Starting a pension at nearly 40.

margaretclare

It's a choice. Do you plan to fail and be poor in retirement and live at or below the breadline or plan to do something about it.

I couldn't agree more. You put it much more succinctly than I could.

Maybe you have to have grown up in poverty, as I did, before you really appreciate what living in poverty means. It's bad enough when you're a child and don't know any different. It must be a heck of a lot worse in later life. We had very little but then, neither did anyone else around us. I had left school when consumer goods started to come on the market, TV, you name it. Now, it's a whole lot worse. Suppose your neighbours are going on holiday, going out for meals out and you can't afford to do anything or go anywhere. Planning to be poor in retirement shows a poverty of aspiration which I can't understand.

Batchy

margaretclare wrote: »

This is an attitude of mind. There are people who are happy with the thought that they'll be living on means-tested benefits - pension credit - for the rest of their life, which could be a very long time. People are commonly living to 100 now, and keeping reasonably active while doing so.

There are others - DH and I are the second type - who prefer to know that we're living on the results of our own efforts and don't have to rely on means-testing. We make our own choices. In our mid-70s now, we're still saving because we don't know what we'll need in time to come but recent experience has convinced us that it's always better to have a little extra money to do what you want and buy what you need.

The difference between saving in an ISA and saving in a pension scheme is that the taxman adds to your pension contributions and this increases the amount being invested. E.g. if you put in 80p the taxman adds the basic tax rate - assume that is 20%, you then have £1 in your fund to grow. In a cash ISA you don't get a contribution from the taxman.

You said it. Not so honest people. I hope this is not what you're advocating here.

I don't advocate it, I earn a great sum and save a great sum. But my grandfather worked the whole of his life, paid into a company pension that seemed not to be worth the paper it was written on once it performed badly and was inflated away, and was actually worse off than someone on state benefits who had never done a days work in all their life.

IE, he payed into a pension, saved hard, and worked all his life

Compare that to someone who never worked, never saved and lived off benefits there whole life

And the non worker was better off in retirement. Shocking... YES.

the truth YES

I feel sorry for people who do not earn enough to save into a pension, but if you dont earn enough to do something about it, then you probably wont notice a drop in standards of living upon retirement and receiving a STATE PENSION with credits ... potentially... SO DONT WORRY TOO MUCH.

dunstonh

But my grandfather worked the whole of his life, paid into a company pension that seemed not to be worth the paper it was written on once it performed badly and was inflated away

Do you actually know if thats fact or just third party information?

Most people do very well out of paying into a pension. However, they often have the misconception that they can get away with paying £20pm for 40 years and get £1000pm in retirement. So, even if the investments were the best possible, that isn't going to happen and will result in disappointment when its nothing to do with the pension.

If he had paid into a pension all his life (which would suggest a works scheme as personal pensions didnt come out until 1988 and retirement annuity contracts that were around before have really big annuity rates most of the time) then I cant see how he would be worse off than someone on pension credits.