Educating the public

Nebulous2

Interesting article about the lack of knowledge around pensions. 

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-9139825/A-generation-sleepwalking-retirement-poverty.html

It kind of shows how unrepresentative a lot of the people on here are. 

With just over a week to go, I've some anxiety about whether I've done enough planning. That article provides some assurance that I'm way ahead of many people. 

cfw1994

I’ve said many times on countless threads what an awful job I think we (as a Country) do on educating people about finance in general, never mind the trickier long term thing that is Pensions.

I’m not at all surprised by that article.  

I work in a pretty well paid industry (IT), & am surrounded by people who are relatively clueless.  A small number will probably find they get to their late 50s and find they have unwittingly breached the LTA.  A much larger chunk will be continuing to work, despite having had the tools (brains, income!) to have given themselves choices well before they turn 60 to ‘step down’ if they wanted.  I’ve tried to help people understand the scheme and how things work....even gave a presentation to a bunch of them that were interested, but it is a drop in the ocean of education...

I know a few older pals who have retired and handed their funds over to “Wealth Management” firms because they are too fearful of losing it all.  That is totally their choice, but when I discover they did so ‘because their neighbour knew someone who worked there’, I get the sense that ‘due diligence’ may not have been done

I also know that the Aviva Group Pension scheme they chose to leave is a pretty low cost, decent scheme, with a reasonable choice of 80+ funds: I’ve spoken in some detail with some finance folk (who manage a couple of £Bn in fund management!) who confirmed they would be happy leaving it there.....yes, not advice, because they are not advisors, so ‘just an opinion’, but a pretty knowledgable one.  How many FAs or even IFAs would suggest leaving it there, I wonder?

We’ve done our best to educate our now-early-20s offspring from a young age: Santander do a great account from about the age of 12 that grows in capabilities as the children do, I imagine other banks may offer something similar.   They understand the concept of the power of compounding, & equally, the value of money.  Another thing we really encouraged was cooking, and both are very good in the kitchen. They also chose to be vegetarians, which invariably helps save money!

Yes, I am certain *all* the regulars on here are doing far, far better than the broader population.  

The newbies who post their questions at least are taking steps in the right direction to grasp the mettle and plan.  Failure to plan is planning to fail, as Benjamin Franklin first said.  Probably
(sorry, bit of a ramble!)

Albermarle

The article does not surprise me at all .
It does make clear though that some kind of half way house between DIY and full financial advice could be a way forward. 
Robo advice is OK for day to day investing but not for something as complicated as pensions and associated tax issues.
The pension providers having to offer some kind of investment guidance to people entering drawdown seems a good idea, although presumably they will make it clear that it is not 'advice',

Thrugelmir

The three most common FAQ pages visited on the Robinhood trading app in the US.

“What is the Stock Market?”

 “What is the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA)?” 

 “What is the S&P 500?”

Is technology making people dumber and lazier. In the race to the bottom to pay as little as possible for any service. 

michaels

cfw1994 said:

I’ve said many times on countless threads what an awful job I think we (as a Country) do on educating people about finance in general, never mind the trickier long term thing that is Pensions.

I’m not at all surprised by that article.  

I work in a pretty well paid industry (IT), & am surrounded by people who are relatively clueless.  A small number will probably find they get to their late 50s and find they have unwittingly breached the LTA.  A much larger chunk will be continuing to work, despite having had the tools (brains, income!) to have given themselves choices well before they turn 60 to ‘step down’ if they wanted.  I’ve tried to help people understand the scheme and how things work....even gave a presentation to a bunch of them that were interested, but it is a drop in the ocean of education...

I know a few older pals who have retired and handed their funds over to “Wealth Management” firms because they are too fearful of losing it all.  That is totally their choice, but when I discover they did so ‘because their neighbour knew someone who worked there’, I get the sense that ‘due diligence’ may not have been done

I also know that the Aviva Group Pension scheme they chose to leave is a pretty low cost, decent scheme, with a reasonable choice of 80+ funds: I’ve spoken in some detail with some finance folk (who manage a couple of £Bn in fund management!) who confirmed they would be happy leaving it there.....yes, not advice, because they are not advisors, so ‘just an opinion’, but a pretty knowledgable one.  How many FAs or even IFAs would suggest leaving it there, I wonder?

