Too late for a personal pension?

fildok2

Advice needed!

I am 56 years old and have been paying into a company pension for 2 years.
I pay in £35 pm and the company tops this up.
The pensions company have also taken over a pp that I had frozen which I had payed in £3000.
My question is that the forcasted returns on this plan look very minimal indeed and I wonder if my savings would be better off somewhere else.
I have read that even a small PP will stop me claiming any discounts such council tax etc ,in the future.
Any feedback would be apreciated.

Phil

dunstonh

My question is that the forcasted returns on this plan look very minimal indeed and I wonder if my savings would be better off somewhere else.

What alternative would be able to match the free money from the employer?

I have read that even a small PP will stop me claiming any discounts such council tax etc ,in the future.

Thats a bit of a red herring. There is something called pension credit which in simple terms means you cannot earn below a certain amount in retirement. However, that amount includes the state pension and second state pension/serps etc. If you have a decent NI record and qualify for a larger SERPS/S2P pension then you may find you are not that far off the qualifying maximum.

If you do have small personal pensions, they can reduce the amount of benefits you can get but its not pound for pound. The Govt changed that some years back to encourage people to save for retirement. Even amounts as small as yours.

Personal savings/investments also are taken into account so you if you build up those, they are still considered above a certain amount.

fildok2

Thanks for your info.

I did read somewhere on here that in some cases it is more benificial to pay off your mortgage first if you dont have much of a PP.

I have 17k to pay off in the next 9 years ..would this make any sense?

Phil