Your retirement needs are personal to you. Whilst we can’t tell you how much you will need in retirement, our new online retirement budgeting calculator can hopefully help. Using our newly launched tool you can easily work out how much money you’ll need for your retirement, based on how you want to live.

You can use it to find out if your current level of pension benefits and/or savings will be enough, or whether you might want to make adjustments.

The retirement budgeting calculator is easy to use, it’s quick to give results and it’s been developed to help you plan earlier and more effectively for an enjoyable life in retirement.

If you wish, you can use this new tool together with your latest benefit statement, which you can find once you’ve logged in to, or created, a myFund account.

This way, you’ll immediately see if your pension savings are on track to give you what you might need after you stop working, or whether you may want to do more.

How do I use the retirement budgeting calculator?

Log into your online account and you’ll find the budgeting calculator in the “Planning for the future” section. It is also accessible within the resources section of the website here.

Step 1 Say who and where

You select whether you are planning for a single person or a couple and where you live.

Step 2 Your lifestyle

You select the type of lifestyle you are aiming for when you retire:

• minimum – likely to cover all your needs with some left over for fun
• moderate – likely to allow more flexibility and financial security
• comfortable – likely to offer more financial freedom and some luxuries.

Step 3 Your personal choices

You can view and edit your individual costs. Click the categories if you know you’ll want to spend more or less than the amount allocated to each. Changing these details will automatically affect the overall cost, so you get an individually designed financial model for yourself.

Item costs are based on the selections in Step 1. For instance a single person living in London would show a different value for transport or leisure to someone from elsewhere in the UK.

Step 4 Your estimated lifestyle costs

The last step adds up the cost of all your personal choices and gives you an estimate of the annual income you might need to enjoy the lifestyle you hope for, along with information on your options and further advice.

You can then compare this figure to the pension amount you’re estimated to receive by using our pension planners (for DB members) or our retirement modellers (for DC members)  and find out if you’re on track with your savings.

Remember, you can go back and use the *retirement budgeting calculator as many times as you wish, amending your living choices as you go. We hope you find it a helpful tool in planning for your future.

* The Retirement Budgeting Calculator uses PLSA retirement living standards (recognised as the benchmark within the pension industry) to determine the required income for your lifestyle.