Retirement planning

It’s a good idea to think about how long you will spend in retirement and how much money you'll need to help you create a retirement goal to work towards.

You need to consider your day-to-day expenses, as well as how you plan to spend your time in retirement and what that could cost to enable you to set your goal.

What might your future look like?

Mercer Money provides access to a retirement calculator to create illustrations of the retirement savings you might build, and the possible impact of changing your pension contributions or your retirement age. Log on to your Mercer Money account to access the retirement calculator.

Mercer Money also enables you to input details of any other pensions, savings (e.g. ISAs) and assets (e.g. property) you have for an overview of your finances in one place. These details will also be used to create an illustration of your retirement savings when using the retirement calculator or Destination Retirement tool, which is available to all members once they reach age 45.

Investing as you approach retirement

As you move closer to retirement, it can be a good idea to look at lower or more moderate-risk investments. Moving from higher-risk funds (equities) into lower-risk ones (cash) can protect your pension savings, but are unlikely to grow your pot as much. If you’re not sure what’s best for you, you can get advice from an independent financial adviser.

If you invested in the default Mercer Smartpath fund called ‘SW Mercer Target Drawdown Retirement’, you don’t need to do anything. From 8 years before retirement, they automatically and gradually move your money into investments designed to reduce the impact of significant financial market volatility as you approach retirement. You can check your investments and how they’re performing in your Mercer Money account.