Member Info for agile

BsaBantam, you are right. That's precisely what I did. My goal was to pay off the mortgage and then have a net income of £75k from part-time X 2 (me and my wife) plus investment income. My next goal is to stop working completely once the eldest 3 have graduated, with a target income or £45k net (pensions, investments). I may of choose to work a day or so a month. I inherited a grand sum of £3k.

Spacedman, thank you, and I concur. Yes, I was paying £4,250 per month mortgage and I retired once I paid that off. Very liberating!!

@Spacedman and others - thanks for your advice/contributions. My target is circa �45k per year, using a combination of my (private) pension, my wife's civil service pension, VCTs dividends (currently tax free), ISAs and 2 x state pensions. Having said that, I am struggling to figure out how much we will need to live comfortably once the boys are off the regular payroll, no music lessons, football clubs, diving lessons, university funding.... We will also probably be able to manage without a cleaner and gardener, too - especially if we downsize. Then there is the utility bills, which would probably halve when we downsize.

Abzza abzzba, one thing I have learned, in my personal and professional life, is that 'lay' people can be wiser than the 'experts'. Thank you for your concern though. I shall be weighing up many opinions and then reaching my own decisions. Have a good night.

Bottled, I am much obliged to you. Farmertally, for your information, I have sought advice from IFAs, who 100% encouraged consolidation of the 5 pension pots and recommended moving to a SIPP. The reason I declared the the size of the pension was to enable the many learned friends on this forum to be able to offer informed advice. For example, a SIPP platform that offers relatively small %age fee but is uncapped, would probably suit someone with a relatively small holding, but not someone with a larger pot. Also, I mentioned the ISA amount, again to alert people that I have been actively trading for quite a few years (these are stocks and shares ISAs). I have accumulated my pension by working very hard from graduation to when I was aged 50 - bar 3/4 years of career breaks/garden leaves. My wife and I now work part-time now and I also have investments in a private company and I sit on the board. We are both happy to continue part-time work for another 5 or 6 years at least, so I do not plan to draw-down from my pension for quite some time yet. My eldest graduates in June (Cambridge), #2 is in the 2nd year at Uni (Oxford) and #3 starts in October (LSE), so we pay �1000 a month as parental contribution. Chimney sweeping is not a career that my boys have considered but thank you for your advice. What I have learned from wise people here is that I should be careful with my pension and spread the risk - rather than get carried away by my lucky pick of PFC. I could get a lot of answers from uncle Google, but I prefer to listen to real people with experience and wisdom.

I am almost 54 and to be honest, �450 k pot would only generate an income of �20k. Not a lot if you live in the south east and have 4 sons to support.

I'm sure you do, mate. 4 boys and a fiesty her indoors!

Thanks to Kenj, Anapa, Bottled and all others for your advice. I think I shall continue to trade (actively) myself using my ~�200k ISA funds and choose a decent SIPP platform (HL, IW..) to transfer my 5 pension pots into. I guess I could then spreadsheet the �450k+ in a few funds?

Thanks to all of you who have kindly responded. HL definitely spend a small fortune on marketing! I get a letter a month from them. My ISA and my wife's ISA is with the Halifax (fixed fee of just �12.50 per year) and I doing the trading myself. I do see the point about the �85k limit but I reckon that it would be pain dealing on multiple platforms. I am likely to trade equities only. I get a return of about 10% p/a from the current providers. I reckon I can do better than that? Would be interested in peoples' thoughts - playing with �450k pot. BTW, does anyone have experience of the Halifax SIPP? Cheers

Afternoon all. New to this forum. Invested �40k in PFC a few weeks back at �5.30, so enjoying the ride. I have private pension pots (5 of totalling circa �450k) and I wanted to transfer them to a platform where I can ACTIVELY invest in equities myself. Any recommendations please? A platform with a chinwag forum would be great. I have ISAs worth �200k (�40k in PFC). I know this is not the right forum for my question, so please accept my apologies in advance.