Pension panic!

spiritless

We're 34 and 36 and have no pension. We've occasionally put token amounts in to various pots - a county council pension for me (for about 10 months) and a L&G stakeholder for him (no company pension) for no more than a year. Really both were just tiny amounts of our monthly salary.

We've got a bit (ok, a lot) of debt which is now being cleared and we're now starting to take control of our adult lifestyle. So pensions are up next. We're aware we've left it late.

His annual salary is 46k, mine is 12k. What would be the best figure to put away in to a pension for the first year or 2, considering we have debt to clear first?

dunstonh

What would be the best figure to put away in to a pension for the first year or 2, considering we have debt to clear first?

First place to look is what the employer offers. So, what do your employers offer?

jamesd

In debt, ignore mortgage debt. Once you have the rest taken care of, try a search in this section for posts by me. There are quite a few recent ones where I outline some approaches to working out how much to invest based on your own targets. It's the amount of income that you want when retired and when you want to retire that drives the decision of how much to invest.

You've plenty of time to catch up so don't worry hugely, just get on with it as circumstances allow.

At an annual salary of 46k some of his salary is subject to higher rate income tax. It's routine for people to make sufficient pension contributions to eliminate all of their higher rate tax liability so that's the first thought on a minimum starting level for him.

atush

He should put a min of 4K per annum into pension. This would save him 40% tax on that sum.

You should put in as much as you can afford.

Join your employers scheme first to take advantage of any Free money on offer.