Starting Pension for my Wife - Advice Please!

pappadruid

Hi All,

I am currently looking into putting some money away every month for some pension provisions for my wife. I am currently in the Forces, so benefit from a Forces pension after my 22 years service, but am very much aware that she has no provision, so would like to change this.

I would be looking to put away circa £150 pm. I was wondering what peoples thoughts are as to the best pension vehicle for this? I considered a Stocks & Shares SIPP whereby we could select some stable shares that pay a reasonable dividend and hopefully grow the fund that way. I did hear that a SIPP was really only a viable option if you had upwards of 25K to invest initially, but I dont know how true this is.

Alternatively, we could go down the ISA route, either stocks & shares or cash ISA (or a combination of both?!). Or Im sure there is the more traditional route of approaching an IFA and seeking their advice, but I quite like the idea of being able to manage the fund myself!

I appreciate this is quite a deep subject and there is no simple and straightforward answer, but I would be grateful if anyone could chip in with some good ideas about a good place to start with this.

Many Thanks All!!

p.s. A note to all under 30s reading this...START A PENSION NOW! You wont regret it!! Dont leave it too late!! (Thats me back off my soapbox!!)

atush

First of all, does she work? If so, when and where (and how much) will her employers be contributing? If she doesn't work, you a re limited to 2880 put into a personal pension, which the govt will round up to 3600 per year.

Every 80 she puts into a pension, will become 100 overnight. what Isa will do this?

AS far as PPs or SIpps go, you can invest in a range of funds to diversify and reduce overall risk (and get exposure to non UK markets) which single shares (however good they might be) don't really do.

In a Sipp you can do both, but collective investments are a bit less risky. Some SIPPs have very low costs, so aren't expensive. It all depends on what you want to invest in (ie single shares, funds, investment trusts, bonds etc).

kidmugsy

If your wife has no pension provision at all (beyond the state pension) then she'll likely not be a taxpayer in retirement, so that even a small private pension will come in particularly useful.

I suggest that you look at the Hargreaves Lansdown website, and that of Cavendish: people seem to find both these companies good to deal with.