MSE Poll: What percentage of your salary do you save into a pension?

Ectophile

happyinflorida wrote: »

why no option for "never had a private pension and never will"?????


if you think I'm going to pay money into a scheme that is going to rip me off, think again.


how many times have government backed schemes backfired? far too many


Stocks and shares notoriously are dodgy to invest in. Supposing you just happen to retire when there's yet another big slump? you'll be screwed for years, at least and possibly forever.


No way would I do that.

If I earn £1, I could take is as pay, or I could put it in the company pension.


If I take the money, the tax man will take 40% (at the highest rate) and I will be left with 60p to invest in whatever I want.


If I hand the money over to the company pension scheme, they will more than match it, and I don't pay any tax. In the end, about £2.25 goes into the pension.


Even if the company pension fund turns out to be a lousy investment, there's no way I can beat it trying to invest that 60p myself.


If the stock market slumped 50% the day I before I retired, I would still be better off investing in the company pension. But that won't happen anyway, because the trustees of the pension have thought of that. In the 10 years up to retirement, they will gradually move my money out of stocks and shares, and into safer things.



The system is so heavily weighted in favour of pensions, that it's very hard to beat them.

campbell19925

You know, I work as a pension advisor and they give us 2% contribution. Maybe I can show my boss this posts and be like; "Cmon, man!"

abbers

What bugs me is that there is this big hoo-hah about employee pensions but exactly what helps is there for the self-employed?! Zilch.

Lece2

Here's me ashamed in voting that I'm self-employed and am not currently contributing to a pension - it seems like the majority of SE in every age bracket is having the same issue. I think SE is seen as quite well off as a demographic. Well from my experience, this isn't the case. I went SE because of my ill health. After 5 years of doing this successfully, I now earn enough to be part of the JAM generation with my husband but after forking out to the HMRC as well, I just can't afford to put into a pension. The amount I can perhaps put in isn't considered "worth it". It's so frustrating as from the age of 18 and working, the first thing I did was join a pension scheme with work. I have about 6/7 stopped pots of pensions from different employers now - not enough to fix my Zimmer frame when I'm old though I can bet!