12 Course round-up
You have now come to the end of the course.
Hopefully what you’ve learned will help you plan for an enjoyable and fulfilling retirement.
The focus of the course has been about organising your retirement finances and providing you with guidance when it comes to making decisions about how to invest your pension pot to give you an income in retirement. These decisions are critical, as many of the decisions you make cannot be reversed.
In this course you’ve followed the following stages to take control of your retirement finances:
- First, estimate your spending needs in retirement and keep an eye on how price changes – particularly of essentials – change this.
- Then check how much income you’ll get from your state pension.
- Check the details for your private pensions – including all your occupational and personal pensions.
- Consider the split you’ll want to make between drawing income from your pensions and how much you want to take as lump sums.
- Check if the total amount you take in income from state and private pensions, after deducting income tax, covers your spending needs.
- If there is a shortfall, consider your options for bridging the spending–income gap. If you believe there will be a shortfall, the sooner you take action the better.
- Finally, be aware of the impact divorce or bereavement could have on your pension income.
If you follow all these stages you should have a good insight into, and control of, the lifestyle you’ll enjoy in retirement.
We wish you all well for the future.
Where next?
If you’ve enjoyed this course you can find more free resources and courses on OpenLearn [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .
New to University study? You may be interested in our Access modules.
You might also be interested in the Open University course DB125 You and your money and the BA in Economics.
Making the decision to study can be a big step and The Open University has over 40 years of experience supporting its students through their chosen learning paths. You can find out more about studying with us by visiting our online prospectus.