Railway Pension Scheme - Brass

jonnyb1978

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I pay in roughly £23 a week into my works section of the Railway Pension scheme. Now im looking at making further contributions of £2 a week. This will increase by £2 after each pay increase. Come April it will be £4.00 a week and more than likely then increase by £2 years for the immediate future.

The contributions will not be matched.

Is Brass still any good to do this? There top 2 performers over the last 5 years will have generated a return of 40 (ish)% as of now. The beginning of the year it was around 100%. Im guessing due to the credit crunch, this is the reason for the large drop.

As im only 30 i have at least 25 years to carry on paying and dont mind a bit of risk long term but would like to change to low risk nearer retirement.

So is Brass still ok or would i be better going elsewhere?

Thanks in advance!

yelf

depends on what sort of scheme it is - if its final salry then yes. 100% in last 5 yrs (in for a big dip I think). tell us what sort of scheme it is

jonnyb1978

Yes its final salary.

testertrev

Are you saying you are paying £23 per week to BRASS or are these your normal scheme contributions?

If its the former are these matched? its probably a good idea to put more into BRASS

If it's the latter then, with no matching and such a small weekly contribution you would probably do better elsewhere.

My BRASS fund has taken a big 'hit' since September but as many of the posters on this forum point out the nature of the market is cyclic and shouldn't be viewed as a short term thing. Just remember that even though the BRASS funds are quite heavily exposed to equities the fund managers are presumably now buying those cheaply ready for the eventual upturn in the markets.

Is your section still open to new members?

jonnyb1978

Im paying £23 into the normal railway pension scheme. That is matched.

Im not in BRASS now but looking to join with £2.00 a week going up to £4.00 in April with my pay rise. Then every pay rise or considerable jump in wages to increase by £2.00 a week.

Andy_L

BRASS would appear to be the AVC scheme for the Defined Benefit railway scheme.

You can buy inflation indexed pension (if there's an excess after the max allowable lump sum) with the fund value at the rate of £1 of pension per £12 of fund value which is an amazing good deal that you can't match with a free-standing AVC/personal pension where it's about £1:£20.

http://www.railwaypensions.co.uk/SiteResources/MediaArchive/RailwayPensions/pdfs/A%20Guide%20for%20members%20of%20BRASS%20final%2030.05.07.pdf

testertrev

jonnyb1978 wrote: »

Im paying £23 into the normal railway pension scheme. That is matched.

Im not in BRASS now but looking to join with £2.00 a week going up to £4.00 in April with my pay rise. Then every pay rise or considerable jump in wages to increase by £2.00 a week.

Good plan although although the contributon rate seems low but if you are young and stick to (or exceed) the annual increases then the sooner you start the better.

jonnyb1978

Hi again. Just have question so refering back to this thread instead of starting a new one.

How can i estimate my final pension on retirement. I have tried some calculators but some do not take into account what i already have paid in. One even said i will get £3500 a month. Seems way off the mark unless it was in 2040 currency value.

Basically im contributing £62 a week on a final salary. £25 myself and £37 company contributions. (I will ignore Brass for this), i wish to retire in 30 years and estimate a 2.5% every year.
My planner states an estimate if i keep contributions the same but not if i increase them. So if my total contributions increase by 5% a year and taking into account 5% growth and your other average percentages (inflation etc), how can i work out what my pot will be.

My planner currently states i will have used 11% of lifetime allowance or roughly £200000. Am i right in assuming that is my estimated pension pot if i leave everything as it stands.

So by increasing pension by 5% each year and live on pension for 20 years how can i calculate my pension pot and in turn monthly pension?

Thanks

testertrev

Have you registered here?

https://www.pensionfriend.co.uk/

This is the Railway Pension Scheme secure site to manage your account. There is an excellent planner there where you can vary retirement ages, BRASS contributions etc and see what various scenarios will yield. Unfortunately I dont think it'll do the 5% per year calculation you are after but have a look at it anyway.

HTH:beer: