Pension dropping suddenly

BigBear68

As someone who recently found could start comfortably saving £50 per month I plumped for putting the money into an old frozen Standard Life workplace pension opposed to a savings account. So it has been disappointing to see the plan value dropping although I am now investing into it, I keep telling myself pension is the way to go and this is just a short term blip but it's so tempting to put it into my savings account where I can see it's at least doing something.

Thankfully my current workplace pension is still showing an upward trend so my confidence in pension investment continues.

dunstonh

I plumped for putting the money into an old frozen Standard Life workplace pension opposed to a savings account. 

The old standard life plan would have been paid up.  Not frozen.   Frozen has a different meaning but is commonly misused, even by some small pension providers nowadays.

 So it has been disappointing to see the plan value dropping although I am now investing into it, I keep telling myself pension is the way to go and this is just a short term blip but it's so tempting to put it into my savings account where I can see it's at least doing something.

That is not disappointing.   A falling value whilst paying in monthly is a good thing.  It means each month the number of units you buy is bigger.  When it goes back up, it will be those cheapest units that make the most money.

Putting it in a savings account would not get tax relief and would automatically be worse off from day one.  Plus, you would suffer inflation risk and shortfall risk at a higher level than investments.

Thankfully my current workplace pension is still showing an upward trend so my confidence in pension investment continues.

This suggests you have chosen a different investment strategy between the two plans.   
Why are you investing differently?

BigBear68

Thankfully my current workplace pension is still showing an upward trend so my confidence in pension investment continues.

This suggests you have chosen a different investment strategy between the two plans.   

Why are you investing differently?

Around a year ago I attempted to make a one off payment into my workplace pension, the app for that policy does not allow extra payments via it and advised I contact my payroll department to make the payment, this proved to be more difficult than I envisaged, my Standard Life app allows payments via the app and as the policy seems to be doing well up to this point I decided it would just be easier to start make payments into it and kick start it back into life.

QrizB

BigBear68 said:

This suggests you have chosen a different investment strategy between the two plans.   

Why are you investing differently?
Around a year ago I attempted to make a one off payment into my workplace pension, the app for that policy does not allow extra payments via it and advised I contact my payroll department to make the payment, this proved to be more difficult than I envisaged, my Standard Life app allows payments via the app and as the policy seems to be doing well up to this point I decided it would just be easier to start make payments into it and kick start it back into life.

I thnk you've answered the wrong question.

Your workplace pension and your SL pension are just two different places where you can invest money for your eventual retirement. Both are likely to offer a range of investment options.

If one has gone up while the other has gone down, it suggests that you have chosen quite different investments for the two pensions. We were wondering what those investments were, how you chose them, and how that choice relates to your eventual retirement goals?

kempiejon

BigBear68 said:

Thankfully my current workplace pension is still showing an upward trend so my confidence in pension investment continues.

This suggests you have chosen a different investment strategy between the two plans.   

Why are you investing differently?

Around a year ago I attempted to make a one off payment into my workplace pension, the app for that policy does not allow extra payments via it and advised I contact my payroll department to make the payment, this proved to be more difficult than I envisaged, my Standard Life app allows payments via the app and as the policy seems to be doing well up to this point I decided it would just be easier to start make payments into it and kick start it back into life.

I see a new post dropped but I think the questions are
Where is the money that goes into the work place pension invested.
Where does the Standard Life payment get invested? 

BigBear68

Standard Life is invested between mainly SL Sustainable Multi Asset Pre Retirement Pn and then a smaller amount into Standard Life At Retirement Universal Pension Fund.

My workplace pension which is with L&G is invested in Consensus/Over 15y Glts 7y LS.

I didn't choose the investments as my pension knowledge is nowhere good enough,these investments are what comes with the plan when started.

happymum37

Sorry all been hit with sickness at work so I have been working like mad to provide cover. 

Hubby undressed good pension contributions to 15% this month so he pays £500 now.  We can't afford more at this point.

His boss pays 4% i think.  It's the lowest possible they pay. We have no mortgage but low savings so trying to get a cash pot behind us as well as pensions

Will answer questions this weekend as we hopefully off.
Thanks again

Cobbler_tone

Was looking for a thread to tag to. 
I wanted to try something a bit different to the default option on my workplace scheme. I trawled through the 40 odd available funds and put 20% into this. It will make no tangible difference to my end goal...even if it was wiped out (hopefully not and a supplementary pension) but this fund has performed as well as any. I guess that deep down I am a low level curious gambler.   
TBF I did spend a few hours clicking through on the performance of every available fund.