pension plans for older persons

emu

Hi. can anyone advise please. am female, 54, and plan to retire at about 66 (later if am able to continue working).
am on target for state pension (pay class 2 contributions), plus have small teaching pension fr 8yrs in my 20s. + savings of few thousand in Premium Bonds, £8000 in B Soc ISA acc (only recently started paying annual allowance in). Deal in stocks and shares which is reasonably successful (have a few thousand in at mo).
Question is this: have £100/120 a month that could put into pension/ savings investment for retirement and do not know what to do with it. is there any point at starting stakeholder if will only run for just over 10 years or so? is return worth having? if not could i do better somewhere else?
have only just been able to start thinking about pension so have a lot to do and would be grateful for any advice or comments re advisibility of stakeholder and if rest of money needs moving to get better returns.
thanks

dunstonh

is there any point at starting stakeholder if will only run for just over 10 years or so? is return worth having? if not could i do better somewhere else?

Stakeholders are actually more beneficial for those already in retirement than those building towards retirement so dont worry about age there.

From an income point of view and only income, the pension would beat the other alternatives, such as Equity ISAs. However, the lack of flexibility of choice on how you take the maturity proceeds of a pension is a big negative point. You could hope that the Conservatives get into power and follow through with their comments which are to remove the compulsion to buy an annuity. However, it would be better to go with an Equity ISA and wait if/until that happens. You can always take the money out of the ISA later and put it into the pension if that ends up being the better option. Whereas if you put it into the pension now, you dont get any choice.

stakeholder pensions themselves are fairly simple to understand but as an investment they are not much better than premium bonds (sorry had to have a dig at those ). If you are investing money, you should focus on the investment side. Not upon a tax wrapper/product which offers limited investment options.

emu

thanks for this. will investigate equity isas as suggested. (actually, the premium bonds give me return of about 4%. not brilliant but always possibility each month of becoming millionaire and not having to worry about starting pension so late in day!)

margaretclare

I think that there will be many people - I'm one myself - who will be glad to have the compulsion removed to buy an annuity. I have 3 already and don't particularly want another one when I reach 75 in 4 years' time. In the meantime, I have my SIPP and equity ISA with Hargreaves Lansdown and both are doing well.

Margaret