wonder how they can afford not to have one. Living off the State is nobody’s dream. It’s never enough, and yet we have one of the most generous pension payments in Europe. At just €289.30 a week (€15,043.60 per annum) and that’s the maximum rate for someone who has made all their PRSI contributions.

Our 3 steps below is a good place to start.

1. Most of us will retire these days with a variety of pensions as we don’t tend to work in one job all our lives. Finding out where the money is, is really important and chances are it’s out there, waiting on you to claim it.
2. Now, you need to work out what you need. not to survive, not as a pensioner, but as a retiree. What are you plans, how will you pass your time?
3. Talk to a financial broker once you’ve collated your data, and they’ll calculate what you need to start paying to bridge the gap between what you have and what you want. They’ll tell you not only what’s there, but what it will buy you when you eventually retire.

You may decide to, or be forced, to continue working past pension age. After all retiring isn’t for everyone and for many the ability to continue to work beyond the traditional retirement age is hugely important.

This article aims to give information, not advice. Always do your own research and/or seek out advice from a Financial Broker before acting on anything contained in this article.