Retirement Planning/Pension advice wanted

nevh2001

Hi all,

I'm wondering if anyone can share or advise on what to do for the future financially. When it comes to pensions i really dont have a clue and you read bad press all the time about how rubbish pensions are these days.

I am 31 years old and due to be married in 9 months time. I am an IT contractor which pays well but as its contract work at some points I am effectively out of a job but i'm averaging earning £45k a year. I pay £300 a month into a pension scheme by HSBC and have done for the last 4 years. Am i wasting £300 a month? I have 15k in savings (ISA's) which is rainy day money and money for the times i am out of work. At the moment any extra savings is going towards the wedding but once its over in November i can start putting money away again.

Just interested to hear your advice, tales etc.

many thanks
Nev

Debt_Free_Chick

nevh2001 wrote:

I pay £300 a month into a pension scheme by HSBC and have done for the last 4 years. Am i wasting £300 a month?

No, you're saving it in a "special" tax wrapper(pension). Within that wrapper, the money is invested in some way. Potentially, your money might not be working hard for you - it depends on how it's invested and any other investment options offered within the HSBC wrapper.

Do you want to share some details with us? You should get an annual statement from HSBC which will describe how the money is invested and give details of how it's grown (performed) over the year.

If you post details, we can comment

dunstonh

all the time about how rubbish pensions are these days.

Which is complete and utter rubbish itself. A pension can be a number of things. It can be an occupational pension, which comes in a variety of versions, a personal scheme or a state pension. To say pensions are rubbish is foolish and irresponsible but the press do it all the time.

For example, you can invest in exactly the same funds in a pension as you can with an ISA. Yet you don't see the media saying ISAs a rubbish.