Obsessed with pension planning and saving?

Archerychick

Pat38493 said:

Archerychick said:

FIREmenow said:

Has anyone else gotten obsessive over their pension?

Reading up on, and understanding my own pension options was a bit of a lifeline for me when I was on mat leave - I think my brain needed something different to keeping a baby alive to grab onto.  Now, my salary sacrificed pension contributions seem by far the most efficient use of my spare income with NI and student loan savings, so it can be hard justifying doing anything else with the money!

If you are naturally frugal/good with money, and have some disposable income, how do you know when to stop with the pension contributions and enjoy some of the money now?  I'm looking for ideas for some kind of system of how to portion up my spare money.

I am becoming more obsessed, but also apprehensive.

I’m probably c10-15years away from retirement and I’m excited about it! I love my job but to not have to go to work everyday is quite appealing and I have enough interests outside of work to keep me occupied.

I’ve been focussing on investing in the house and all the big jobs are done, and I have 21 months left until the mortgage is paid off. From this year I will be paying in the maximum allowed into my work pension and hopefully I can utilise some allowance I haven’t used in the last few years too.

Ive been working on what I think I need to live on  during retirement and that obviously starts by understanding what you need now. Last year I spent £18k excluding mortgage. The next step is working out a budget that also factors in things like a new car, more holidays, and without the latter I still only get to £21k. That makes me realise that I really don’t need that much to live on, I’m very happy with my quality of life and feel I have everything I need. A lot of this is absolutely because I was brought up to understand the value of money and i won’t spend unless it is something that’s required.

What am I apprehensive about? I very much do not understand pension investments and I’m concerned whether standard approach is the right one, so given the importance of this I need to see a IFA for the current approach to be reviewed so I can satisfy myself where the money is invested it good. If there was a qualification to understand this better I think I’d probably consider it!

There is - you could study to become a chartered financial planner!   However this might be overkill because you only need to understand the options that might be relevant for your situation.

A simpler start is to read a book about it E.g. Tim Hale’s book on smarter investing.  

Ha, yes I think that might be a little overkill but i will look up that book - thank you! 

FIREmenow

Thanks everyone for your obsession confessions (or denials!).

Couple of thoughts on those parent and USS tangents:

- We have a child who will be in their early 20's when we reach 60. We put some money into a S&S JISA but are mainly planning to gift some money from our S&S LISAs when we can access them so that we retain control of the money until a time we feel is right. Got this idea from someone on the forum!

-Good to know ISA savings are not included in student loan means testing although that's a long way off.

-I am also in USS. I'm making extra payments into the DC part with a view to transferring it all out to a SIPP for drawdown in early retirement, but giving it time to build up again whilst still working so that I can take the maximum tax-free cash when drawing the DC and DB parts together in later retirement (a couple of good threads on the forum about this). Not quite nailed down when the optimum time to transfer it out and let it build up again is yet. Maybe be two smaller transfers over time, taking the hit in SIPP fees earlier.

FIREmenow

Archerychick said:

Pat38493 said:

Archerychick said:

FIREmenow said:

Has anyone else gotten obsessive over their pension?

Reading up on, and understanding my own pension options was a bit of a lifeline for me when I was on mat leave - I think my brain needed something different to keeping a baby alive to grab onto.  Now, my salary sacrificed pension contributions seem by far the most efficient use of my spare income with NI and student loan savings, so it can be hard justifying doing anything else with the money!

If you are naturally frugal/good with money, and have some disposable income, how do you know when to stop with the pension contributions and enjoy some of the money now?  I'm looking for ideas for some kind of system of how to portion up my spare money.

I am becoming more obsessed, but also apprehensive.

I’m probably c10-15years away from retirement and I’m excited about it! I love my job but to not have to go to work everyday is quite appealing and I have enough interests outside of work to keep me occupied.

I’ve been focussing on investing in the house and all the big jobs are done, and I have 21 months left until the mortgage is paid off. From this year I will be paying in the maximum allowed into my work pension and hopefully I can utilise some allowance I haven’t used in the last few years too.

Ive been working on what I think I need to live on  during retirement and that obviously starts by understanding what you need now. Last year I spent £18k excluding mortgage. The next step is working out a budget that also factors in things like a new car, more holidays, and without the latter I still only get to £21k. That makes me realise that I really don’t need that much to live on, I’m very happy with my quality of life and feel I have everything I need. A lot of this is absolutely because I was brought up to understand the value of money and i won’t spend unless it is something that’s required.

What am I apprehensive about? I very much do not understand pension investments and I’m concerned whether standard approach is the right one, so given the importance of this I need to see a IFA for the current approach to be reviewed so I can satisfy myself where the money is invested it good. If there was a qualification to understand this better I think I’d probably consider it!

There is - you could study to become a chartered financial planner!   However this might be overkill because you only need to understand the options that might be relevant for your situation.

A simpler start is to read a book about it E.g. Tim Hale’s book on smarter investing.  

Ha, yes I think that might be a little overkill but i will look up that book - thank you! 

I started with Tim Hale's book too, and also the Monevator website.

Kaizen917

I fall into this middle ground of not quite feeling comfortable with the idea of saddling myself with a huge mortgage whilst still saving quite a lot, so hitting the gas on pension contributions has been quite a dedicated move to sacrifice salary and slash the tax bill.

The only trouble Im having is that I consider my workplace provider as borderline dodgy or outright incompetent (but if the latter, its suspicious mistakes tend to be at my expense). Its probably a worthy topic of its own but lets just say that I can also understand if someone comes to me from the angle that one could be a bit naive trying to navigate through the jungle on how best to utilize their workplace arrangements.