Guides
Plain-English explainers of the mechanics behind UK retirement and tax planning — grounded in the same rules the Hundred Summers engine models. Education, not advice.
Nothing matches that. Try a broader word, or pick a topic above.
Start here
Optimising your plan: every lever, which ones apply to you, and how they fit together
Every way to improve a plan, a decision tree to find the levers that apply to you, and how they interact. Then go deeper into any one of them in the 38 guides below.
Read the overview →Retirement planning
6Whether the money lasts, when you can stop, and the order you spend it in.
How much do I need to retire in the UK? Solved, not guessed
What a retirement actually costs, and what a pot has to be to pay for it.
The 4% rule: what it misses for UK retirees
Where the famous rule came from, and the three US assumptions that travel badly.
Sequence-of-returns risk, shown with real market history
Why the order of returns matters more than the average once you stop earning.
Which account to spend first in retirement
Which pot to spend first, and why the obvious order is often the expensive one.
Drawing retirement income as a couple: the coordination dividend
Two people, two sets of allowances, and the saving from using both.
FIRE in the UK: what the American playbook misses
What financial independence needs in the UK, and the bridge before pension age.
Pensions
11Paying in, the allowances that limit it, and the tax on taking money out.
Pension charges: what you actually pay, and what it costs you
The four layers you pay, the caps that reach you, and what 0.8 percentage points costs.
The pension annual allowance taper, explained
How £60,000 shrinks for high earners, with worked examples and carry-forward.
Salary sacrifice, properly explained
Giving up pay to gain pension, and the National Insurance both sides save.
ISA or pension? Where long-term money should go, and the Lifetime ISA's place
The same money in each wrapper, at your tax rate now and your rate later.
The MPAA: the £10,000 trap that outlasts the decision that sprang it
Take £1 the wrong way and your allowance falls to £10,000, permanently.
UFPLS, drawdown or annuity: the three ways to take pension income
Three ways to turn a pot into income, and what each does to your tax and allowance.
The 25% tax-free lump sum: take it now, take it in slices, or leave it
Take 25% now or leave it invested: what each choice does over a retirement.
The first pension withdrawal: emergency tax and how to avoid it
Why a first withdrawal is over-taxed, how much, and how to get it back.
What a defined benefit pension is actually worth
What a final-salary promise is really worth, and why transferring out rarely wins.
Deferring your State Pension: the honest breakeven
What putting it off is worth each year, and how long you must live to win.
Buying National Insurance years: the best deal in UK finance
What a missing year costs you for life, and when buying one pays for itself.
Pay and tax
7What you keep, and the cliffs the UK tax system hides at particular incomes.
The 60% tax trap: earning between £100,000 and £125,140
Why every pound between £100,000 and £125,140 really costs you 60p.
The £100k childcare cliff: the worst-designed threshold in UK finance
Earn £1 over £100,000 and lose free childcare worth thousands.
Bonuses: why so much disappears, and the move that keeps it
Why a bonus looks over-taxed, what you actually keep, and the pension option.
Redundancy: the tax playbook
What is tax-free, what is not, and what to do with the payment.
Student loans: a graduate tax in disguise, and why overpaying usually loses
Which plan you are on, what you really repay, and why overpaying rarely helps.
Sole trader or limited company: the tax, and everything the tax ignores
Where the company route wins, where it does not, and what it costs to run.
Investment bonds and top-slicing: how a gain is taxed, and when it isn't
How a bond gain is taxed, and the relief that stops one year ruining you.
Property and mortgages
4Borrowing, overpaying, moving and letting, and the tax on each.
Your mortgage: how the payment is built, what the term costs, and what a rate change does
Where each monthly payment goes, and what the term really costs in interest.
Overpay the mortgage or invest? The honest arithmetic
The comparison that is not just rate against return: tax, risk and certainty.
Stamp duty when you move: three taxes and the buy-before-you-sell surcharge
What you pay to move, the surcharges, and when the bands change what you offer.
Buy-to-let in 2026: the tax, the surcharge, and the sale
Section 24 worked through, the surcharge in, and capital gains tax out.
Savings, debt and inflation
2What money is really worth over a lifetime, and where cash belongs.
Protection and family
4The risks insurance is for, and the costs that arrive with a family or old age.
Income protection, critical illness or life cover: which risk are you actually insuring?
The odds of dying, of illness and of being off work, and which cover fits.
Maternity leave and money: what the year really costs, and what to protect
Statutory pay, what employers add, and the hole it leaves in a year.
Care home fees: the numbers nobody explains until it's urgent
What care costs, what the council pays for, and the thresholds that decide.
Benefits and allowances people miss: what to check, and where
Pension Credit, Attendance Allowance, Marriage Allowance and council tax help: who gets them, where to check.
Inheritance
4What an estate pays, what gifts do to it, and where pensions now sit.
The 7-year rule for gifts, and why taper relief disappoints
How a gift leaves your estate, what taper relief really does, and the exemptions.
Pensions and inheritance tax from April 2027
Pensions join the estate in April 2027, and what that does to the tax.
What happens to your pension when you die
Who gets your pension, how it is taxed, and what the 2027 change alters.
Inheriting money: the order of operations
What to do with money you did not plan for, and the tax that follows it.