How much do you have in your pot?

gadgetmind

TH1878 wrote: »

I think most people didn't read the question correctly!

Well, I had to cast my mind back a bit, but we were lucky enough to buy our "forever house" when both aged 30, and were mortgage free after selling off some surplus land a few years later.

We'd made a solid start on pensions before this thanks to lump sum dividends from a company I'd started, but being mortgage free early on let us keep plugging away.

(And yes, maybe we should have had the mortgage, but I like sleeping at night!)

TH1878

gadgetmind wrote: »

Well, I had to cast my mind back a bit, but we were lucky enough to buy our "forever house" when both aged 30, and were mortgage free after selling off some surplus land a few years later.

We'd made a solid start on pensions before this thanks to lump sum dividends from a company I'd started, but being mortgage free early on let us keep plugging away.

(And yes, maybe we should have had the mortgage, but I like sleeping at night!)

But how much did you have in your pension pot by age 35?

Speaking professionally as a financial planner and personally as a 34 year old, with the majority of my friends in this bracket, I guarantee that the vast majority of people do not have over £100k by that point.

More like 5-10% and not the 60% that have said they had!

gadgetmind

TH1878 wrote: »

But how much did you have in your pension pot by age 35?

Let's just say that my business partner spent his bonus on a Ferrari whereas I put mine into my pension. Yes, that makes me boring, but he was declared bankrupt a few years later!

As for the vast majority, dunno, but no poll on this forum is ever going to tell you that!

Notfarfromtheborder

Difficult to answer, but I'll try, these are 'pots' I had accumulated at 38 (7 years ago but based on current values. No further contributions made since)


Money Purchase
Company Scheme £30K
Private scheme £30K


Final Salary scheme annual pension to be paid at 65, £5K, should be closer to £8.5K pa after annual increases


Hope this helps

jamesd

At 35 and 42 I had nothing. At 52 I have something over a third of a million total pension and non-pension and could well be a millionaire in seven years if I just carried on a I am now, or in twelve if I withdrew median pensioner household income of 17.5k each year. That takes around 10% nominal growth (not inflation adjusted) and combinations of investment growth and tax relief can beat that with quite high confidence level. I've been saving / investing more than 60% of my (net pay plus gross pension contributions) for the last ten years.

TH1878

gadgetmind wrote: »

Let's just say that my business partner spent his bonus on a Ferrari whereas I put mine into my pension. Yes, that makes me boring, but he was declared bankrupt a few years later!

As for the vast majority, dunno, but no poll on this forum is ever going to tell you that!

Not boring at all - very sensible.

I am fortunate to have over £100,000 in my pension but I've worked in financial services since I left Uni so probably more clued up than most and crucially, I started saving early. Like you, I also sold my business last year and saved most of that.

However, based purely on my own empirical evidence, I'd be surprised if over half of 30 year olds have even started a pension, never mind accumulated over £100k.

TH1878

jamesd wrote: »

At 35 and 42 I had nothing. At 52 I have something over a third of a million total pension and non-pension and could well be a millionaire in seven years if I just carried on a I am now, or in twelve if I withdrew median pensioner household income of 17.5k each year. That takes around 10% nominal growth (not inflation adjusted) and combinations of investment growth and tax relief can beat that with quite high confidence level. I've been saving / investing more than 60% of my (net pay plus gross pension contributions) for the last ten years.

Impressive stuff, particularly the bit in bold.

gadgetmind

Well, assuming someone starts work after uni at age 21, that's only 9 years (or 14 to mid 30s), so yes, a big ask. However, our (engineering) grad starting salary is closing on £30k, and increments after this can be large for good people (closer to £40k in some cases after a few years) so the opportunity to slam more into a pension is there if the will is too.

hugheskevi

Out of idle curiosity, I looked up old spreadsheet records, but unfortunately it wasn't until I was 35 that I started recording my scheme's contemporary CETV factors in my spreadsheet records, so I don't have accurate capitalized values for any period before 35.

Based on the records as at age 35, valuing DC pensions at pot value and DB pension at CETV value, I had £214K of pension saving, and my wife (same age) had £101K.

It would be quite a bit higher, but I took 3.5 years out of employment to travel at various times in my 20s. That was all based on a reasonable but by no means great salary - I simply maximised occupational pension wherever possible whilst making sure I don't pay higher rate tax via SIPP contributions.

jamesd

TH1878 wrote: »

Impressive stuff, particularly the bit in bold.

That partly comes from lots of experience living on low income then being an unpaid volunteer just before the start of the period. I just didn't increase my spending by anything like my increase in income. The easy way to get it done. At the moment my capital is around 92% of (net pay plus gross pension contributions) over the period.

The main trick I missed was not getting started on VCTs sooner. Lots of completely unnecessary income tax paid because even VCTs that aren't asset-backed are within my risk tolerance. So long as VCTs are around on current terms I'm planning on not paying any significant UK income tax in the future. I'll help young companies to grow with VCT investing instead.