u/klawUK

Currently have my workplace pension with RL. Have a SIPP with Fidelity that I do partial transfers into and everything is currently either in RL Worldwide (workplace) or VWRP (fidelity). Fidelity is with ETFs only for fee cap.

Looking at options for a provider to be ready for drawdown in a few years.
- I will want to have FAD and UFPLS options - the simpler the better. UFPLS via online only (no forms etc) would be a big bonus
- starting this year I’ll be building a cash buffer of 60k, 20k per year from contributions (to avoid selling equities). Most likely RL money market fund unless others are better - those are currently OEICs so would be % fees not capped for fidelity.
- by retirement I’d be aiming for £260k in DC split 60k MMF, 200k VWRP. So a provider that is fee friendly for that mix while also having good features for drawdown

any suggestions? Are all MMFs likely to be OEIC?

I have a relatively low income requirement for an early retirement period - approx 10k per year for 9 years. I estimate around 70k with a realtor’s around 3-4% should cover that

I was thinking vanguard TDF for simplicity and not overthinking things. But would I just move 70k into that and leave the rest in VWRP, or would I be better to increase to eg 100k for some wiggle room or throw everything in there?

quick summary of our plan

currently 55, looking to retire at 58 - April 2029 ideally. At that point we’d be aiming for
- wife SIPP 100-120k
- my DC 285k
- my DB 18k pa at 60
- two full SPs at 67

my wifes bridge is 8 years to her SP, mine is 9 years to mine.

bridge plan

- wife : use her SIPP fully up to use personal allowance and maximise tax free income as a base
- my DB : at 60 it adds 18k gross which together is more than enough for our basics
- my DC : 58&59 will need 25k per year as my DB hasn’t kicked in yet. From 60 it drops to 9-10k

at my age 67, 2x SP + my DB cover all needs and wants.

I’m fussing about the bridge and trying to balance stability vs return. I plan to put the 50k I need for the first two years in a MMF regardless. its immediate money and a large amount per year so I want the certainty. The question is what do we do about the rest. I could buy two fixed term annuities at the time, or two gilt ladders. But setting those up now is 10-11 years they need to serve which feels long. And annuities are at the whim of the market at the time and we still need to consider asset allocation to get through the next three years.

Wife is currently in a TDF I think its 2035 but I’ll check. we could adjust it to 2030. If I look up average returns for a TDF ‘at maturity - ie the date its targetting’ and the asset allocation - it looks to be around 50/50. so - is it reasonable to just leave my wife’s in a 2030/2035 TDF and draw 16760 from it each year? and if that is feasible, is it therefore also feasible to put a portion of my DC (currently 100% VWRP) into a similar TDF estimated to be enough of a balance to cover the 10k a year from 60-67?

if it does spend down sooner than planned we’d have the rest of my DC to draw on. If it lasts and has some spare at the end we can flip that into VWRP or similar at 67 as we don’t expect to have any significant (if any) day to day income need from the DCs after that.

importantly this might help me stop thinking about it for 20 minutes :)

bond fund can be an option too but I’m a little wary.

3 years out from retirement so could do this later but I have maybe 135k more contributions to come so I figure if I’m going to tilt my allocation now ahead of retirement I can do it from new contributions rather than selling equities.

I’m hoping for the main drawdown to be from 58-67 and then very little from the DC.

Right now, MMFs are pretty good and interest rates don’t look like they’ll come down for a little while at least. And gilt prices over the coming years look pretty similar - if I build a gilt ladder until 67 (around 12 years) thats locking in what, 5% ish? and non volatile, can be also used specifically for bridge income funding as each rung matures.

What am I missing? 4-5% seems like its decent as a fixed income; the lack of volatility and certainty of income is reassuring; and bond fund returns haven’t been great for a whlie now, so even if gilts/MMF might have drag, it doesn’t feel like it’d be much worse than an equivalent % in a bond fund (feel is a bad word though, I’d like something a bit more tangible to understand it better)

MMFs possibly more likely to track an inflation bump with some lag - where locking in a 12 year gilt ladder risks lower real returns if inflation spikes. A linker ladder could work but thats starting to hurt my brain a bit.

what are you using for a fixed income portion of your portfolio (those of you that have a fixed income aspect to it)

My i208 AWD comes on Friday. I have no outside power yet - that’s booked in for two weeks later on the 22nd

Is it possible to use the mower in the meantime eg as a drop and go? Or does that still require initial setup and a charging base plugged in?

If it’s just set up I could run a cable out the back door or a window for an hour or so, but wouldn’t be possible to leave it plugged in 24/7

If not I’ll just leave it all boxed up until power is sorted

Part of our plan is for me to take out around 8k tax free cash per year for the next three years and put in my wife’s SIPP. Then she gets the tax relief boost and will draw tax free using her personal allowance

I’ve not done this before and it’s important I don’t trigger MPAA as I’m trying to cram 40-50k per year from my salary myself.

It’ll be from a fidelity SIPP most likely. Is this pretty easy with lots of safeguards and warnings if I go anywhere near the wrong choice? Assume I need FAD and need to leave the taxable behind as crystallised and hopefully automatically remains invested in the same thing it was before

On one side we have our patio so it can ride the boundary. The other three sides are right up to the fence. Ive never really liked that so looking to put some border in - might as well consider the mower at the same time.

How wide should it be to safely allow boundary riding and cutting most of the lawn to the edge? (If we want to put pots on it we’ll add more margin)

And what depth is best for clean cuts? Top of border paving level with the ground or slightly proud is ok?

