How many pensions do you have?

Alexland

Male 36 with 31 year old wife and £270k in our company DC schemes and my SIPP (we have always made extra contributions and selected investments carefully). We are also trying to fill both LISAs each year until we are 50.

Hope to retire when I am 62 and my wife is 57.

Drp8713

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

Sounds like you did the same as me except I did not go for the Pru AVC but did transfer my previous occupational scheme into the LGPS and took out a SIPP. I do not have a LISA. Can I ask how old you were when you started paying more into AVCs and ISAs?

I was 25 for the AVC and 26 for the ISA (im 29 now).

I am a good example of what can happen if you save your payrises.

I started at £25 a month in 2013 with the AVC as my only additional contributions, I am now saving £700 a month in addition to the main scheme benefits across the range of tax wrappers.

enthusiasticsaver

resk wrote: »

I have two pension pots right now. One has all the employer contributions for the first seven or so years I've been with my current employer, the other one is the one that's getting the monthly contributions now. My employer changed pension provider in June 2016. Prior to this date, the employer put in 9% of our basic salary with no requirement for any employee contributions. Now, if we want the 9%, we have to put in 6%. Lots of colleagues were fizzing at this - some put in eg. 4% to get 7% from the employer, and some opted out altogether. I've told them they are passing up free money....

Like a lot of people, I used to take the attitude of "it's too far in the future / I'll be dead of super-AIDS by then" and didn't pay any extra in (despite repeated nagging from my old man!). I changed this attitude after doing a bit of research and now I put in as much as I can in addition to the 9% from employer. I got close to the £40K max last tax year and I'm on course to do the same this year.

I could combine the pots, but right now it's interesting to compare their performance. I'm slowly learning about funds, bonds and the like, thanks to this and other sites. I have a good job, but it's not really my "calling". I don't want to do it my whole life and I'd like to enjoy retirement (and retire as early as possible!).

For context, I'm 37 and single.

Brilliant. I wish I had started tackling my pension in my thirties too. Good that you are learning about funds too as I did not get into those until my fifties. Sounds like a great retirement is on the cards for you.

enthusiasticsaver

Dragon_Lily wrote: »

I have 4 pensions
1. DB via LGPS (11 yrs) deferred and will have to take at 60.
2. DC pension around £80K
3. DC around £5k deferred will look at maybe transferring to higher DC pension pot at some point.
4. DB current employer - 2 years so far

I've not had very high paying jobs, mainly full time admin (now part-time through choice) but have always paid into a pension since I was 20 yrs (53 now). I want to retire at 60 and hope to have a modest amount by then, although not as generous as some on MSE I'm married and husband has DB and DC pensions. Mortgage will be paid off in 6 years, so will be just about the right time for me if I want to give up work at 60.

I am in a similar position to you having worked part time and full time in admin roles to fit in with childcare and a husband who travelled a lot for work.

Our hope was to retire at 60 and I was paying into my LGPS, stocks and shares isa and a SIPP and husband paid 10% of his salary into his DC scheme (company paid 20% as incentive after removing the DB scheme) and had a frozen deferred DB scheme from the same employer. We were heavily investing after our children left university and mortgage finished and luckily can go at 58 as stocks and shares performed better than we thought and the additional payments going into my husbands DC pot did extremely well over the last five years. Sounds good that your mortgage finishes just as you hope to retire.

enthusiasticsaver

Drp8713 wrote: »

I was 25 for the AVC and 26 for the ISA (im 29 now).

I am a good example of what can happen if you save your payrises.

I started at £25 a month in 2013 with the AVC as my only additional contributions, I am now saving £700 a month in addition to the main scheme benefits across the range of tax wrappers.

Fantastic. Do you have a target date or amount or are you just saving as much as possible? You are right in that saving payrises is a good way to accumulate assets as you don't tend to miss it. I keep impressing on my daughters to save for retirement and I think the message is getting through a little. Difficult at your age though as so many other things to save for like properties, weddings, children, holidays etc etc.

enthusiasticsaver

kidmugsy wrote: »

No worries. In a way the point I was making is that the rules were different in other times and other places. If you were young you might not have been allowed to join a pension scheme. If you changed employer you might just have your pension rights evaporate, rather than automatically getting a deferred pension. Or you might get a refund of contributions instead of a deferred pension. Or your pension might not include a widow's pension, or might not include automatic inflation-protection.

As desirable features were added to DB pensions by law the pensions became more and more expensive to provide, hence their being closed in large numbers.

Certainly I am sure that most problems with pension schemes is they are too expensive now. My husbands DB scheme was stopped in 2008 but he had already acquired 28 years service and the benefits were frozen and deferred until retirement so he is now drawing on that. The company as an incentive to get employees on board with changing to DC scheme offered to pay in 20% decreasing by 1% each year for next 7 years if employee paid in 10% which my husband did. It did so well he ended up retiring at 58 rather than 60.

I have been lucky enough to receive a pension at each company/organisation I worked for. I must admit that I did not realise this was not common place.

enthusiasticsaver

thatoldchestnut wrote: »

35 year old male, I've paid into the LGPS since 2009, which until 2014 was final salary, and since then has been a CARE scheme. From my rough calculations, by April I will have accrued enough service for it to give me £3,200 per year in retirement (in today's money). Before the scheme changed in 2014, I used some of my savings to pay more of my salary into the scheme, so I will hopefully get an extra £1,500 per year, which will also be adjusted for inflation.

I don't know how much longer I will be lucky enough to have this benefit, but I want to pay into it for as long as I can.

I also have worked for the LGPS since 1999 and the scheme has changed three times since I have joined it. Great benefit. Are you using the prudential AVCs?

longleggedhair

1 LGPS (4 years) as my employer moved out of the scheme which I was fuming about.....plus a Prudential AVC, now just have the basic auto enrolment pension of 1%.

I also have a very old stakeholder pension with the COOP. I stick £100 a month into that and will eventually move it over to a sipp.

Not sure I'm doing enough as regards pensions but I have been busy building up my savings & investments due to poor health leaving me with the possibility of having to leave work early.

JoeCrystal

Just two at 31. One is my personal, private pension which I set up with an IFA back in 2010 when I was 24 due to work only having a stakeholder pension which my employer do not contribute to. Now thank to auto-enrolment, I got a work pension from the age of 27 but my employer only contributing 2% into it. My overall aim is to ensure that I pay 25% of my salary into the pension pot throughout my working life one way or another. The personal pension gets £300 per month while the work pension gets combined contribution of £64 per month (But hey, it is free money!)

Drp8713

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

Fantastic. Do you have a target date or amount or are you just saving as much as possible? You are right in that saving payrises is a good way to accumulate assets as you don't tend to miss it. I keep impressing on my daughters to save for retirement and I think the message is getting through a little. Difficult at your age though as so many other things to save for like properties, weddings, children, holidays etc etc.

I would like to retire at 60. According to online calculators, I should have £600k by then excluding my LGPS and AVC if I stay at my current level of savings.

My share of the outgoings (ex savings) only cost me £16k a year at the moment, so at that rate the natural yield would cover me.

Got married last year, think we paid about £6k inc the honeymoon. I save £250 a month which covers holidays/xmas etc, my wife contributes too. Our son is not too costly yet! Maybe when he gets to his teens.

House prices have gone up faster than the rent, our house is currently worth 50x the annual rent, at that rate it is not worth buying, however I would if London property became sensible.