What advice would you give to the younger you?

gtat

I'm 34, married and with a young child (potentially another in the future) - we have recently started SIPPs to 'bridge the gap' to our DB pensions, with the hope of retiring early around the age of 58.

Of course, everyone's pension journey is different and what worked for you may not be suitable for someone else. But, I'm intrigued, if you could go back in time and give your younger self (e.g. 34 year old ) advice with regards to pensions and retirement planning, what would it be? Is there anything you wish you had done differently, or something you are glad you did do?

Stubod

..start investing earlier!!

Notepad_Phil

Put a decent chunk of any salary increase straight away into your monthly contributions to your pension/investments.

Extremely glad I did this as it meant I was able to early retire in my mid 50s with a decent retirement portfolio that did not have to support a lifestyle that may have arisen if I had just spent every bit of every pay rise.

Thrugelmir

At 17 on the advice of my late father I started putting £10 a month into a pension plan. Good habits never get forgotten. 

Cheese1990

Consider your S&S ISA provision as well as your pension provision especially if you're a higher rate tax payer as ISa can top up the pension pay and LTA can certainly be an issue especially if you crystallise and have to pay 55% tax

barnstar2077

Have a budget.

Buy a house, invest, and start a pension as soon as possible.

Don't spend money to cheer yourself up (by buying rubbish you will throw away when you get bored with it etc), spending for spending's sake will just make you more depressed in the long run.

Don't feel bad about spending money on the right things though.  Spending money socially, meals / days out with family and friends is money well spent.

If you live this way you will have money and a strong social circle when you retire.

PS  Stay away from runaround Sue!

michaels

Sal sac anything over higher rate tax threshold

33scott

Don't rely on the default fund of your company scheme

Random47

Don't get old or start paying into a pension earlier.

Obviously one one chose from the above is realistic.

For yourself having DB is a major benefit. You should also consider buying the maximum you can with additional DB pension (APC) and spread these across the next 10-20 years and the net loss in cash per month will be negligible. For example if you are Local Authority employee you can currently buy just over £7K in guaranteed APC, so if your pension was going to be £22K at 58 it would be £7K more (less the same actuarial reduction as rest of your pension as taken before NPA/state pension age)  

hugheskevi

Done differently:

• Open an AVC before 2006 with a protected minimum pension age
• Open a Fidelity SIPP with protected minimum pension age of 55 before govt unexpectedly brought forward application deadline
  
• Do more when young, even though it will cost more - there is plenty of time to work in life

Glad I did:

• Avoided having children or getting divorced.
  
• Deprioritised mortgage repayment behind investments
  
• Spent several years traveling when young, many of which also avoided higher rate tax due to unpaid leave
• Put all higher rate income tax into a pension (until I had enough pension)
• Started with putting more into DC, then put more into DB
• Bought a house for first property which was big enough for all we wanted, moving is expensive and if you can use space it more than pays for itself, especially in London. It has also been great to have a garage and two spare bedrooms for guests whilst living only about 7 miles from London centre.
  
• Avoided promotion at work - the higher salary would not have compensated for the extra work/responsibility. Arguably could be said I effectively partially retired from about 2012 by not earning as much as I could.
• Restarted running in 2016 - far too many of my friends have very unheatlhy middle-aged lifestyles with too much food and not enough exercise. Sadly being overweight is now seen as normal, and being obese is just seen as just needing to lose a few kgs.
  
• Managed my own and my wife's finances jointly, to get most tax efficiency and achieve financial goals more rapidly.
  

kinger101

Don't spend your 20s !!!!!! it all against the wall - i.e., getting into a habit of saving early in your career.

Maximise tax efficiency of pension contributions.