Pension for female in 40s?

MX5huggy

I would be wary of saving in a pension in your position, you could just be saving the state paying pension credit or other benefits once you receive your state pension. 24 plus years away and things will change but I would look at existing rules for guidance. Maybe ask on the benefits board. 

honeybee1234

Brie said:

honeybee1234 said:

What kind of pensions? I don't know the correct terminology, but just the kind where I contributed from my pay and my employer contributed. One was Equiniti, one was through Asda, and the other was Legal and General.

my guess is that they will be defined contribution plans which means they are likely to be pots of pension money that you would be allowed to transfer into a SIPP if you wanted.  All of these should be sending you regular (yearly?) pension statements.  If you aren't getting these it may be that they don't have your current address and haven't been able to trace you.  You will need to contact each of them to find out what they hold for you.  To do this you will need to provide your name (including any previous ones if relevant) address, NI No., date of birth and it may be helpful to say when you paid into the schemes and who your employers were.  Some schemes are great at replying within a couple of weeks but others will need to be chased if they don't respond within a month or so.

Two of them were what seems like a long time ago and need a bit of investigation. The Legal and General one was only 4 years ago so I'm just looking into what I have on it. 

honeybee1234

MX5huggy said:

I would be wary of saving in a pension in your position, you could just be saving the state paying pension credit or other benefits once you receive your state pension. 24 plus years away and things will change but I would look at existing rules for guidance. Maybe ask on the benefits board. 

This briefly crossed my mind when I recently started thinking about my pension so I'll definitely look into this, thanks. 

xylophone

Two of them were what seems like a long time ago and need a bit of investigation.

Is it possible that they were Defined Benefit Schemes?

Were you employed by Equiniti or is Equiniti just the Administrator of the Scheme in question?

Is a COPE shown on your state pension forecast?

L9XSS

honeybee1234 said:

L9XSS said:

Morning. You could open a SIPP (Self invested personal pension). There are lots of Providers. Some of the larger ones being Vanguard, Fidelity, Hargreaves Lansdown & AJ Bell. I’ve used all four, however I find Vanguard to be have the best web site for ease of use. It’s easy to set up and you can opt to invest in different lifestyle funds tailored to your anticipated retirement date or pick and choose your own funds. For every £1 you deposit as a lower rate tax payer into your pension the taxman will add a further 20%, basically £1 invested by you becomes £1.25 in your SIPP.

Thankyou for the tips, I'll look into these. I didn't realise any other funds would go into a SIPP in my circumstances, so this is good to know. 

Yes you can set up a SIPP independently of your employers pension if your working or not. 

honeybee1234

xylophone said:

Two of them were what seems like a long time ago and need a bit of investigation.

Is it possible that they were Defined Benefit Schemes?

Were you employed by Equiniti or is Equiniti just the Administrator of the Scheme in question?

Is a COPE shown on your state pension forecast?

No, they weren't Defined Benefit schemes. Equiniti was the administrator of one of my pension schemes, and no, there's not a COPE shown on the forecast.

xylophone

No, they weren't Defined Benefit schemes. 

Just Defined Contribution with no safeguarded benefits?

Are you receiving annual statements in respect of these schemes?

NedS

MX5huggy said:

I would be wary of saving in a pension in your position, you could just be saving the state paying pension credit or other benefits once you receive your state pension. 24 plus years away and things will change but I would look at existing rules for guidance. Maybe ask on the benefits board. 

I completely understand this point of view, but I would want to know I had some sort of financial control rather than being totally dependent upon handouts from the state, and at the whim of any rule changes between now and when they reach state retirement age. We have all seen how the rules are constantly shifting, generally not in our favour.

Even a small amount of pension may allow the OP some income to retire earlier than state pension age, which may be 70 by then!

Altior

How does one retire early if not working.

Albermarle

NedS said:

MX5huggy said:

I would be wary of saving in a pension in your position, you could just be saving the state paying pension credit or other benefits once you receive your state pension. 24 plus years away and things will change but I would look at existing rules for guidance. Maybe ask on the benefits board. 

I completely understand this point of view, but I would want to know I had some sort of financial control rather than being totally dependent upon handouts from the state, and at the whim of any rule changes between now and when they reach state retirement age. We have all seen how the rules are constantly shifting, generally not in our favour.

Even a small amount of pension may allow the OP some income to retire earlier than state pension age, which may be 70 by then!

I fully understand your point of view as well. However as the OP is a renter, she would potentially be eligible for housing benefit, (maybe already is) and income from a pension (or notional income if you were not actually taking it) would be taken into account and potentially reduce housing benefit, amongst others. On the other hand I think you are allowed up to £16K in savings before means tested benefits are affected. So the OP maybe better off just trying to build up a savings pot, as she has no savings at all this would be a good idea anyway to help with day to day emergencies ( new cooker etc )
The three existing pensions could just be merged and taken later. Probably they will not be big enough to have a significant effect on benefits.

OP - it is a complicated area and as previously suggested you can ask some of these questions on the benefits forum where there are some experts in this area.Benefits & tax credits — MoneySavingExpert Forum