Educating the public

DT2001

Linked to this thread on page 2 and had to look at opening post as couldn’t understand why discussion was about vegan/vegetarian/number of children (yes, we have 4 and no we don’t complain about finances) on a pensions forum.

We, as a country, do need to improve our education of finances. Schools do do a better job now than when I was educated. Employers I think should do more. I worked for a bank in the 70/80/90’s and you tended to learn from colleagues. I did SAYE and took profit sharing in shares as someone took the time to explain why it was to my benefit. 
My parents were well educated, financially aware but my mother lives off SP, very small private pension, an inheritance and equity released when downsizing. Not having more provision was in part down to luck suffering redundancy and a business failing during a housing crisis.

Freedom for pensions comes with opportunities for scammers and for people to make poor decisions. Do people believe that for instance that everyone with a DC pension/SIPP should have to use part of their fund at 67 to buy an annuity? There is a trade off and if the majority are poorly prepared for retirement do we have to have more Govt involvement in our pensions?

coastline

All about striking a balance really. You've got to live your life and enjoy it with your hard earned cash. The years simply fly . 
If you've got enough to save for a pension then that's fine and many people are now positioning themselves for this. The government have made a start with the Workplace pension which could double the state pension with reasonable contributions over a lifetime. Years ago final salary pensions boosted many workers .
At the moment many rely on state pensions and benefits on top so unless you have a healthy second pension this will still apply in the future. We can only see what happens but many won't be better off as one will be a substitute for the other. Obvious example is rent which will be swallowed up with a second pension instead of state benefits. Rental is still on the increase at the moment. Maybe the governments basic idea is to reduce benefits with the second pension ?
We can't all have healthy second pensions as salaries aren't the best in every job.

MallyGirl

My employer does offer seminars on pension planning but the only colleagues I know who have attended are the ones that didn't really need to. I ended up virtually teaching the one I was on as they didn't know the details of our scheme, but it would have been fine as a starting point.
We have salary sacrifice but I have a colleague who refuses to do overtime as it will take him over £50k and he will lose his child benefit. I have explained that he could sacrifice a bit more to his pension and be fine but he won't take it in. Most of us do share save but quite a lot of the dev guys are sitting on many, many shares as they never sell. Too many eggs in one basket if the company gets in a pickle for my liking.
We have started to talk about pensions with our daughter but she has another 5 years of uni so it has just been an intro. She does know that we plan to retire early and are investing heavily in pensions to achieve that.

atush

TVAS said:

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. 

I agree with this.

having been raised in america, i knew what the stock market was, and what my Soc Sec pension was (ie state pension). 
i didnt have money to invest then, being a young person lol.  But you'd have to be deliberately stupid not to know anything about it.

When we moved here, i made it a point to learn about pensions, investing etc.  My OH is a professional and i was for a long time a stay at home mom apart from some part time work and education as i had 3 under 5.  i learned it all, and i run all his pensions and our investments now lol.  He could learn it, but given the hours he works and his need for some leisure time he doesnt.  but i do tell him everything i do, plus go over things on occasion.  Just done him a big spread sheet- even has pie charts showing overall allocation of assets lol.

i explained shares and the stock market to the kids when they were younger, and explained about pensions when they were still at Uni to make sure they joined their occupational pensions.  I also made them bank at least half of any Birthday cash received.

To hammer the point home, told the one who will be our executor (the trainee solicitor) about our pensions and their current worth last month (near LTA but not over).  He is also an active investor and i gave him 10K of ours to invest for us for fun.  He chose Scottish Mortgage as i did for one of OH's pensions lol.  So we think alike i guess.

All 3 say they arent haveing kids because they know how expensive they are (cuz i told them lol).  They decided they wanted to spend any spare money on themselves.  We'll see how long that lasts.

drummersdale

sammyjammy said:

I'm a civil servant and up to April 2015 when we were in Classic I had friends that I just couldn't get them to understand their pension, I mean that's probably one of the easiest things to understand ever, don't get me started on being contracted out.  God forbid anyone mentions they have a gold plated pension, people just don't get it mostly because they can't be bothered to take the time to understand it and read up on it.  Ignorance is bliss (not)

Same here - I have familiarised myself with the retirement and partial retirement calculators and have attended a couple of the seminars run by MYCSP and apparently am now the defacto go to expert amongst my colleagues - people only really seem to get interested in Pensions when like me they are a few years away from retirement.

Silvertabby

Mr S and I attended a financial seminar as part of our preparations for leaving the RAF.

The advisor started by looking round the room at us all, and then said: "Congratulations.  You have all  completed your 22 plus years service and will now enjoy your Service pensions with your lives and limbs intact.  I'm sure that you all know people who weren't so lucky".

Exactly.