The Retirement Planner tool is currently unavailable whilst changes to the Unilever UK Pension Fund are being implemented.

As you get closer to retirement, it becomes more and more important to look at your target in more detail. You might have already started thinking about how much you are going to need, but if you haven’t already done so, it’s important to start thinking about this.

There are lots of ways to do this and lots of places that can help you, for example:

• Money Helper
• Money Saving Expert

One way to think about what you are going to need in retirement is to note down everything that you think you are going to need to spend your money on after you retire. It’s important not to miss anything out. The websites above will help you to do this. They remind you to include everything that you would spend in a year – from TV licence fees to pet insurance or toiletries to Christmas presents.

It is a good idea to think about what you need to live on, and the extra you would like on top of this in order to have the lifestyle in retirement that you would like.

If you choose to have a 121 session at retirement with a pensions expert, you will be sent an "At Retirement Booklet" to help you prepare. There is a section in this booklet called “What is your target income in retirement” which contains information about working out your target income, and an example of how someone has already done this.

If you choose to have a 121 session at retirement with a pensions expert, you will be sent an "At Retirement Booklet" to help you prepare. There is a section in this booklet called “What is your target income in retirement” which contains information about working out your target income, and an example of how someone has already done this.

You can also visit the following sites for more information and guidance:

• Money Helper
• Money Saving Expert

When planning for retirement, it might be useful to get a feel for how long you might need your savings to last you. You can get an idea of how your savings might help you in retirement by working out your total savings and dividing this by how long you think you might live in retirement. This will give you an idea of the amount you could take out of your savings each year to add to your other income.

It’s impossible to know how long you will be retired, but assuming somewhere between 20 and 25 years will give you an idea (if you are retiring early then something longer than this would be sensible). Remember this is intended to give you a very rough idea of how your savings could help you.

To see how long you might expect to live, you can use our 'Life Expectancy' modeller. Click here to LAUNCH THE LIFE EXPECTANCY MODELLER. Remember - this is certainly NOT a guarantee, the results are based on national statistics and are intended as a guide only!

When you think about your financial future in retirement you need to think about every source of income that you will have.

Getting all this information together may take a bit of time, but it is really important to do so because you can then put it all together to give you a feel for what you will have to live on when you retire. If you are closer to retirement, an "At Retirement 121 session can also help, find out more here: 121 session.

There are lots of things to consider, we'll take a look at some of the main ones in the following sections.

As you think about and plan for your retirement it’s a good idea to investigate and record what savings and assets you have built up and then think about how they could help you during your retirement.

You may have savings in the following forms:

• Unilever Share schemes
• Stocks & Shares ISAs
• Cash ISAs
• Shares
• Cash in the bank or deposit accounts
• Maturing endowment policies
• Other savings vehicles

If you haven’t already done so, now is a time to put together a list of all the savings and assets you have. The value of some of your savings and assets may go up and down – e.g. Unilever share schemes, stocks & shares ISAs and shares but you need to get an idea of how much you have, so a recent value will be sufficient.

If you choose to have a 121 session at retirement with a pensions expert, you will be sent an "At Retirement Booklet" to help you prepare. There is a section in this booklet called “Your savings and assets” which will help you to think about your savings and assets.

After you are retired it is likely that you won’t build up as many savings because your income will probably be lower. Instead the income you get from your savings and assets may form an important part of your total income in retirement, and at some point you may need to sell an asset or use your savings to top up your income, or to meet a particular expense.

You might have some assets where the value of them is less certain, or it is less clear when you will have them, for example:

• Equity in your own home
• The value of / income from other properties
• Potential inheritance

These may be very significant sources of finance but you won’t necessarily know how much they can provide for you in retirement, until you actually receive them.

• Potential inheritance – you do not know when you will get this or how much you will inherit. The costs of long term care can significantly reduce the amount of an inheritance from, perhaps, a family member;
• Equity in your own home – you may feel confident that you know the value of your home but the key point about your own home, is that until you decide to sell, and have found a buyer prepared to pay what you ask, you do not have this money. You will also need to think about where you will live after you have sold your home.

