After decades of disciplined saving, many clients could face a new challenge in retirement: adjusting to spending their accumulated wealth responsibly and according to their means.

 

It’s a shift that’s not just financial – it’s deeply behavioural. And for advisers, it’s an opportunity to add real value, particularly in the light of proposed changes to the inheritance tax treatment of pension funds.

 

Unlike previous generations who could rely on defined benefit pensions for guaranteed income, today’s retirees must manage their own retirement from defined contribution pots. This shift places greater pressure on individuals to make complex financial decisions – often for the first time – and heightens both the emotional and practical challenges of spending in retirement.

 

This article explores the emotional and practical barriers that make spending in retirement challenging, the implications of recent UK Inheritance Tax reforms (IHT), and how solutions like PruFund and the  Prudential Guaranteed Income Plan can help support confident, well-structured decumulation strategies.

 

The value of your investment can go down as well as up so you might not get back the amount that you put in. And the value will be less than you put in if you take out more than the amount it’s grown by.