Tiny pot panic

cod3

@Dazed_and_C0nfused Thank you 

atush

cod3 said:

Kim1965 said:

At 67 you have nearly 15k fully indexed pension, coukd you live on that?
 If no, saving money in a sipp is a must, if yes extra savings give you the option of retiring early.
 Sounds like with themortgage paid off you have spare money, may aswell save in a sipp and get the tax lift. 

On paper, yes.  Thinking more about it, maybe not.  I am so used to doing DIY/maintenance myself, but now struggle with stamina and guess that this will get worse.  A couple of men came to my door last month and asked if they could cut my big hedges and I said yes (for the first time).  I can see this kind of thing being an expense in my future that I had not previously considered.  The house is getting older too.

Taking advantage of the tax lift seems irresistible.  I am in the intermediate 21% Scottish tax bracket so that is another thing for me to look into.

Dont ever do business with door knockers.

You mention children, can they help you?

cod3

@atush I don't usually entertain cold callers, but they were my neighbour's regular gardeners so thought they would be ok and certainly saved me a lot of time and effort.  The kids (young adults) are usually ok at helping out, but I assume they wont always be living at home (I hope not!) so have not factored them into my retirement calculations.

cod3

Today I signed up for Vanguard and started a SIPP    Went for LifeStrategy 60 in the end as it seems a good fit for me.  It's a good time for me to start as in May I stopped overpaying the mortgage and I also got a pay rise so won't notice the contributions from my monthly budget as much.  Fingers crossed the product improves in performance in the next 10+ years.   I will keep my bare-bones NEST pension going for the employer contributions. 

Thank you all for your help with my dilemma.  It honestly would not have occurred to me to start a personal pension and I would have been squandering fees if I had gone ahead with my initial plan to throw all my available money at NEST.  I am so relieved I plucked up the courage to ask and am very grateful for your input 

ChocolateWombat

The fact you have a CS pension and will have full state pension puts  you in a much better position than many will be in.  Plus 10 years is long enough to accumulate a decent amount in the SIPP and get some growth somewhere along the line.

Is your CS pension one you took early or is it a payout as part of a famiky member sadly deceased?

Albermarle

As above a CS pension of £5K for life with inflation linking is worth about £200K in value . Not kidding !

cod3

I became disabled years ago and they couldn't/wouldn't transfer me to something more suitable so pensioned me off.  I retrained a few years later and muddle by in my current job. I am very limited in what jobs I can do so am grateful to have the safety net of the monthly CS pension.

cod3

ChocolateWombat said:

The fact you have a CS pension and will have full state pension puts  you in a much better position than many will be in.  Plus 10 years is long enough to accumulate a decent amount in the SIPP and get some growth somewhere along the line.

Is your CS pension one you took early or is it a payout as part of a famiky member sadly deceased?

It is impossible to predict the future of my shiny new SIPP, but if it doesn't completely tank, I should be ok in retirement.  Feeling better about the future since this time last week