So based on the fact that the State Pension gives a single person who is retired or age 65 year old a pension of £102.15 per week or £5311.80 per annum, how would this compare to what they could have from their own Personal Pension scheme.  Well assuming we purchase an annuity which will keep pace with inflation/CPI like a State Pension, this would get us an annuity which would pay £5,000 for every £100,000 of pension funds that we have.  This would therefore mean that his state pension would equate to a fund of over £106,000 if it were capitalised!

I also learnt today that for anyone who retires to Australia, Canada, New Zealand or South Africa they will not receive any indexation to the Basic State Pension.   I thought this was unusual for mainly ex-commonwealth countries?!