Getting FIREd up 😀

South_coast

Obvs....😀😀😀

edinburgher

Pffft - check you 😋

South_coast

It does make it strangely boring/dissatisfying when you just follow the bl**dy plan, though. I've got it all marked out in different-coloured cells on my "savings allocations" spreadsheet at the minute, and it's pleasing for about 30 seconds when I turn a cell green - but that glow fades disappointingly quickly! Is that all the reward I get for working hard all month 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤔🤔🤔???

South_coast

So, as promised, I have done some pension research - though sadly don't feel much further forward. I was hoping to get some basic stats together so that I could compare them side-by-side, but it proved to be not as straightforward as I thought 🙁!

Pension 1

Charges: 0.4%

Retirement age: 65

Lifestyling: 5 years (Age 60)

Pension 2

Charges 0.22%

Retirement age: 65

Lifestyling: 14 years (Age 51) This seems like a really random figure though, so maybe I am misinterpreting the chart and it's 15 years/Age 50 🤷‍♀️?

Pension 3

Charges: £4.50/year, plus 0.5%, minus a rebate on the 0.5%, on a sliding scale depending on the value of the pot 🤯 Last year I was charged £4.50 + £68.65 and had £14.36 rebated

Retirement age: 65

Lifestyling: 15 years (Age 50)

Pension 4 (Current)

Charges: 0.55%, plus transaction charges (but not clear what these transaction charges are, and whether a regular contribution via salary counts 🤷‍♀️)

Retirement age: 68

Lifestyling: ??? Can't find any mention of it

So, where I had been thinking I might transfer Pension 3 (the smallest pot) into Pension 4, I have decided instead to move it into Pension 2 to take advantage of the lower fees and get away from that baffling fee structure (the fringe benefit being also to get away from what I consider to be a misplaced apostrophe in their name, which has bugged me for years 😅!) The lifestyling is the same for both 2 and 3 (I think), so it looks to be a fairly straight swap. This will make Pension 2 roughly 50% of the total pot as it stands currently. Maybe as I get a bit closer to the initiation of the lifestyling, I could look to dump Pension 2 into Pension 1 to give it 10 more years of potential stronger growth 🤔?*

I felt a bit disheartened after what I thought was going to be the easy part turned out to be so difficult, so I haven't yet got as far as seeing whether the target number is actually correct. I suspect it's coming up short, however as I'm currently on track to reach that number a couple of years before I qualify for a full state pension, it'll probably end up balancing itself out somewhere down the line as I'll work on past hitting it. I'll run the numbers properly at some point!

* Or 10 more years of potential larger falls, depending on who is in the White House at the time…. When logging in just now to start the transfer, I couldn't help noticing that Pension 2 was down by £2k and Pension 3 down by £1k in the 21 days since the start of the month (am telling myself it doesn't matter, other than that I will be "buying cheap" at the other end 😬)

South_coast

P.S. I am not a fan of this new text editor!

BookWorm

Well done SC… great work. May I ask was it easy to find out the charges? I should probably do that sooner rather than later

South_coast

Thanks 😀! Finding out the charges varied in easiness (not sure that's a word, but my brain is failing me) by provider. It wasn't horrendous, but not necessarily straightforward either 🤣!

BookWorm

It's all such a foreign language to me

edinburgher

My contribution would be not to let the charges tail wag the returns dog. Cheaper charges doesn't mean a better pension (unless all other factors are equal, such as the investments held in the pension).

1. How have the funds in your pension performed Vs their stated benchmarks?

2. Do you need lifestyling and does it match your needs? Not overly aggressive or overly cautious?

There's a good reason all my DC pensions got rolled into my Vanguard SIPP (not even the cheapest option at 0.39% total charges). Not my AVCs but that's because of tax benefits.

South_coast

*Goes through recycle bin of screenshots on phone....*

This is Pension 2 against the benchmark, so I'd say that's pretty tight

Screenshot_20260322_104237_Gallery.jpg

I don't recall seeing stats on the others (though it will definitely have been there). 75% of Pension 1 is already a 4 out of 7 for risk, so I'm happy with that only lifestyling for 5 years (the other 25% is in three different funds which are all 6 out of 7. These used to only make up 15% of the total, but the 5% in North American has grown to 14% and changed the proportions). Pension 4 feels like it's doing well (set at 6 out of 7 for risk), but that might just be because there's new money going into it each month 🤷‍♀️

It all feels a bit academic anyway at the moment.… I have a feeling my next monthly check-in won't be a good one!