Age to start paying into a pension?

Nine_Lives

Very true indeed. While i said that my co-workers poo-poo'd the idea, i never said i swallowed what they were telling me.

It's like when discussing cars & a good example would be car cleaning. Co-workers would rave about T-cutting their car & the finish it would bring.
However, anyone who takes an interest in the area would be able to tell you that T-Cut is far from the best thing for your cars paint (without going into the scientific bumf) & can do more harm than good. Pro detailers wont use T-Cut. But "the masses" say it's good, so it must be ey?

No. I take on board everything that's been said within this thread (as well as others). I still believe i should see an IFA as i would prefer to talk to someone & get this ball rolling, but i'm very grateful for all the advice so far.

jamesd

To get some idea of what pensions are worth try the Hargreaves Lansdown pension calculator. As an example I used:

Date of birth: 1/7/1983
Sex: male
Current salary: 12000 (not important unless you use percentage contributions)
Retirement age: 68
Personal contribution: £50 a month
Employer contribution: 0

Result: £2,291 income a year, £191 a month, in current money terms.

The state pensions are likely to pay around £7,000 a year so that's about £9,300 a year taken care of for say 25 years or retirement.

Want to retire early? Change the retirement age to 55. Expected income drops to £882 a year, £73 a month. Losing 13 years of contributions and growth hurts a lot. But you can plan for it by increasing the payments to £130 a month if you want to go for retiring at 55. You'd need more income than that but it's just showing how you can plan and do something about it.

With five months to go it is too late for investing for a deposit. Savings account territory.

gadgetmind

SAHD_Jim wrote: »

Still about 30% of staff didn't sign up. Unbelievable, especially as the firm is a pension provider :eek:

Some people (mainly children but also stupid adults) can't handle deferred rewards. Offer them one sweety now, or ten stweeties in a weeks time, and they WANT THE SWEETIE NOW DAMMIT!

Many things in life require long-term planning, and trading off immediate rewards against long-term security and happiness, and oh so many people just can't think on this level.

Dolts.