Are you also saving for retirement?

chris_spackman

Really2 wrote: »

Yes and no.

Did have a poor private pension which I jacked in (novemeber) as it was virtualy worthless (especialy now).

Now trying to pay off my house in less than 15 years. Should give me 27 years to do my pension. ( I don't see the point of a pension when in debt as mortgage free retirement could be worth a lot of money)

But wife Is in local goverment so will get a good pension.

Although not great my priority is mortgage free first.

'But wife is in local goverment so will get a good pension'

Brilliant

Funded by everyone else. Her pension will be there, the likes of me and others have to pay into a pension out of our own pocket which is worth nothing or Brown & Co have blown it away or some t**t in a bank has invested it in a time share on Mars

Squish_21

Yep, I have a Company/Personal Pension and/or ISA savings

Started paying into a company pension scheme from Day 1 (age 17).

VERY glad that I did.

Cleaver

Yep, I have a Company/Personal Pension and/or ISA savings

chris_spackman wrote: »

'But wife is in local goverment so will get a good pension'

Brilliant

Funded by everyone else. Her pension will be there, the likes of me and others have to pay into a pension out of our own pocket which is worth nothing or Brown & Co have blown it away or some t**t in a bank has invested it in a time share on Mars

Based on this thread and others it appears you really have an issue with local government. If you think they have such an easy ride maybe you should work for one?

baileysbattlebus

Yep, I have a Company/Personal Pension and/or ISA savings

I have a final salary pension - started to draw it at 50, just in case.

I also have a frozen pension from another employer which I can get when I'm 55 (this year)

OH has a final salary pension - he is 55 this year too and will draw it some time between now and 60. He has been in his scheme for 32 years this year - so he couldn't get the maximun pension if he worked until he was 60, he would be 4 years short.

We do have other savings - though not a lot by any means - we spend our money generally, nice holidays - nice cars, OH has a couple of quite expensive hobbies.

We have relied on our pensions to fund our retirement - but together they add up to about £45k in today's money a year, and that's with OH taking a large lump sum on retirement.

But we won't have a mortgage or any debts - currently we have a mortgage, a car loan and a couple of credit cards that we owe money on.

We also plan to downsize from our current 5 bed house to a 3 bed.

I agree with DD, we don't plan on going without to give our grown up children a large legacy. We went with out for long enough when they were children.

CS, I would imagine Really's wife pays into her pension and I thought most councils had pension funds - they may not cover the whole lot - but I thought they had them.

The pension funds in the Local Government Pension Scheme provide pensions for most local authority employees. In England there are 81 pension funds in the Local Government Pension Scheme. The assets of the pension funds are for meeting the future pension liabilities of the funds, and are part of the financial corporations sector in the National Accounts, not part of the local government sector. Pensions paid out under the scheme are therefore part of the expenditure of the pension funds, not the local authorities that administer them. Employers’ and employees’ contributions, part of the income of the funds, are recorded as expenditure by local authorities in their revenue accounts, either directly or indirectly under employees’ expenses

Police and Fire Service, however are unfunded

Dithering_Dad

Yep, I have a Company/Personal Pension and/or ISA savings

I have just logged into the State Pension forecast service and learned that I need another 10 years of NI contributions to get the full state pension. As I have over 25 years to go, I'd imagine that this will be achievable.

Here are the projected figures (in today's money):

Basic Pension: £90.70
Second Pension: £30.15
Total weekly state pension: £120.85. This amounts to £6284.20 per year.

Given that I will not be paying for my mortgage, contributing into a pension or other investment products, paying for children or paying to get into work but will be paying for utility bills (increased because I will be at home more), house insurances, council tax, etc. I have worked out that I will have a shortfall of £3315.80 per year and this is just to exist, not to 'live'.

If I factor in holidays, socialising, day trips and other things that one would like to do in a happy and comfortable retirement then I reckon I would need a futher £10k, so need a pension that will bring in £19600.

If I work on the calculation that I get a 5% return on my annuity, I would need a pension pot of £265000. I think this is achievable as I have a decent pension pot already saved up (£80k).

I'd be interested to see if other people have calculated how much they would need to a) survive in retirement and to b) enjoy their retirement and how they will be financing it (especially those who don't believe in pensions or retirement planning!!).

twirlypinky

I work for the NHS and have been paying into my pension since i started working for them 8 years ago when I was 18!

baby_boomer

Yep, I have a Company/Personal Pension and/or ISA savings

I keep saving in a pension but the more I save, the less I seem to have .

Dithering_Dad

Yep, I have a Company/Personal Pension and/or ISA savings

baby_boomer wrote: »

I keep saving in a pension but the more I save, the less I seem to have .

Maybe you shoul look at the funds your pension is invested in? I had mine in a wide spread of equities, bit of cash and some bonds but put it all into a cash fund when I thought that the market was looking jittery several months ago. I now have a large amount in cash and some in overseas investment (seeing as we keep getting told that the UK is going to take longest to recover).

Saving for a pension is only half the effort, you also need to be making sure you put your money in decent investments too, or you're just throwing it away.

geoffky

sort your own pension out as the state will steal it if you save very hard..

Dithering_Dad

Yep, I have a Company/Personal Pension and/or ISA savings

geoffky wrote: »

sort your own pension out as the state will steal it if you save very hard..

Sorry geoff, I'm a bit confused with your statement. If you believe that the state will steal your retirement savings, if you save very hard, then how can you sort your own pension out and not have it stolen?