Workplace or personal pension?

scruffy16

Hi,

I have 2 pensions, one is a personal with HSBC and the other a workplace with NEST.

I work part-time so the current contributions to the workplace pension are minimal - 25p/w (including employer contributions). I put £22/m into my personal pension.

Is it worth me having both of these? Which should I close (if either?)

Many thanks in advance,

Linton

How do these amounts fit in with your plan for retirement? How many more years do you have working? How much do you need to live on? What other retirement income will you have?

If you need more money in retirement than those figures will provide you need to contribute more. Otherwise probably contributing more could be a good idea if it gives you greater flexibility. Otherwise, there isnt much point I guess and perhaps a savings account would be better - with only £270 going in a year I cant see the extra return you would get from investing in a pension worth the effort.

Your_Hero

Not enough information to go off. One thing that I'm certain of is that you really ought to be paying a lot more as £122 per month (including employer's payments) is peanuts.

xylophone

When do you expect to become eligible for state pension?

scruffy16

I'm 28 and my state pension age is 68 so I have a while to go yet, I know that my contributions are no where near what they should be but it's all I can afford at the moment. When I was working full time I was paying in much more and when I'm able to work full time again I will up the contributions to match.

I don't want to include other retirement incomes at the moment - as its so far in the future it wouldn't be right for me to depend on my husband's future income and pension as well.

SomeUser

It depends on how much access you want to different funds and how much attention you want to pay to your investments. NEST is quite restrictive but they are good for a "set it up and forget it" type of pension

rpc

NEST is only good because of the employer contribution (aka "free money"). I'd keep any additional pension savings outside it.

Using Hargreaves Lansdown pension calculator suggests an income in retirement of around £2k in today's money. If that's enough, then carry on. If not, you need to find some way to boost your retirement savings.