Is £300,000 enough to retire on?

Where £300,000 lands for a couple and for one person

Spread from 60 to 95, with full State Pensions from 67, £300,000 supports about £2,544 a month for a couple and £1,770 for one person, in today's money. Stop at 67 and it is £3,261 and £2,215.

From 60 they are both enough for more than a minimum retirement, but not a moderate one. A couple has more to spare over the minimum, £669 a month against £620, and further to go to moderate, £1,231 against £955. From 67 the gaps to moderate are £514 for a couple and £510 for one person, almost exactly the same.

So one pot split two ways does about as well against what a couple needs as it does against what one person needs. Two things make up for the second person: a second State Pension, and bills that do not double. The next two sections put a number on each.

What a second State Pension adds

A second full State Pension is worth £12,548 a year, about £1,046 a month. Stop at 67 and it adds £1,046 a month to what £300,000 supports. Stop at 60 and it adds only £774: it pays nothing for the first 7 years, and spending the same every month spreads what it pays later across all 35.

Those bridge years are where a couple on £300,000 is stretched. Spending £2,544 a month from 60, the pot is down to about £116,000 by 67; one person spending £1,770 would still have about £186,000. After that the two State Pensions pay £2,092 of the couple's £2,544, and the pot only has to find £452 a month. If one of you is younger, their State Pension starts later and the pot carries the gap for longer.

Two State Pensions also means two National Insurance records, and a gap in either one costs you both. If one of you has 30 qualifying years rather than 35, the couple's £300,000 supports £2,434 a month from 60 instead of £2,544, for life. A missing year usually costs about £957 in voluntary contributions at 2026/27 rates and adds about £359 a year of State Pension, and you can fill gaps from the last 6 tax years. Check both forecasts, not just your own, free on gov.uk.

What sharing the bills is worth

Two people living together need a good deal less than two people living apart. Pensions UK puts a moderate retirement at £3,775 a month for a couple, against £5,450 for two single people: £1,675 a month less.

So a couple needs about 82% of two single budgets at the minimum and 69% at moderate. The fuller the lifestyle, the more sharing saves, because a home, a car and the heating cost much the same for two as for one.

The money itself does not go further when you pool it. Split £300,000 into two pots of £150,000 for two people living alone and each supports £1,272 a month from 60, £2,544 between them, the same as the couple. What changes is what that money has to cover. Living alone, each has £122 a month over the single minimum. Together, the same money is £669 over the couple minimum.

Can you retire at 55, 60, 65 or 67 with £300,000?

Yes for at least a minimum retirement, at every one of these ages, alone or as a couple. The later you stop, the closer you get to moderate, and the couple gains more from waiting because it has two State Pensions to wait for.

• At 55: £1,551 a month for one person and £2,191 for a couple. That is £1,174 short of moderate alone, and £1,584 short of it together. You would fund 12 years before any State Pension, and from 6 April 2028 the earliest you can draw most pensions is 57, so stopping at 55 after that needs ISAs or other savings for the first 2 years.
• At 60: £1,770 a month for one person and £2,544 for a couple. That is £955 short of moderate alone, and £1,231 short of it together. The pot carries 7 bridge years alone, and they weigh most on a couple.
• At 65: £2,066 a month for one person and £3,020 for a couple. That is £659 short of moderate alone, and £755 short of it together.
• At 67: £2,215 a month for one person and £3,261 for a couple. That is £510 short of moderate alone, and £514 short of it together. No bridge at all: the State Pension starts the day you stop.

How far the stopping age moves the answer is the £400,000 guide's subject.

How long will £300,000 last?

Fix the spending and ask how far the pot stretches instead. From 60, £300,000 lasts one person to 84 at £2,000 a month and to 74 at £2,500. For a couple with two State Pensions, £2,800 a month lasts to 79 and £3,000 to 74.

Below £1,564 a month for one person, or £2,415 for a couple, the pot never runs out at all, because growth and the State Pensions cover the withdrawals. Stop at 65 instead and one person's £2,200 a month lasts to 90. Every pot and stopping age is in How long will my pension last?.