Think I’m settled on an i2 AWD - currently on sale in the uk with a free garage (good as we have a south facing garden and I’d be more worried about sun than rain.

Buying direct I have a £50 voucher, but otherwise the price and free garage are the same on amazon.

How is customer support and the web store for delivery and issues? I’ve bought robot vacs from amazon before for ease of returns but is that not so much of an issue with Segway?

relatively simple square lawn, three sides are fenced off and one side has patio which hopefully means a clean edge by straddling the border there. It’d be nice to have edging done but that seems a stretch right now - Ecovacs has it as a unit but people seem to have issues with it. Worx have a module you can attach but again people seem to not like the software on the worx? Maybe thats a ‘next generation’ thing that’ll mature and I park that requirement for now?

lawn has a tendency to get bumpy - had it levelled a couple of years ago and its behaving so far so it’ll probably be not cut super short. All flat, no slopes or obstacles.

my current shorlist from reading a ton on here and watching lots of videos:

- worx W303E - the new vision AI : VSLAM + network RTK. they’ve been around for a while, I like the concept of the zero cut module if it works ok. But is VSLAM/RTK good enough for navigation (maybe doesn’t matter for a simple lawn).
- navimow i205 - probably the LIDAR model but whichever is on offer and is a 2026 model probably (currently on sale with a free garage which seems decent value - those things seem way overpriced as an accessory) - seems well regarded for support etc. Will do the boundary straddling for the patio (hopefully won’t scratch the slate tiles) but won’t get close to the other edges
- Ecovacs O1000 lidar with the side cut strimmer thing. Heard mixed things about the strimmer attachment reliability so not sure on this one. It needs to be reliable day to day as a priority - extra features are nice but reliability is second only to actually cutting and navigating well
- Mammotion Yuka mini 2 - this confuses me as in the UK they have a 500 model exclusive to amazon and an 800 more widely available - both seem camera/RTK only? the 1000 model is 360 LIDAR but a little more than I’d like to spend. Is there a notable difference in performance? most of the reviews seem to be the 1000 model as I guess thats what mammotion will have sent out. And quite a lot of negative comments about support, although possible thats just a self-reinforcing thing if they sell well most posts will be people with problems? the happy ones are off being happy and not posting?

of these, my very early order is probably 1) navimow, 2) yuka mini 2 500/800, 3) worx, 4) ecovacs

any additions I should add or wrinkles I should consider?

I estimate we have enough saved up to cover income needs when we retire hopefully in 3 years. Can’t retire yet but could coast. Still plan to push contributions hard while we can for buffer/gifting/one-off spending.

Question I now have is : how defensive is too defensive on asset allocation or is there no such thing? It kinda goes along with ‘if you won the game stop playing’ maybe.

My projections work based on 0% real growth, so as long as they don’t fall too far behind inflation it should be good. Anything else is bonus. And with current turmoil in the world, things looking overvalued etc (yes I know, don’t time the market) - surely there is a place for locking in your baseline and sleeping well?

I could put £x in money market funds, a gilt ladder, maybe linkers to protect against inflation. And not care its not going to make 4-5% real returns. but its doing its job which is sitting there quietly waiting to be my income until state pension (After which my guaranteed funds should cover all essentials anyway).

other than ‘just put it all in stocks’ - this isn’t wrong, right? its like locking income in wiht an annuity which have their place (I may buy one at retirement but I can’t yet as I am still contributing so don’t want to trigger the MPAA for a fixed term annuity)

I’m currently flip flopping between ‘but what about the potential upside you’ll lose’ and ‘it feels kinda exciting to think our bridge fund could be fully and safely locked in while we’re still three years away from retiring’

let me outline what I am thinking of doing and then I’d like to understand how best to approach this given any limitations of the DC pension rules in the UK.

the year before retirement, I want to restructure some of my DC pot:

- crystallise around 180k so we have 45k PCLS and 135k crystallised and fully taxable

- move the PCLS into mine and my wife’s ISAs (they’ll be used in early retirement for income/tax smoothing)

- transfer 50k of the crystallised pot into a separate SIPP - that amount is to be reserved to cover loss of income due to one of us passing away.

- the remaining 85k crystallised sits in the current SIPP and should be untouched and possible for gifting later (where I don’t care about a little bit more tax)

Now, I’m not sure if you can transfer part of a crystallised pot - seems perhaps not? in that case I’d need to do a partial transfer of 66-67k, then crystallise that when it lands in the new SIPP? and then crystallise the remainder in the current SIPP. end result should be the same just need to know if sequencing it all needs to be considered.

and none of this should trigger MPAA as I’m only drawing the tax free for now, correct?

fwiw, my reasoning is two-fold

- PCLS used to avoid points in retirement before DB kicks in, so keeps the drawdown from the rest of my DC stable and below 4%

- the 50k for covering income gap on death doesn’t need tax free within it anyway so might as well spend it on income.

Trying to get a firm plan and realising the more I try and lock down the more things pop up. So trying to get a more flowchart approach to allow for changes depending on markets and needs etc

One thing my wife mentioned is possibly wanting to work part time for a few years after our retirement age. I don’t want to plan for that as she may well change her mind.. but I don’t want to ignore the upside

Practically though - assuming our numbers work without PT work, is the obvious move to pay everything into a pension up to your MPAA limit I guess? Then it just rolls onto the pension balance for use the following year.