Do I move my small amount of savings?

anna2825

I am now 63 and when I was in my 20's I started to pay in to a private pension with Standard Life but when the recession hit I stopped.  Recently I found I had £53k sitting there! I took a tax free lump sum and now have c£42k there. It earns 1.5% interest. My question is, should I move the entire sum to NS&I or somewhere else and take the tax hit (Im not a high tax payer) or leave it?  I just cannot make up my mind!

jimjames

If your pension is only earning 1.5% interest then you really need to look at getting at least some of it invested as you could have 20+ years of retirement ahead of you. It would seem unusual to have a pension only as cash paying 1.5% though, are you sure that's the case? If you mean you've taken it all out of the pension and it's in savings at 1.5% then you can definitely do better when there are accounts paying 5%.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

anna2825 said:

I am now 63 and when I was in my 20's I started to pay in to a private pension with Standard Life but when the recession hit I stopped.  Recently I found I had £53k sitting there! I took a tax free lump sum and now have c£42k there. It earns 1.5% interest. My question is, should I move the entire sum to NS&I or somewhere else and take the tax hit (Im not a high tax payer) or leave it?  I just cannot make up my mind!

Is there some reason why you haven't invested the money within the pension?

Keeping money in cash, particularly with such a low interest rate, is an unusual approach for what is a long term product.

Why do you think taking the money out and, after paying tax on it, putting the net amount into a savings account might be a good idea 🤔

anna2825

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

anna2825 said:

I am now 63 and when I was in my 20's I started to pay in to a private pension with Standard Life but when the recession hit I stopped.  Recently I found I had £53k sitting there! I took a tax free lump sum and now have c£42k there. It earns 1.5% interest. My question is, should I move the entire sum to NS&I or somewhere else and take the tax hit (Im not a high tax payer) or leave it?  I just cannot make up my mind!

Is there some reason why you haven't invested the money within the pension?

Keeping money in cash, particularly with such a low interest rate, is an unusual approach for what is a long term product.

Why do you think taking the money out and, after paying tax on it, putting the net amount into a savings account might be a good idea 🤔

Sorry, I dont understand what you mean.  On my latest annual statement from Standard Life it says Im earning 1.5% but maybe Ive ubnstood that incorrectly? Not an excuse - I have Dyscaculia so interest rates, calculations etc leave me baffled

jimjames

That might just mean it returned 1.5% over the last 12 months not that it's 1.5% interest then. Does it say what/if the money is invested in?

anna2825

jimjames said:

That might just mean it returned 1.5% over the last 12 months not that it's 1.5% interest then. Does it say what/if the money is invested in?

Oh I see, yes you are probably right.  It says Im invested in the SL Inv Pathway Option 4 Pension Fund

400ixl

Many pension schemes do life modelling where by they move from your money being invested in stocks and shares into cash and commodity. This is to reduce the risk of big variations but the trade off is lower growth.

You need to speak to the provider about how your pension is modelled and whether that is right for you. It could be they can rebalance based on your risk appetite and you don't need to move it anywhere.