Whose name the pot is in

Each of you has your own £12,570 personal allowance, and a pension is taxed as the income of the person whose name it is in. So one £300,000 pot, drawn for two, uses one allowance. Before 67 that costs real money; from 67 it barely matters. A pension cannot be moved into a partner's name while you are both alive, so a split comes from building a pension in the second name or bridging with ISAs, not from moving the pot.

From 67 the name stops mattering. Each full State Pension of £12,548 a year uses all but £22 of its owner's allowance, so the taxable part of what the pot pays is taxed at 20% whichever of you draws it: about £67 a month on the couple's £2,544.

1. 1Bridge from ISAsISA withdrawals are not income, so they use no allowance at all, in either name. ISA money for the years before 67 takes the strain off a pension in one name when it is taxed hardest.
2. 2Build a pension in the second nameSomeone with no earnings can still pay £2,880 a year into a pension and have it topped up to £3,600 with basic-rate relief. A pot in the second name is a second allowance to draw against before 67.
3. 3Claim Marriage AllowanceIf you are married or in a civil partnership, one of you has income below the personal allowance and the other pays no more than basic-rate tax (starter, basic or intermediate rate in Scotland), the lower earner can transfer £1,260 of their allowance to the other, worth up to £252 a year. Couples who live together without marrying cannot claim it. Apply on gov.uk.

When one of you dies

The plan loses a State Pension, and the pot passes on. Say a couple stops at 60 spending £2,544 a month and one of them dies at 84, about the age a man of 65 reaches on average on the ONS's figures. The survivor is left with about £54,000 in the pot and one State Pension, which together support £1,499 a month to 95.

Income falls further than costs. The survivor has 59% of the couple's income; Pensions UK reckons one person needs 61% of a couple's budget at the minimum and 72% at moderate, because the home and the car do not halve. The margin over the minimum goes from £669 a month to £349.

The State Pension mostly stops with its owner. The new State Pension is built on your own National Insurance record, and a widow or widower usually inherits none of a partner's. The exceptions are narrow, such as half of a partner's protected payment if you married before 6 April 2016 (gov.uk has the full list).

The pot does not stop. It usually goes to whoever its owner nominated with the provider, so make sure you have each nominated the other. Left to a husband, wife or civil partner it is free of inheritance tax, including once unused pensions come into the estate on 6 April 2027; an unmarried partner has no such exemption, and the £1.5 million guide covers how that tax works. Income tax depends on age: inherit from someone who died under 75 and you usually pay none on what you draw, while from someone 75 or over everything you draw is taxed as your income. In the example the partner died at 84, so if the pot was in their name, the survivor pays about £90 a month in tax on £1,499.

On your own: £300,000 for one person

Retiring alone, £300,000 supports £1,770 a month from 60 and £2,215 from 67: enough for more than a minimum retirement, but not a moderate one, from either age.

There is no second State Pension and nobody to share the bills with, so the pot and one State Pension carry everything, and one person is £955 a month short of moderate from 60. What decides whether that works is mostly housing, which is the £250,000 guide's subject, and the age you stop. The tax, at least, needs no planning: there is only one allowance to use.

Check your own numbers

The figures every pot guide shares

Every figure here uses the same assumptions as the other pot guides: 5% growth, 2.5% inflation and 0.4% fees, a full State Pension each from 67, and a pot spent down by 95, all in today's money. Pension pot sizes compared sets them out once, alongside every pot at every age and the couple figures for other pot sizes.

Growth is the guess that matters most. On cautious growth £300,000 supports £2,393 a month for a couple from 60, on adventurous £2,733. Both still land between the couple minimum and moderate, so growth changes how comfortable you are, not which retirement you are having.

A plan for two has to last as long as the longer-lived of you. The ONS puts life expectancy at 65 at 21.2 more years for a woman and 18.7 for a man (2022 to 2024), and half of us outlive the average, which is why every figure here runs to 95.

Compare other pot sizes

Stop work at 60 and spend this much a month until 95, on the same assumptions as this guide. Each pot has its own full guide.

• £100,000£1,105/mo
• £200,000£1,438/mo
• £250,000£1,604/mo
• £300,000This guide£1,770/mo
• £400,000£2,102/mo
• £500,000£2,435/mo
• £750,000£3,266/mo
• £1 million£4,096/mo
• £1.5 million£5,758/mo
• £2 million£7,420/mo

Every pot size at every age, side by side →

Frequently asked questions