Back to Help PageBefore you start — what to have handy The Planner works best when you have a few key documents nearby. You won't need everything for every step, but having these ready will make things quicker.
✔ Your date of birth
✔ Your current salary (gross, before tax)
✔ Pension statements for any workplace pensions
✔ Annual Benefit Statements for any final salary schemes
✔ Your State Pension forecast (from gov.uk/check-state-pension)
✔ ISA and savings balances
✔ Rental income amounts (if applicable)
✔ A rough sense of the age you'd like to stop full-time work
1 - Basics
2 - Spending
3 - DC Pension
4 - Final Salary
5 - Savings
6 - Other Income
7 - Results
8 - Life Events
9 - Drawdown
10 - Projection
These six steps gather everything the planner needs to know about your finances. You move through them once — and can come back to update anything at any time.
This step sets the foundations for everything else. You tell us your date of birth, the age you're aiming to stop full-time work, and a few key assumptions the plan will use — like an expected inflation rate and whether you're in Scotland or the rest of the UK (tax rates differ).
You'll also enter your State Pension estimate — we pre-fill the full 2026/27 figure of £12,547 a year, but if you've had gaps in your National Insurance record, you can adjust this to match the figure from your personal State Pension forecast.
WHAT TO HAVE READY
✔ Your date of birth
✔ Your target retirement age
✔ Your State Pension forecast (optional but useful — find it at gov.uk/check-state-pension)
This is where you set the lifestyle you're planning for. How much do you expect to spend each year once you've stopped full-time work? If you're not sure, you're not alone — this is the question most people find hardest.
To help, we include the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) benchmarks — a widely used set of figures that describe three levels of retirement living standard. They're a great starting point if you don't yet have a number in mind.
PLSA RETIREMENT LIVING STANDARDS 2025/26
The Moderate level covers things like a European holiday each year, a reasonably new car, and eating out regularly. The Comfortable level adds long-haul travel, a newer car every five years, and more financial flexibility. These are before housing costs — you'll add those separately.
If you prefer, you can enter a custom figure instead. You'll also add your housing situation here — whether you rent, have a mortgage (and when it'll be paid off), or own your home outright.
WHAT TO HAVE READY
✔ A rough annual spending figure — or simply choose a PLSA level as your starting point
✔ Your monthly rent or mortgage payment, if applicable
✔ The age your mortgage will be fully repaid
This step covers pensions where the value depends on how the investments have performed — the kind most people have through an employer today, or a SIPP (Self-Invested Personal Pension). These are sometimes called defined contribution or "DC" pensions.
You enter the current combined value of these pensions, whether you're still paying in (and how much), and how you'd like to take the money when the time comes — either drawing it down gradually or converting some or all of it into a guaranteed income for life.
How would you like to take your tax-free cash?
Most people are entitled to take up to 25% of their pension pot tax-free, subject to a lifetime cap of £268,275. The planner gives you three ways to use this:
✔ Full lump sum at retirement — take the full 25% as a one-off payment when you stop work. Simple and straightforward.
✔ Spread it over drawdown — instead of a lump sum, each annual withdrawal is automatically 25% tax-free until the cap is used up. This can be more tax-efficient if a large lump sum would push you into a higher tax band.
✔ Partial split — take a portion as a lump sum at retirement, with the remainder spread across your drawdown income. You choose the percentage.
Career breaks
If you've taken time out of work — or plan to — you can enter a career break here. During a break, your existing pot continues to grow but contributions pause. The planner adjusts your projected pot at retirement accordingly.
WHAT TO HAVE READY
✔ Your latest pension statement(s) showing the current fund value
✔ Your employee and employer contribution percentages
✔ Your current salary (if still contributing through an employer)
If you have (or had) a job that came with a guaranteed pension linked to your salary and years of service — often called a final salary or defined benefit pension — this is where you enter it. These are common in the public sector and older employer schemes.
If you're still an active member, you'll enter your scheme's accrual rate (for example, 1/60th per year) and how many years you've built up so far. If you've left the scheme but have a preserved pension waiting for you, simply enter the annual amount shown on your Annual Benefit Statement — the planner takes it from there.
