My Royal Mail pension starts on Anzac Day. Bigger pension, or smaller pension & lump sum?!?!

[MARYROSE02]

Anzac Day, my sixtieth birthday, hanging over my head since Xmas! And now I've got a letter from Royal Mail, asking me to choose from the three options, maximum pension, smaller pension plus lump sum, or perhaps a smaller lump sum, and a pension, depending on how much I take.

I guess it is a sort of 'gamble' (which I already did once before when I took a pension in 1996 in lieu of a lump sum from an Aussie employer. That pension has paid out for nearly eighteen years now.) So, if this pension from Royal Mail, which is indexed, pays out for another eighteen years, then taking the maximum pension is the right decision? Actually, I don't think there is a 'right' and a 'wrong' decision, but being a ditherer, I will worry for a while once I take that decision!

 

Take that money and BLOW IT! New car, round the world holiday, do up my flat! Or be the conservative I've always been!

[Parley]

If you took the lump sum and invested it yourself, could you do better than the increased pension if you left it all in.

 

Hard to know ? An ongoing income stream is nice though.

[Johndoe]

You ight get hit by a truck tomorrow...............take the lump sum, buy a mobilty scooter, stay off the roads, stay on the pavement, and run some other poor bugger down who opted for the pension

[MARYROSE02]

I never thought of a mobility scooter, had not got past the idea of a luxury zimmer frame. You do see some people ZOOMING on those scooters, though not on zimmers of course.

 

As I said, I'm going to do some research on the net, ask a few people, see what they have done. Sixty looming is making me think about my life and what I want to do. I like the part time casual job I am doing with the ATO and as long as I can do it, I will carry on. When I'm working with them, I leave my UK income (from rent on my house) in the bank over there, and it will be the same once the RM pension kicks in.

 

I just want to live comfortably. I like going out most nights for dinner, but I'm not that extravagant apart from that. I guess I can sell that UK house and put that money into super or something similar?

[MARYROSE02]

If you took the lump sum and invested it yourself, could you do better than the increased pension if you left it all in.

 

Hard to know ? An ongoing income stream is nice though.

 

I guess it is the lure of that lump sum - the sort of figure you don't normally get the chance to see. When you see the sort of sums you need to live comfortably in retirement, it is a bit scarey?!

[The Fisheys]

Anzac Day, my sixtieth birthday, hanging over my head since Xmas! And now I've got a letter from Royal Mail, asking me to choose from the three options, maximum pension, smaller pension plus lump sum, or perhaps a smaller lump sum, and a pension, depending on how much I take.

I guess it is a sort of 'gamble' (which I already did once before when I took a pension in 1996 in lieu of a lump sum from an Aussie employer. That pension has paid out for nearly eighteen years now.) So, if this pension from Royal Mail, which is indexed, pays out for another eighteen years, then taking the maximum pension is the right decision? Actually, I don't think there is a 'right' and a 'wrong' decision, but being a ditherer, I will worry for a while once I take that decision!

 

Take that money and BLOW IT! New car, round the world holiday, do up my flat! Or be the conservative I've always been!

 

 

There is a chap who is frequently on here who can give you decent advice.

I do not know your personal circumstances, such as are you in the UK, or Oz.

Your civil service pension does have a transfer value, and I think you may be able to transfer it to Oz, but only to certain limits, and I am pretty sure you can do this on the drip, over the next few years. You could then more or less immediately draw it here tax free. At least you can get it paid here tax free if you have at least PR.

Another consideration is what do you think will happen to the £ against the $?

Again, take advice say from money corps, they would offer you a fixed rate of exchange, I think for up to two years.

My own bet is irrelevant, but I think the pound will ease to about $1:70, but next year will hit $2:00, especially if the market thinks that the Tories will win in the UK in 2015, the converse is also true.

Good Luck, and whilst you should take advice, the best advice is "be your own expert," you will probably get it right, and will not feel bitter if it goes wrong, and don't put all your eggs in one basket(case economy).

[MARYROSE02]

Thanks for the advice. I live in Australia, in Sydney, and I'm an Aussie citizen. I went back to England for a 'holiday' in 1996, and stayed for twelve years, working for Royal Mail the whole time. Now that I'm almost sixty, my Royal Mail pension will start to pay out. I won't transfer the pension to an Aussie fund, even if I could, and will just pay the money into my UK bank account, where the rent from my home there is already deposited. Then I'll either transfer it in larger sums, or do what I do now, and use my UK Visa Debit card to pay for things, and not worry too much about the FX rate, or the charge to make each payment.

 

When I was made redundant from my Aussie job in 1996, I took an immediate pension as part of my package, and I remember worrying that I was being too conservative, too safe. Why didn't I take the opportunity to get my hands on a large sum of money? I guess I was 'gambling' that I would live long enough, and so I've had that pension for eighteen years. Now, I'm thinking of the same 'gamble'; Take the larger, indexed pension, or go for a smaller one, and take another reasonably large sum of money. There's no right or wrong decision. I might go for a third way and take a smaller lump sum and use it to renovate my flat.