Retirement lifestyle

About the Retirement Living Standards

Created by the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA), the Retirement Living Standards are three levels of expenditure to help savers understand how much money they will need to live the lifestyle they want in retirement.

They provide a benchmark level of annual income to fund different standards of living in retirement.

Each Standard is based around a basket of goods and services and also takes into account different circumstances (living inside or outside London; single or couple).

They give you an expenditure figure – what the basket of goods at each of the three levels will cost. You might want to do some personal financial planning to work out what you want and what you might be able to save towards.

Remember, the costs can be funded through a variety of means – pensions and other types of income. You may have incomes from Defined Benefit (DB) pensions, Defined Contribution (DC) savings, other types of savings, equity release or part-time work.

As a pension saver you can look at a few things to see what you might be on track for from your pension savings.

A key piece of information is your annual benefit statement. If you have DB pension savings your statement will tell you directly about your income. If you're in a DC scheme, then you'll have a forecast from your scheme.

Find out more about each of the levels - minimum, moderate and comfortable - below.