If you have a CARE (Career Average Revalued Earnings) scheme, use the deferred pension option and enter the projected figure from your Annual Benefit Statement.
WHAT TO HAVE READY
✔ Your Annual Benefit Statement from the scheme
✔ The accrual rate (e.g. 1/60th) — shown on your scheme documents
✔ Your years of service to date
This covers money you hold outside of pensions — ISAs, stocks and shares accounts, and other savings. These often get overlooked in retirement planning, but they can play an important role, particularly in the early years before your pensions are fully in payment.
For each type of savings, you enter the current balance and how much you're adding each year. The planner projects these forward to your target retirement date, and factors them into the overall picture.
WHAT TO HAVE READY
✔ Current ISA balance
✔ Any stocks and shares or investment account balances
✔ Other savings balances
Not all income in later life comes from pensions. If you earn rental income from a property, receive dividends from shares, or expect any other regular income, add it here. You can add as many sources as you like.
The planner handles the different tax treatment for each type automatically — so rental income and dividends are calculated correctly alongside your pension income.
WHAT TO HAVE READY
✔ Annual rental income (if applicable)
✔ Dividend income (if applicable)
✔ Any other regular income you expect to continue into later life
Once your information is in, the planner does the hard work. These four steps show you what it all means — your income at retirement, how to sequence your assets, and a full 25-year view of where your money goes.
This is the first moment everything comes together. The planner projects all your pensions and savings forward to your target retirement date and shows you your estimated income — broken down by source — alongside your estimated tax, and whether you're on track to cover your target spending.
A surplus means your projected income is expected to exceed your target spending. A shortfall shows you the gap to work with. You can use the live sliders on this screen to test "what if" scenarios instantly — adjusting your retirement age, drawdown rate, or spending target to see how the numbers change in real time.
Retirement isn't one flat line of spending — it's full of bigger moments. A world cruise. Helping a child with a house deposit. A new car every few years. A kitchen renovation. This step lets you plan for all of them.
Add one-off or recurring expenses (and income, like an inheritance or a property sale) at specific ages, and they'll be woven into your 25-year projection. We include a library of common events with suggested amounts to make this quick — or you can add your own.
If you've used the Lifestyle Goals Planner, the goals you set there are automatically imported here as a starting point.
When you have multiple sources of money — a pension pot, savings, an ISA — the order in which you draw them down can make a meaningful difference to how long your money lasts and how much tax you pay.
The planner applies a sensible sequencing strategy automatically: pension drawdown first, then other savings as a buffer, with your ISA held back as a last resort. If you're retiring before your State Pension kicks in, your savings bridge the gap automatically until it starts. You can fine-tune the approach here if you want more control.
The final step shows you the complete picture — a year-by-year view of your finances for 25 years into later life. You'll see how your assets grow or draw down, how your spending changes over time (the planner factors in that most people naturally spend less as they get older), and when your life events land.
Charts make the overall shape clear at a glance. The detailed table below lets you examine any individual year. If any pot is at risk of running out, the planner flags it clearly and points you back to the relevant step to adjust your plan. You can export the full table to a spreadsheet if you'd like to keep a copy or share it.
What you get at the end
Once you've completed all 10 steps, your plan gives you a comprehensive picture of your financial future in later life.
£ Your income, broken down
Pension, State Pension, savings, annuity, and other income — shown gross and after estimated tax.
✓ Surplus or shortfall
A clear answer to whether your plan covers the life you've described — and by how much.
↗ 25-year cashflow projection
Year-by-year charts and a full table showing assets, income, spending, and life events.
⚠ Early-warning flags
Automatic alerts if any part of your plan looks stretched — with guidance on what to adjust.
Your progress is saved automatically. Every change you make is saved to your device as you go — no need to complete it in one sitting. You can return to any step at any time and update your figures as your situation changes. Premium members can also back up their plan to the cloud and access it across devices.
RetirePlan — retireplan.co.uk | Using 2026/27 UK tax rates | This tool provides guidance only and does not constitute regulated financial advice.