ISAs v Pensions: The Official Retirement Debate

lamby021

Morning all,

A little advice from a novice when it comes to savings and pensions.

I am 42 and have just finished paying off our mortgage so the obvious question is now what do I do to plan for the future.

I have no savings to speak off as have been concentrating on clearing the mortgage first whilst the rates have been low. I do have a pension but stopped paying into it 10 years ago and contributed £100 per month roughly for 10 years into it.

Hard to say how much spare cash per month we will have as a family but will average £500 to £1000 at a guess so been trawling through threads like this looking for the best way to invest it, eg pension, isa, shares, under the mattress etc etc lol.

Many thanks in advance for any advice given.

jamesd

The topic you started titled Mortgage paid, now what to do ? has a range of responses on the subject.

EternallyGrateful

jamesd wrote: »

The topic you started titled Mortgage paid, now what to do ? has a range of responses on the subject.

Maybe Lamby just hasn't got the response he wanted.

I would suggest he invests it in women, gambling and alcohol.

atush

Lamby got advice, but he didn't like it as we were a bit untactful in pointing out he made the wrong decision to focus only on paying off the mtg instead of saving into pensions and ISAs alongside. IT is always unwise to have only one strategy/plank to your platform.

It is hard to give heartfelt advice w/o pointing out where people go wrong. So if we offended them as I feel we may have, sorry.

So my adivce pertinent to this thread is to NOT just focus on ISAs or Pensions but to save into both as they each have their part to play.

jamesd

The topic was started after the post here was made, not before, so it's wrong to suggest that lamby021 posted here after not liking the replies there. lamby021 also used the thanks button on posts that were quite critical of the overall financial planning, including two of my own posts. So please cut the criticism of lamby021's topic; starting a specific topic is exactly what lamby021 should have done and did do. lamby021's post and conduct here were exactly as they should have been, entirely polite and appropriate in the face of a combination of criticism, credit and suggestions.

My post here was just so it didn't look like a post that had received no answers. Sorry for the broken link to that topic, it's fixed now.

atush

MY response was not critcal of Lamby, it was an apology as i thought we had not been as polite as should be on the other thread. It was in response to eternally grateful.

Something you should think about perhaps.

jamesd

I preferred not to identify whose reply had prompted mine, but since yours was an apology that does narrow it down a bit...

lamby021

Whilst you're all on about apologies I must apologise for posting my questions first of all on this thread then I decided in my wisdom to create a new thread and forgot to delete the post on this one.
And I was not offended in the least and took on board alot of the advice given, yes a tad untactful but straight to the point and even though I may disagree and still think I was right paying my mortgage off first before planning for my pension (talking of which my company has no pension scheme at all and the wife as only been working for just over a year after a prolonged break so don't think i've missed out to much on the "free money").
Many thanks again for all the advice no matter how it was put across and there's every chance i'll be back for more once I've done more research

jamesd

Glad you didn't miss out on too much free money! There's a wide range of opinions on mortgage overpayments. They tend not to make sense in straight financial terms but a lot of people value the security more then the financial aspect.

I think you'll be fine on the pensions side. One thing the mortgage overpaying did is demonstrate that you have commitment to achieving your objectives and you have time for that to meet your targets still.

EternallyGrateful

lamby021 wrote: »

Whilst you're all on about apologies I must apologise for posting my questions first of all on this thread then I decided in my wisdom to create a new thread and forgot to delete the post on this one.
And I was not offended in the least and took on board alot of the advice given, yes a tad untactful but straight to the point and even though I may disagree and still think I was right paying my mortgage off first before planning for my pension (talking of which my company has no pension scheme at all and the wife as only been working for just over a year after a prolonged break so don't think i've missed out to much on the "free money").
Many thanks again for all the advice no matter how it was put across and there's every chance i'll be back for more once I've done more research

I have now decided to avoid humour and will go and sit on the naughty step for at least 10 minutes.

I paid my mortgage off some years and really enjoyed the feeling that the roof over my head belonged to me. I was aware that there were 'better' financial options but having no debts at all was (still is) fantastic!

I also now enjoy having choices in my life which are available to me because I invested in pension funds and ISA's.

I guess you do what's right for you.