Life Lessons

MrSaver96

Tell me about the lessons you’ve learned over your life when it comes to pensions/retirement planning. Anything you would have done differently? Have you done something that has worked particularly well? :money:

tacpot12

Start early, take a good amount of risk early on, only use products with low charges (or find an employer who will pay the charges), work for an employer with a generous pension provision, keep increasing your contributions as you earn more, work long enough to earn the full state pension (or so that you can pay voluntary NI contributions if you decide this is worthwhile), forecast what your living expenses will be in retirement.

barnstar2077

I would have put more money into my pension when I first started it. But of course like most people I felt invulnerable when I was younger, now as I am getting older I realise that I am collecting ailments and injuries by the dozen and know that if I am still working in my 60's that it will be very hard for me,

So listen up everyone, start getting it together now before you are sick or having trouble at work! Give yourself more options later in life. The sooner you start the cheaper and easier it will be!

Bimbly

When you tell your financial advisor you want to put £200 / month into a pension and they tell you should only put £40 in, and you repeat that you want to put in £200 and they insist that £40 will give you a good retirement and you explain that you really want to put in £200 and they bang on about you only need to put in £40 -- don't let them bully you into doing what they want.

When you ask your employer for details of extra payments you can put into your pension and nothing turns up, don't forget about it for months. Then the second time they fail to send it, don't forget about it for many more months until it's too late. Follow up and be insistent (check, for example, they aren't sending them to the head of pensions who happens to have a similar name to you).

The above is a bit of a rant and not so relevant to today (I wouldn't need to use a financial advisor to set up my own pension these days), but I guess the principle is there. Don't let people stop you from paying into a pension when you want to.

dunstonh

Similar thread posted in investments section this morning.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5953488

That was by another new poster and similar wording. Both posted in incorrect sections.

MrSaver96

Dunstonh, how is this posted in the wrong section? My question is in relation to people’s life lessons in respect of their pension/ retirement strategy. Unless you have something relevant or useful to say, just don’t comment?

dunstonh

Dunstonh, how is this posted in the wrong section?

This is a section on pensions. Not general discussion or debate. If you have a specific question or issue then absolutely discuss it. However, these open-ended non-specific waffle threads are usually moved by the board admin to the appropriate forum once they see it. Or in the case of the other near identical thread (using similar words despite being a different poster), the board have now deleted the thread.

barnstar2077

I can't see how this thread wouldn't be very relevant to a lot of people.

If you don't like "waffle" threads then just move on and ignore them, why try and ruin it for people that enjoy talking about more than just the pure facts and figures of pensions.

Kynthia

Pay more in your 20s and before children. Obviously this is dependant on having a decent job but for those that do you don't realise that your disposable income is only going to go down once you have a mortgage and children.

Learn about your workplace pension when you start with a company. The number of people that don't join for a while, or don't know the basics of what they have is shocking.

If you think you or your partner earns to much for you to claim child benefit, double-check as adjusted net income isn't your gross salary. Plus even if you do you could pay more into a pension, have your gross contribution only cost you 60% from your take-home pay, and now claim child benefit if it has reduced your adjusted net income enough. This can be done even for one-off years where a bonus or taxable redundancy amount pushed you above the earnings limit.

If you have a child under 12 and both parents are working enough to qualify for an NI year towards their state pension then they can give the child benefit NI credit to a grandparent. This is only if only if they are helping with childcare and only useful if they need more NI years and aren't earning them themselves.

JoeCrystal

I wish I set up my pension scheme as soon as I started my first job back in 2008 rather than 2010 to take advantage of the market downturn at the time. But then, I don't think it would make that much difference overall especially with lack of employer's contribution. At least with the auto-enrollment, the young people can make a start contributing into their pot. I think they should make auto-enrollment compulsory and from 18 rather than 22 years old. Hopefully, in the long run, the employer's contribution should get higher.

green_man

Ideally start early and make sure you are making best advantage of your company pension (matching contributions etc). Once you have it set up and are confident it’s appropriatly invested then don’t monitor it too closely, it’s too easy to lose confidence in a market downturn and either stop paying in or (even worse) move funds/providers.

Several times in my accumulation phase my wife said to me “why are you paying so much into you pension when it’s going down in value”, and I’ve had colleagues just stop paying in. If can be difficult if you put in £20k in a year and the yearly fund value is £80k less than it was a year before (as happened to me around 2009 ). Just keep paying in and don’t worry too much.