How to Invest £150k

marycanary

moneysaver2019 said:

Reading all the comments I think I need to look at pensions again.

A lot have people have told you, rightly, what a mistake it was not to pay into a pension. Please don't feel too bad about this. You have made some great financial decisions by not getting into debt and having a paid for house. You made a mistake on pensions but you have the disposable income to improve your position.

Investments can appear scary so keep reading this and the Pension forum and posting questions. 

Sorry if this is off the mark, but do not get fixated on finance to the exclusion of other aspects of your life. While being a basic rate taxpayer with £150k savings, a mortgage free home and £15k a year to save is a great achievement, don't forget to live and enjoy life now.

Good luck.

moneysaver2019

Thank-you again for all the comments, I appreciate all of you that have taken the time to comment.
I'm definitely looking into pensions more closely and try to balance it more against the cash I have in savings.

marycanary, not at all, it makes sense what you have said, I think more of a balance is required all round.

xylophone

At the least, join the workplace pension scheme?

VXman

whitehartal said:

VXman said:

You can access pension from 55 (that's only 11 years time for you providing the government don't change the rules). You can then draw 25% of that in a lump - tax free! (having benefitted from 25% tax relief on the way in too)

Personal pension access age is rising from 55 to 57 in 2028, and then increasing to 58 in 2034.

 I hadn't realised that. Having got there already myself I have switched off a little to changes. Still worthwhile doing though,

MarcoM

ColdIron said:

moneysaver2019 said:

I'm a basic rate tax payer ... I'd like to try and make my money work more for me now.

With that £15,000 there's £3,750 pa in tax relief straight away

Surviving on the state pension sounds like a pretty grim prospect to me

Maybe OP is worried that the retirement age will be beyond 70 by the time he retires?
Do we all trust the government to pay our pension in 30 years time?

Question for the OP, do you want to retire early?

moneysaver2019

MarcoM said:

ColdIron said:

moneysaver2019 said:

I'm a basic rate tax payer ... I'd like to try and make my money work more for me now.

With that £15,000 there's £3,750 pa in tax relief straight away

Surviving on the state pension sounds like a pretty grim prospect to me

Maybe OP is worried that the retirement age will be beyond 70 by the time he retires?
Do we all trust the government to pay our pension in 30 years time?

Question for the OP, do you want to retire early?

Thanks for commenting, and yes, I do wonder what age the retirement age will be  I know mine will be at least 68 or maybe more.

Ideally I would want to retire at 60, leaving me around 16 complete years to work, all being well.

I'm happy to tie up 80% of the savings I listed, plus how to best save/invest the extra circa £15k a year.

MEM62

moneysaver2019 said:

The only pension product I have is my LISA. .

With only £20k towards your retirement savings you are well behind the curve.  

moneysaver2019 said:

I've seen the forecast from a works based pension and it doesn't look very good to me compared to what I would have to put in

Then you are misunderstanding it.  Any investment into your pension will be made (and grow) tax free - a contribution from the Government and will contain a contribution from your employer.  Nothing beats a pension as a vehicle for providing for your retirement. 

moneysaver2019 said:

also i don't want a large amount of money inaccessible for around another 20 years or so.

But it is for your retirement, it is for that stage in your life.  Why would you want early access to it.  Spend it before you retire and what are you going to live on when you stop working.  

In my opinion you need a re-think in terms of what pensions are, the benefits that they have and why you need one.  

MarcoM

moneysaver2019 said:

MarcoM said:

ColdIron said:

moneysaver2019 said:

I'm a basic rate tax payer ... I'd like to try and make my money work more for me now.

With that £15,000 there's £3,750 pa in tax relief straight away

Surviving on the state pension sounds like a pretty grim prospect to me

Maybe OP is worried that the retirement age will be beyond 70 by the time he retires?
Do we all trust the government to pay our pension in 30 years time?

Question for the OP, do you want to retire early?

Thanks for commenting, and yes, I do wonder what age the retirement age will be  I know mine will be at least 68 or maybe more.

Ideally I would want to retire at 60, leaving me around 16 complete years to work, all being well.

I'm happy to tie up 80% of the savings I listed, plus how to best save/invest the extra circa £15k a year.

I think the point others have made regarding pensions are very valid, my fear however is the government.
they have no money left and imho other than increased taxation they only way they can get money is keep rising retirement age.

ColdIron

MarcoM said:

ColdIron said:

moneysaver2019 said:

I'm a basic rate tax payer ... I'd like to try and make my money work more for me now.

With that £15,000 there's £3,750 pa in tax relief straight away

Surviving on the state pension sounds like a pretty grim prospect to me

Maybe OP is worried that the retirement age will be beyond 70 by the time he retires?

There is no 'retirement age' any more. State pension age for OP will probably be 68 but their private pension should be accessible at 58

Do we all trust the government to pay our pension in 30 years time?

The government won't be paying the private pension, the pension company might in 15 years time

If the OP wants to retire at 60 a private pension is the obvious vehicle

moneysaver2019

Reading all the comments everyone has made (all of which I appreciate), this weekend I've thought more about what I do want.

Looking at what I want, I don't need to access my money anytime soon (all being well). 
Having no access to the bulk of my money until I'm 60 is acceptable to me, in hindsight I should have thought more about this, but I guess that what's this forum is all about, offering advice and sharing experiences.

Also, off topic, but having just lost my dad very recently at a relatively young age (he was 65) has made me think twice about all this planning for the later years. So that  put me off thinking about pension age, but that's a short sighted view to have and granted, nobody knows what the future will bring.