Job Title for P2P investor ?

       I don't by any means class myself as retired , because I don't just lump my capital into an  account and take what interest rate is on offer. 

I spread  it  carefully and pay continual attention to where it goes and what it is doing.

It depends on what category you put your money in , I have dedicated pension pots and isas set up many years ago , I also have working capital which goes towards my monthly or yearly income.

So is this 25 x figure based on pure savings or total wealth  ?  I don't know how applicable this is generically due to the many variables involved -  after years of being self employed my financial outlook and behaviour is going to be very different from someone who has just left a  cushy 9-5 job  . If I could have only relied on 4% pa I would not have started down this road ...  

I wasn't just the referring to the job title - I was referring to the situation around it too .

I don't deem myself to be retired as I am not someone who just lumps money into an account goes and plays golf and lives off the interest that this brings , as John says there may well be a time when this occurs but that is not here yet - probably not the golf bit though !  

Interestingly some people don't mention that it refers to deferred income annuities, not standard annuities. There are currently no deferred income annuities available in the UK annuity market. The key characteristic of a deferred income annuity is that it pays no income at all until a particular age is reached, so they can be relatively cheap to buy while providing protected income for the longer life cases. They are a potentially very interesting product, if any were available and if pricing was sensible.

The UK abolished the requirement to buy an annuity when Alternatively Secured Pensions were introduced around ten years ago. Successive governments since then have re-announced it and it finally seems that an increasing number of people are getting the idea and doing something sensible instead of buying annuities.

For the UK the option that tends to make most sense isn't buying an annuity but deferring the state pension. That increases the state pension by 5.8% inflation-linked for life per year deferred. Or 10.4% for those who reach or reached state pension age before 6 April 2016. The actual effective rate depends on how long deferral is for because you have to provide for the foregone income while deferring but for any reasonable period it remains well above the 3.2% available today at 65 from inflation-linked annuities in the UK market. Those with much larger pots than the typical £50k or so won't be able to practically defer long enough with their whole pension pot, though.

Standard annuities can potentially offer benefits. The trouble today is that they are very poor value for money and you're unlikely to recover the capital loss you take to buy the income. Just compare the huge hit you'd take with a standard inflation-linked annuity vs the Guyton rules - getting on for losing half of your capital for the same income level or half your income for the same purchase price. That's a lot of room for market volatility and uncertainty rather than taking the guaranteed capital loss by buying the annuity. And you can always buy the annuity later, say if your health takes a turn for the worse and enhanced annuities start to look like a good deal.

One thing I tend to do is strongly advocate deferring the state pension. That's genuinely good value for money for those with normal health and no inheritance desire, paying out even more than the long term UK stock market return. One of the best investment buys that I know of.

I've come up with the perfect model for making sure I've got enough money to live off for the rest of my life: I'm going to commit suicide when the money runs out.

While I don't recommend that approach, be sure that you do your research. Carbon dioxide is a recommended route for the humane killing of lab mice (or those caught in glue traps) and human physiology is similar in this respect.

It's pretty hard to actually run out of money when you have a state pension, though, and means tested benefits. So you can cut short your research now and concentrate on living a good life.

This website www.deathclock.com is a simple tool that will assist in calculating this for you, if you prefer a more detailled analysis try www.deathclock.cc/

I am not willing to warrant any accuracy, in fact it is amazing I can write this post given my untimely demise on the Tuesday before last 

Like those action films when attacked by an awful enemy the rookie is told to save the last bullet for himself, you'd need to save the last £5k^* to pay for the contract killer.


* contract killer rates may vary