We’ve done our best to educate our now-early-20s offspring from a young age: Santander do a great account from about the age of 12 that grows in capabilities as the children do, I imagine other banks may offer something similar.   They understand the concept of the power of compounding, & equally, the value of money.  Another thing we really encouraged was cooking, and both are very good in the kitchen. They also chose to be vegetarians, which invariably helps save money!

Yes, I am certain *all* the regulars on here are doing far, far better than the broader population.  

The newbies who post their questions at least are taking steps in the right direction to grasp the mettle and plan.  Failure to plan is planning to fail, as Benjamin Franklin first said.  Probably
(sorry, bit of a ramble!)

Agree with all you say except....I try to increase the number of non-meat meals our family eats and one of the issues is cost, chicken and sausages are cheaper for grammes of protein than the vegetarian alternatives.

westv

michaels said:

cfw1994 said:

I’ve said many times on countless threads what an awful job I think we (as a Country) do on educating people about finance in general, never mind the trickier long term thing that is Pensions.

I’m not at all surprised by that article.  

I work in a pretty well paid industry (IT), & am surrounded by people who are relatively clueless.  A small number will probably find they get to their late 50s and find they have unwittingly breached the LTA.  A much larger chunk will be continuing to work, despite having had the tools (brains, income!) to have given themselves choices well before they turn 60 to ‘step down’ if they wanted.  I’ve tried to help people understand the scheme and how things work....even gave a presentation to a bunch of them that were interested, but it is a drop in the ocean of education...

I know a few older pals who have retired and handed their funds over to “Wealth Management” firms because they are too fearful of losing it all.  That is totally their choice, but when I discover they did so ‘because their neighbour knew someone who worked there’, I get the sense that ‘due diligence’ may not have been done

I also know that the Aviva Group Pension scheme they chose to leave is a pretty low cost, decent scheme, with a reasonable choice of 80+ funds: I’ve spoken in some detail with some finance folk (who manage a couple of £Bn in fund management!) who confirmed they would be happy leaving it there.....yes, not advice, because they are not advisors, so ‘just an opinion’, but a pretty knowledgable one.  How many FAs or even IFAs would suggest leaving it there, I wonder?

We’ve done our best to educate our now-early-20s offspring from a young age: Santander do a great account from about the age of 12 that grows in capabilities as the children do, I imagine other banks may offer something similar.   They understand the concept of the power of compounding, & equally, the value of money.  Another thing we really encouraged was cooking, and both are very good in the kitchen. They also chose to be vegetarians, which invariably helps save money!

Yes, I am certain *all* the regulars on here are doing far, far better than the broader population.  

The newbies who post their questions at least are taking steps in the right direction to grasp the mettle and plan.  Failure to plan is planning to fail, as Benjamin Franklin first said.  Probably
(sorry, bit of a ramble!)

Agree with all you say except....I try to increase the number of non-meat meals our family eats and one of the issues is cost, chicken and sausages are cheaper for grammes of protein than the vegetarian alternatives.

Better vegetarian than this god awful vegan nonsense! 

TVAS

Well this is what I think. As a nation we are shallow and lazy and stupid. We do not want to learn how things work. How many times have a listened to MoneyBox  when somebody has been ripped off with a pension transfer and manages to find Moneybox after the transfer not before. Well done michaels for what you have done so far. I once overhead a woman saying pensions are really boring so I said there is nothing boring about a woman having her own pension and therefore having her own money. We cannot leave financial education to teachers because they are also ignorant. When we bailed out the !!!!!! banks we should have insisted they do a programme on money and started with the poor areas first. 

mggftz30

westv said:

Agree with all you say except....I try to increase the number of non-meat meals our family eats and one of the issues is cost, chicken and sausages are cheaper for grammes of protein than the vegetarian alternatives.

Possibly because you replace meat with processed alternatives which can be expensive.  Some of the cheapest ingredients on the planet are plant based: rice, beans, greens etc. You don’t need to buy processed. 

I’ve been plant based for over 20 years and find it a cheap way to live. I still buy vegan chocolate, cake and icecream occasionally but prices are comparable with non vegan alternatives now.

Lots of plant based info and recipes on https://nutritionfacts.org/ site if it helps:)

Thrugelmir

Rice unfortunately isn't environmentally friendly to grow. 

mggftz30

Thrugelmir said:

Rice unfortunately isn't environmentally friendly to grow. 

I was responding to a post about cost but...if your an environmentalist you should look at a study by University of Oxford which shows the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact on earth is to eat a plant based (vegan) diet  

cloud_dog

Surely the single biggest way would be to cease to be 🤗