It was our regular half yearly visit to Lemonia in Primrose Hill, a family run Greek Cypriot restaurant: it’s Nick’s favourite, he celebrates everything with lunch at Lemonia. Last year was his 65th birthday; to commemorate I gave him a gold watch for his retirement. It was symbolic really as Nick hasn’t worked since breaking his neck some twenty years ago.

The unsung hero is the accountant who pushed Nick into making substantial pension contributions when he was working. The accountant has long since retired so for the past few years I have been advising Nick about his pension. I became involved following the collapse of the dotcom boom; with retirement looming large Nick was worried, and so was I.

His pension was invested in the With Profits fund, a misnomer if ever there was because despite the preceding dotcom boom the fund had hardly grown. Things didn’t look good for the With Profits fund so I set about restructuring his portfolio to provide some diversity. I wanted to capture growth but also introduce some security.

A reasonable chunk of the fund went into shares and property, and the fund grew significantly from 2003 onwards. But with retirement looming, and an eye on the bubble that was beginning to form, we gradually took profits and moved more into cash and government bonds. Nick said I was being too cautious; after the euphoria of annual double digit growth the investments looked boring.  “Don’t be greedy Nick” I said, “the fund is now large enough to give you the income you want, let’s not push our luck”.

Back to the Lemonia, we were well into our second bottle of wine, and Nick was looking back at the decisions we had taken. “Do you know” said Nick, “I think boring is the new exciting – Cheers!”

Our Government is very keen that we all take retirement planning very seriously, and so have provided a swath of information now accessible online.  On the Directgov website, they even show their caring, sharing side with a how retirement will feel article.

Retirement is a challenging new phase in life. While it ranks high on the scale of stressful life events, it also provides the opportunity to enjoy a new lease of life. You are likely to enjoy the freedom to develop new interests but on the other hand may feel lonely, isolated and bored at times. An important step is to plan your goals and work towards them.

With my retirement planning I am looking forward to enjoying a new lease of life!

The retirement planning approach they recommend is rare in our industry – but at Yellowtail it is the way we choose to work with all our clients.  We work to understand your goals and values and then create a plan to help you achieve them – to me there is nothing more rewarding than working with clients to help them achieve their retirement goals.

Now for a shameless plug –if you are looking for help with retirement planning read about the Yellowtail approach to retirement planning on the site, and then feel free to contact us to find out more

WITH a large house, two salaries, two cars and the funds for £4,000 trips each summer, the King family is not used to financial worries. But their budget will tighten considerably next January, when husband Alan retires from teaching after 33 years.

The 59-year-old, who lives in Worthing, West Sussex, with his wife, Sue, 43, and sons Jack, 15, and Sean, 6, is keen to ensure that savings and investments of more than £60,000 are best placed to support their lifestyle. “I have no idea where to start,” he says.

On retirement, Alan will forfeit a salary of £41,000 for a teacher’s pension of £16,800, plus a £50,000 lump sum. Sue, like Alan, teaches geography at the local school, on a salary of £34,000 and will continue until retirement in 2015.

You can read Dennis’ advice to Alan on planning for retirement on The Times website.