Nonetheless it is still very important to consider what might become yours and available to spend, at some point in the future. Think about the timing and availability of these assets. Many people consider the particularly uncertain assets as a bonus providing for additional extras rather than money they are relying on to live on during retirement.

You may have built up retirement benefits with several of the employers you have worked for during your working life.

It is important that you keep in touch with all of the pension schemes you have been a member of and, as you approach retirement, contact them to find out what benefits you can expect from them. We've drafted a couple of template letters for you to use to write to your other pension schemes to request information from them:

• Letter for contacting defined benefit (DB) schemes
• Letter for contacting defined contribution (DC) schemes

The options you have will vary from scheme to scheme, but may include the following:

• Do you want to exchange some pension for a tax free cash sum?
• Do you want to sacrifice some of your own pension to give your spouse or dependants a bigger pension after you pass away?
• Do you want to transfer any of your pensions to a different pension arrangement.
• Do you want to take advantage of any of the new pension rules from April 2015.

You are likely to have also built up some State Pension as a result of paying National Insurance contributions. This will be payable from your state pension age. In the run up to your state pension age, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will send you a statement to let you know what pension you will be getting, but before then you can ask for a statement in advance.

Here are some useful links:

• To request a State Pension statement.
• To calculate your State Pension Age.

Of course you have probably also built up benefits in the Unilever UK Pension Fund. You will be provided with a statement of your benefits, setting out your choices as you approach retirement. This will be sent from the Unilever UK Pension administration team, and you can contact them if you have any queries about your benefits in the Scheme. Alternatively if you are close to retirement, you may be able to arrange a 121 session with a pensions expert, during which you can ask any questions that you have on your Unilever pension, or any other of your pension benefits.

Remember to note down when each pension is payable from. By way of a reminder, the State Pension is only payable from State Pension Age, and other pensions can generally be brought into payment at any date (after age 55), but the amount you receive may be lower if the pension is paid early.

You Unilever pension is likely to be one of the most significant parts of your overall saving for retirement. Find out more detail on the pension provided here.

To get a retirement quotation, contact the Pension Fund's administrators. You can get in touch with them using the details on the Fund's dedicated website, here.

Once you have gathered information on all the sources of your expected retirement income you can put these together. You will then be able to see how this compares to what you need in retirement.

You can do this on a chart like the one here – that has been completed for someone who has gathered all their information together.

This chart below shows:

• The income this person thinks they need in retirement to cover the essentials.
• The income this person would ideally like to enable them to do all the things they plan to do in retirement.
• The various different pensions that the person will be getting, shown as starting at the relevant age.

This doesn’t show what additional income this person might be able to get from their savings and assets – so for this person, he or she can think of their savings and assets as being used to fill any gaps (see below) or to cover one off items, additional spending, special holidays and/or longer term care cost.

If you choose to have a 121 session at retirement with a pensions expert, they will help you to think about whether you are expecting to receive enough in retirement.

You can use the blank chart here to try to do this for yourself.

Note about inflation: In this chart we have ignored the effect of inflation or future pension increases. Of course as prices rise during your retirement, you will need more income in order to afford to buy the same things - but increases to your pensions in payment will help. If you concentrate on the amount of income you'll need at the point of retirement and the amount of pension benefits you will receive at that time, then these can be easily compared.

Filling in the gaps

Doing this will show any gaps between what you need and what you are going to get, and this can then help you to identify if you need to do anything to fill the gap. For example this may be where you could use your savings and other assets. In the example above, the person won’t be receiving their State Pension from 65 to 67, and while their expected income is enough to meet their needs, it isn’t as much as they ideally want. So savings could be used to fill the gap.

Alternatively you might decide that you need to continue earning some money for a while.

Either way, it is very good to be aware of these things as early as possible, so that you can make appropriate plans.