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MoneyWeek article- How to prepare if you are 10 years from retirement

Journalist: Marc Shoffman, Freelance

ended 20. June 2025

I am writing a piece for Money Week on the steps you need to take if you are 10 years from retirement.

I am keen for comments on what you should be doing with your savings/investments as well as property portfolio. Any tips on inheritance planning or aspects people may not think of e.g putting money away for care costs, using gifting allowances etc

Kind regards

Marc

6 responses from the Newspage community

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Tony RedondoVerified
Founder at Cosmos Currency Exchange
Consult a financial advisor to maximize allowances, review pension withdrawals, and stress-test your portfolio for care costs and IHT. Set up an LPA to manage finances if incapacitated. Act before April 2026 to use current tax allowances and document all gifts meticulously. A diversified, tax-efficient approach can now secure your retirement and legacy. The establishment pushes tax-efficient vehicles like ISAs and pensions, but frozen IHT thresholds and new pension taxes pull more estates into the 40% IHT net, disproportionately hitting the middle class. Relying on complex trusts or last-minute gifting risks HMRC challenges. Prioritize clear, legal strategies and professional advice to balance retirement comfort with legacy goals.
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Philly PonniahVerified
Chartered Wealth Manager and Financial Coach at Philly Financial
With ten years to go, it’s vital to get crystal clear on your retirement vision. Will you stop working entirely or transition into part-time? Do you want to travel more, relocate, or stay close to family? What does "comfortable" actually look like for you? These aren’t just lifestyle questions, they shape how much you’ll need, and when.

From there, revisit your investment strategy. This isn’t about moving everything into cash, but shifting the balance. You may want to reduce risk slightly while keeping enough growth assets to stay ahead of inflation. Now’s also the time to double-check your tax wrappers: make full use of pensions and ISAs, both for tax efficiency and inheritance planning. If you haven’t already, model different scenarios, how long your money might last, what your essential versus lifestyle spending looks like, and how you’d handle a market dip in your early retirement years.
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Ross LaceyVerified
Director & Independent Financial Adviser at Fairview Financial Management
This is a good timeline to make sure you have a proper plan for what you want retirement to look like. It's then a case of getting any financial resources you have aligned with that plan.

Many people don't initially know exactly what they want in retirement; but they do know what they don't want - much less than what they have now!

So, a good starting point is to track current expenditure, factoring in what will be different by the time you retire.

This will show an expenditure figure in today's money; but, this needs to be converted to what this will cost in the future, and then how that cost will keep on rising throughout retirement.

The next steps are working out what you'll need your pensions, investments and cash to look like, and to do for you, in order to make that plan viable.

Naturally, a professional financial planner does this with clients day-in-day-out so for the best chances of success, it really does pay to work with a financial planner that specialises in this.
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Kundan BhaduriVerified
Entrepreneur, Investor and Landlord at The Kushman Group
Ten years out from retirement is where strategy must meet reality. This is not the time for vague plans and optimistic spreadsheets. It is where you tighten your portfolio like a well-run business. First, review your investments. You want growth, but with a decreasing appetite for risk. This is the time to reallocate, move out of overly volatile assets and ensure a strong core of dividend-paying equities, gilts or well-structured funds that offer stability and yield. On property, stress-test your portfolio. Will your rentals still deliver net income if rates stay high or tenants become scarce? Prioritise reducing debt on the properties you plan to hold. Consider selling underperforming assets while the market allows and deploy capital into more tax-efficient structures, like pensions or ISAs. On legacy, the best time to plan for inheritance is long before anyone needs to read the will. Maximise annual gifting allowances, consider setting up trusts, and factor in care costs.
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Saqhib Ali0
CEO at ZeroPA
Key things to consider are
a) living costs, will they stay the same or reduce due to mortgage ending
b) additional costs of children or grand children due to school, nursery fees, living costs or tuition at university
c) funds your money purchase / defined benefit are invested in- switching to time dated retirement funds aligned with intended year of retirement
d) use of ISAs and premium bonds for risk free tax free growth on cash.
e) deciding on drawdown versus annuity, and whether to take 25% tax free cash lump sum at 55 or defer. If still working, and 20% or 40% band already used up you will pay the highest rate on drawing any pension at the same time
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Graham Wells0
Founder and Financial Coach at GroWiser Financial Coaching
Getting your investments in order and planning for tax is important, but when starting to think seriously about retirement, you need to have a sense of what you're aiming for. It doesn't have to be some arbitary date in the future when you suddenly stop doing paid work. Take time to step back from the busy-ness of every-day life and really ponder on who you want your future self to be. More and more people are drawn to part-time or voluntary roles later in life , perhaps working for longer or setting up their own 'lifestyle' business. How you spend your time later in life will have more of an impact on your finances than tinkering around with financial products now. So once you know what you're truly aiming for, it's much easier to get the investment and tax strategy right.