Is my pot looking ok?

Cammywatson033

couriervanman said:

It always amuses me when someone comes on asking if pension pot is big enough for age/retirement date.........and its a usually a whopping big pot,big contributions/employer contributions plus they have a large cash pot in an ISA as well as large house worth £500k with a mortgage of £100k. I'm sure they know its big enough and will last through retirement but just want to see who has the biggest

Well I don’t have any money in an isa and I have a house worth £200k with a £170k mortgage on it so I don’t think I fall into the category of ‘people who come on to boast about their retirement pots’. Genuinely just someone who doesn’t know much about pensions (I think that’s obvious based on the information I provided) and want to ask people in the know if I’m on the right track.

Cammywatson033

andrew_m said:

My employer thinks they are the bees knees because they contribute 5% - is that sort of double digit contribution (let alone 16%) common?

I don’t know to be honest, I can only go on what my employer contributes. Don’t really speak about this kind of stuff with my family or friends so hard to judge what is normal. I was 23 am totally clueless when I enrolled in my first company pension scheme, I was genuinely just told by one of the older guys in my work to pay into this as I would regret it in the future if I didn’t haha

Albermarle

andrew_m said:

My employer thinks they are the bees knees because they contribute 5% - is that sort of double digit contribution (let alone 16%) common?

Often when a company stops the DB scheme and moves to a DC scheme, they have to be quite generous to get the change through without too much employee dissatisfaction . Probably the DB scheme was costing them >20% and with open ended liability to keep the scheme well funded.
Otherwise larger employers may typically pay 7% to 10% as a guess.

Albermarle

I was advised once that I should change to ‘high risk’ as I’ve got a long time till retirement and can ride out the bumps with high risk investment, and once I get closer to retirement age I should go low risk. I’ve no idea if this is good advice or not 

With a DC scheme , if you make no choices your money is invested in a medium risk default fund, or sometimes in a 'lifestyle fund ' where the risk level is adjusted as you get older, from higher to lower.

For sure when you are younger you should be invested at the higher end of the scale. Suggest you find out your username and password for the pensions providers website and have a look at where your money is invested.

Cammywatson033

Albermarle said:

I was advised once that I should change to ‘high risk’ as I’ve got a long time till retirement and can ride out the bumps with high risk investment, and once I get closer to retirement age I should go low risk. I’ve no idea if this is good advice or not 

With a DC scheme , if you make no choices your money is invested in a medium risk default fund, or sometimes in a 'lifestyle fund ' where the risk level is adjusted as you get older, from higher to lower.

For sure when you are younger you should be invested at the higher end of the scale. Suggest you find out your username and password for the pensions providers website and have a look at where your money is invested.

Thanks for this, I do have a log in so I will go In and have a look. Is it easy to change the investment? Is it a matter of looking at different options and they will tell me rates of return or whatever?

mcooke999

Cammywatson033 said:

Albermarle said:

I was advised once that I should change to ‘high risk’ as I’ve got a long time till retirement and can ride out the bumps with high risk investment, and once I get closer to retirement age I should go low risk. I’ve no idea if this is good advice or not 

With a DC scheme , if you make no choices your money is invested in a medium risk default fund, or sometimes in a 'lifestyle fund ' where the risk level is adjusted as you get older, from higher to lower.

For sure when you are younger you should be invested at the higher end of the scale. Suggest you find out your username and password for the pensions providers website and have a look at where your money is invested.

Thanks for this, I do have a log in so I will go In and have a look. Is it easy to change the investment? Is it a matter of looking at different options and they will tell me rates of return or whatever?

Should be. I think you'd benefit from doing a bit of research into investments / pensions in general. There's loads of good content on YouTube. It will serve you will in the future.

Cammywatson033

Thanks guys, will have a look 

vulcanrtb

andrew_m said:

My employer thinks they are the bees knees because they contribute 5% - is that sort of double digit contribution (let alone 16%) common?

I get 12% contribution but only because I have more than 10 years service.

Anonymous101

andrew_m said:

My employer thinks they are the bees knees because they contribute 5% - is that sort of double digit contribution (let alone 16%) common?

Not in my industry. I've sampled half a dozen of the market leaders through friends and ex colleagues and they typically pay 5-6%. The very best are paying 10%. I do know other industries where double figure percentages are more common but its not typical across the board.

Anonymous101

Cammywatson033 said:

couriervanman said:

It always amuses me when someone comes on asking if pension pot is big enough for age/retirement date.........and its a usually a whopping big pot,big contributions/employer contributions plus they have a large cash pot in an ISA as well as large house worth £500k with a mortgage of £100k. I'm sure they know its big enough and will last through retirement but just want to see who has the biggest

Well I don’t have any money in an isa and I have a house worth £200k with a £170k mortgage on it so I don’t think I fall into the category of ‘people who come on to boast about their retirement pots’. Genuinely just someone who doesn’t know much about pensions (I think that’s obvious based on the information I provided) and want to ask people in the know if I’m on the right track.

There's lots of information within the FIRE blogs about this. Mostly they focus on there you need to be in the end rather than answering the "am i on track?" question. This is because the advocates are typically trying to amass sufficient funds to retire much earlier than normal so there isn't really a benchmark, its very individual.