Auto enrolment

jgfirehorse

I am 46 yrs old with no savings or pension plan.my employer has invited me to join the auto enrolment stakeholder pension plan.Is it too late to save for retirement via this method?I would like to retire at 65 before then if I can afford to.I complete paying my mortgage when I reach 55 and expect to save extra when this happens.My employers guidance paperwork shows several levels of risk related to the stakeholder pension plan,I am concerned I fail to get back what I put in.Could anybody offer simple advice / guidance?

mania112

Your company will pay into your pension with you.

This is free money, there's no downside.

You've only got 19 years to go, so pump as much money into a pension as you can. There's no better way to save for retirement.

R_P_W

what is the alternative?

McKneff

It's free money, man.

And it's a no brainer.

jamesd

Yes, it's a good idea to accept auto-enrolment into a stakeholder pension scheme.

It's certainly not too late to start a pension and you have time to make a big difference to your retirement income level. Do resist any temptation to pay more than you must off the mortgage, any extra money can be more productively used in the pension.

Time matters in pension investing and you should try to put in as much as you can as early as you can to increase the effect of compounding. Putting half of pay rises into extra pension contributions is one way of increasing without it hurting.

The risk warnings are about the ups and downs of values, with a general upward trend, and not something to be concerned about, other than noting that values do vary quite a lot, with a 20% drop every few years and a 40% drop every five to ten being routine. The upward movements generally more than make up for those drops, just be prepared for the bumpy ride.