Do I have a point here or should I only be focussing on UK income streams and forget diversification (even if I don't end up living the rest of my years in the UK) ? Does anyone else have similar concerns. Is a retirement income strategy necessarily going to leave me over exposed to UK large cap equity ?
When the financial crisis struck, I had a simple Halifax Sharebuilder with divis reinvested. I do not work in Finance, hadn't a clue about it, and was following a nice UK-centric investment plan I'd learned from TMF.
I quickly started to read a few books, opened an ss ISA and, although being brought up in a family that read the Daily Mail, decided to look beyond Guildford
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Ten years later, I've a portfolio that now pays out more from ex-UK than in-UK. It took a while, but my mindset changed completely and I moved slowly from individual shares to ETFs and ITs and a few funds. The UK equity allocation went from 50 to 30 to 25 to 20%. Diversification is the answer, but you should read up on Asset Allocation (equities, bonds, commodities, property, cash) and diversify not just globally, but ISA providers and fund holders as well. Apart from LemonFool, I would also recommend Monevator.com.
Steve