Self-employed nest pension ?

Drewson

Hello guys new members here looking for some advice
I'm 43 years old and started a nest pension last year.
I am self employed and have been putting £150 a month away in my nest pension
I am fully aware I have come to the party late and I should have thought about it years ago
I have very little knowledge on investing as a self employed person for the future and thought that nest was a fairly good thing to start
A year on and reading the things people are saying about nest I think I may have mad a bad investment
All I see is negative reviews
Any help on how to move forward for my pension fund would be greatly appreciated
Should I stay with nest or put my £150 a month somewhere else
Kind regards
Drew:beer:

Dazed_and_confused

You haven't actually said what fund you have invested in.

Nest have (small) range of funds, what fund(s) is your money invested in?

Albermarle

All I see is negative reviews

On sites like TRustpilot all you normally see is negative reviews for financial companies , because the ones who are happy usually don't post reviews.
Nest are unusual as they charge a fee on each contribution ( very rare nowadays ) but their ongoing annual costs are low .
All modern pension providers are a little bit similar, especially when you have only a small fund.
More important is what has been asked in the previous post and the size of your monthly contribution ( the bigger the better )

squirrelpie

Plus what is £150 as a percentage of your earnings? That is, are you saving enough for your pension? I think that's much more important than whether Nest is the best place for it. You can always transfer somewhere else if Nest is a bad idea. You can't easily fix not putting enough money away, if that is a problem.

SonOf

Nest was set up to cater for the bottom end of the market in providing auto-enrolment schemes to companies that are either too small to be of interest to the main providers commercially or to companies that dont really care about their employees.

They were not set up to provide individual schemes to self employed. Although they do offer that.

All I see is negative reviews

They have had issues. However, to their credit, they have improved in a number of areas. Basically, when they set up they were largely clueless about how to provide a pension product. They were doing things others had not been doing for years, even decades. They had a steep learning curve and got things wrong. They have improved.

Should I stay with nest or put my £150 a month somewhere else

Nest is a strange choice for an individual but there isnt anything fundamentally wrong with it. They are never going to have the best product or funds. However, they are never going to have the worst and you know they will be there when the time comes. Their options dont allow you to make too many bad investment decisions.

Marcon

Pity that NEST has just had a penalty imposed on it by the Pensions Regulator: https://www.ftadviser.com/pensions/2019/08/23/nest-slapped-with-fine-for-information-errors/

Doesn't really improve its image.

nigelbb

Marcon wrote: »

Pity that NEST has just had a penalty imposed on it by the Pensions Regulator: https://www.ftadviser.com/pensions/2019/08/23/nest-slapped-with-fine-for-information-errors/

Doesn't really improve its image.

To be fair it looks like a technical breach as the Pensions Regulator only fined them £2K & Standard Life and Mercer received similar fines.

According to Nathan Long, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, raising the standards of master trusts is a necessary step in ensuring members of workplace pensions are adequately protected.

He said: “You’d expect a new regime to bring some teething issues even for huge, well run master trusts like Nest that have been so instrumental in imbedding auto-enrolment in workplaces across the country.”

atush

I would not invesr with nest, due to the restricted choice. So look for another provider. Have a look at Cavendish online.

For a new investor, with many years until retirement, with low contributions- look at a global index fund, or a mutli asset fund like Vanguard 80. Once your pot is larger you can look for advice from an IFA, or learn about investing yourself.

Afraid_of_Kittens

I have a pension in NEST. I was in the High Risk Fund but transferred to the Sharia Fund. This has grown by 26.44% so far this year - some 99% in 5 years.

I already have 3 Local Government Pensions from previous emloyment and was automatically enrolled in my current job.

This shows the erformance of the Sharia fund:- https://www.trustnet.com/factsheets/p/klls/nest-sharia-pn

This shows some of the other funds:- https://www.trustnet.com/fund/price-performance/p/pension-funds?tab=fundOverview&pageSize=25&manager=NETF

Drewson

Thanks for your input guys I am currently in the
NEST Retirement Date Fund
Would you suggest moving it to a alternative nest fund

Afraid_of_Kittens

Drewson wrote: »

Thanks for your input guys I am currently in the
NEST Retirement Date Fund
Would you suggest moving it to a alternative nest fund

Only you can decide this.

Look at the other funds and then decide.

The 2040 Date fund has grown by 14.99% this year and 52.9% in 5 years.

If you had £1000 in your Retirement Date pension fund 5 years ago it would now be worth £1529.00

If you had £1000 in the Sharia fund your £1000 would be worth £1990.00.

The Sharia fund is high risk and is made up of 100% equaties. The Date fund is more of a mix and is less volatile.

Are you a gambler? Are you in it for the long run? Would you be happy to see your pension pot shrink by 50% come the next recession?

I already have my Local Government Pensions. I am guaranteed 2 of my pensions when I'm 60 plus a cash lump sum. I can afford to gamble my NEST pension by placing my money in the Sharia fund. As my employer and tax refunds make up 50% of my contributions I don't mind the future wild fluctuations. I know that the fund will recover any recession and regain eventually any losses.

Only you can decide if you want to trannsfer your funds. Do the research of the other funds and how they have performed (although past performances is no guarantee of future performance). I'm happy to leave my money in the Sharia fund - I add extra money every month - I have 16 years for my funds to grow.

Do some research on Compound Interest. My Sharia pension fund is returning a bigger return which means there is more money to reinvest every year meaning bigger returns.

Last year the Date funds lost money. The Sharia fund returned a small return.