Ok, 38, no savings, no pension started...

eastcorkram

I believe it's not as good as it used to be, but surely 25 or 30 years in the teachers pension scheme would be very worthwhile having?

louloubelle79

Husband and I also 38 also had no pension till recently, same as you dudn5 really hav3 understanding until I read this forum! We have started to contribute £500 pm each as realise we have catching up to do, not ideal and Wish I started 20 years ago and parents or someone advised me.

Sonatine

If you have a teaching job, you should get auto enrolled into the Teachers Pension. It works by banking a fraction of your salary each year (1/57th), which increases by a few percent each year. If you have a salary of £25k, it would bank a pension of £438 a year, and that would cost you a proportion of your salary which works out at around £154/month (if my calcs are up to scratch). So over your 30 year career to 68, you would reach a yearly pension of £13k and a bit. I haven't added any of the few percent uplifts in since they are more or less inflationary so this gives you a good estimate of what your pension would be in todays money. Of course, you would expect your salary to rise over time, and so the fractions you deposit would increase over time, so 13k is a worst case scenario. You should also look at something called 'faster accrual', it allows you to bank up to 1/45th each year (of course it costs you more). 30 years of 1/45th faster accrual at 25k, would give you pension of £16.7k. You get to add state pension on top. So you're in a position of turning this round now, but it doesn't look like early retirement is in your future.

ViolaLass

eastcorkram wrote: »

I believe it's not as good as it used to be, but surely 25 or 30 years in the teachers pension scheme would be very worthwhile having?

Yes but I wouldn't count on managing to stick at the job for that long.

RedfordML

Thankyou so much for all the replies. Beyond what I expected and the information is fantastic. I am actually starting teacher training in September so will be 12/24 months till I actually start one but the advice here has been first class. Thanks again!


If i wasnt to go into teaching, I would simply jump on a workplace version, but seeing the numbers, the state pension and its worth makes things much clearer! I assume i will work upto 65-70, maybe not as a teacher till the end.

atush

eastcorkram wrote: »

I believe it's not as good as it used to be, but surely 25 or 30 years in the teachers pension scheme would be very worthwhile having?

More than worthwhile. Try fantastic.

atush

louloubelle79 wrote: »

Husband and I also 38 also had no pension till recently, same as you dudn5 really hav3 understanding until I read this forum! We have started to contribute £500 pm each as realise we have catching up to do, not ideal and Wish I started 20 years ago and parents or someone advised me.

I have 3 boys in their 20's and all three graduated Uni now have good jobs, and yes we told all 3 to join the work pension.