How much do I need to retire comfortably?

"Comfortable" is doing a lot of work in this question, and it means something different for almost everyone who asks it. Before any number means anything, it helps to get specific about what comfortable actually looks like for you.

Start with your life, not a formula

Generic figures you might see quoted online are calculated for an average household, not yours. They rarely account for whether you'll still be paying a mortgage, how much you want to travel, whether you plan to help children or grandchildren financially, or what kind of home you want to live in. Two people with identical pension pots could have very different answers to this question.

Think in terms of needs, wants and wishes

A useful way to approach this is to separate your spending into three layers: the essentials that keep the lights on, the lifestyle spending that makes retirement enjoyable, and the larger one-off wishes, like a big trip or helping family with a house deposit. Each layer can draw on different parts of your finances, and understanding the split helps clarify what "comfortable" really costs.

Then test it against your actual finances

Once you have a realistic figure for your annual spending, cashflow modelling can show whether your pensions, investments and other assets can sustainably support it, not just in year one, but across a retirement that could last several decades, through market ups and downs and rising costs along the way.