Almost nobody in my workplace invests in the stock market for their retirement, it's insane.

artyboy

[Deleted User] said:

[Deleted User] said:

I work in a slightly below average pay job and I've probably spoken to about 20 out of the 30 colleagues about investing, just to gauge how common it is among "regular" people. 

And literally not one person I spoke to said they invest in the stock market, even when I asked about the workplace pension, about half of them said they opted out because "money now is better than money when I'm dead" which is just silly because the average life expectancy in the UK is 82... So what are they going to do to get by until they die? The state pension only? Yeah good luck with that.

One guy I spoke to who was in his mid 20's said he saves some money but in a savings account with a bank. I asked him what the interest rate was and he didn't even know... So probably like 1.5% if it's a regular high street bank which I suspect it is. I didn't have the heart to tell him he's actually losing money to inflation, not saving it... 

It just seems like not enough people are being financially responsible and taking steps to ensure they have a comfortable retirement. I absolutely promise you when you're 65 and freezing cold in your home because you can't afford to put the heating on, eating from food banks and having no money to do anything, you'll totally regret not being frugal and investing for your future. 

I think too many people live in the here and now without a seconds thought for the future. I understand that money is tight for many people but surely you can put a little bit away each month to supplement your pension when you're old?

I think financial education should be mandatory in schools with students being shown videos of old people living in poverty because they didn't invest in their retirements.

Personally I don't classify investing as being 'financially responsible'. Far from it in fact, its gambling with your hard earned money, in fact its worse. Its letting some other pleb gamble with your hard earned money.

Saving yes, investing no.

You could lose not gain. Not just in comparison to inflation but proper loss.

And life is for living, especially when you're young.

Good for them I say.

Please, please, PLEASE tell me that is sarcasm.

Alexland

noclaf said:

Without any real stats to back up my assumptions (just a hunch) I would say a lot more folks are clued up on pensions now compared to 20 years back. 

I started work around that time in a company that had just closed it's DB scheme to new members but most of the people I worked with were still able to accrue benefits for another decade before they were moved onto the DC scheme. There was a lot of talk about the pension scheme because I think people really understood what they were going to get out of it. Now it's all DC and there's more flexibility on access age people don't seem to understand how a % contribution might lead to a range of potential incomes depending on investment performance and asset allocation. So because it's harder people understand it less. At least that's my workplace experience.

I think it was that early realisation and constant office chat of what I had missed in not being able to join the DB scheme that made me put a higher % into my DC scheme from the start of my career. I still get asked a lot of questions about that DB scheme at work even though I was never a member.

Money_Grabber13579

Altior said:

Archerychick said:

All at the sacrifice of just £100 per month, or £3.30 per day. Seems like such a no brainer to me I genuinely find it hard to believe that so many people (in my place of work) don't think the £100 a month is a worthwhile price to pay.

I guess because £100 might mean they then can’t heat their homes - that would be a pretty horrible existence. There are a lot of people who are living on the bread line, more than when we were younger 

Out of interest, what's that claim based on? What time period/point of reference does 'when we were younger' draw upon.

My instinct is what a lot of people consider the 'bread line' is significantly different to what it was many years ago. I was born in the 70s, so I just about reach back to the winter of discontent in my living memory. My Dad's family had a tin bath, filled once a day with hot water from a kettle, the family shared the same bathwater. He was born in the 40s. 

There will be some people (I don’t know how many) who believe they live on the breadline because they spend every penny they have (and then possibly some more) so they have nothing left for emergencies.  

I think what’s really lacking these days is personal responsibility and that applies to a lot more than just personal finance. So long as people understand that their actions now have consequences for the future and understand where that might leave them, then no one should criticise their actions.  But I also fully sympathise with the sentiments of this thread and fear that many people are living as good a life as they can now and will have absolutely no provision for the future.  In particular, I really worry about the generation of people who don’t (and won’t ever) own their own homes. A state pension isn’t going to cover the rental payments in retirement.

As one poster mentioned earlier, it really is a case of the can being kicked down the road.

Nebulous2

QrizB said:

Altior said:

Not particularly directed at the poster I quoted, but unfortunately we do have people/posters who seem very often to try and make out it's 'so bad' right now, when it actually isn't. It really isn't, in my view. If it is, however, let's see some tangible evidence.

In 1991, straight out of Compton sorry uni and before minimum wage legislation, I was pleased to get a casual job on £3.50 an hour. Inflated to today, that would be £7.90. current minimum wage is 50% higher than that so I'd suggest that the low-waged are substantially better off today than they were then.

Altior said:

 RL is our employer pension provider, we regularly get RL reps to come in and deliver pension presentations, with AMA time at the end. I work in a fin tech business, with an employee profile that is tilted to the young. Most colleagues have at least a basic grasp of accounting and finance, to get through the door. Almost everyone zones out, so many young people just don't care about pensions.

Our provider is Scottish Widows. They provide quarterly pensions talks via Teams and it's quite noticeable that most of the self-selecting audience are from the mature end of the age range.

Having said that, a few of the young uns in the office were talking about risking a few hundred on day trading, so us old fogeys pointed out that they had much bigger stock market investments in their pensions. That got them thinking about their investment strategies and at least a few of them decided to increase their contributions from the minimum. So ther might be hope for them yet!

My first real job - with a payslip and formal pay packet - was in 1976 at 14 years old. I was paid £45 per fortnight, or £22.50 per week. Hours were whatever it took to complete the work, but probably around 40-45 hours, with occasional 5am starts. 

Rather than feeling I was being exploited, I still think it was one of the most life-affirming experiences I've ever had. Most of my co-workers were retired men, most of them with wartime service and it was a pleasure to spend so much time in their company. 

auser99

[Deleted User] said:

[Deleted User] said:

I work in a slightly below average pay job and I've probably spoken to about 20 out of the 30 colleagues about investing, just to gauge how common it is among "regular" people. 

And literally not one person I spoke to said they invest in the stock market, even when I asked about the workplace pension, about half of them said they opted out because "money now is better than money when I'm dead" which is just silly because the average life expectancy in the UK is 82... So what are they going to do to get by until they die? The state pension only? Yeah good luck with that.

One guy I spoke to who was in his mid 20's said he saves some money but in a savings account with a bank. I asked him what the interest rate was and he didn't even know... So probably like 1.5% if it's a regular high street bank which I suspect it is. I didn't have the heart to tell him he's actually losing money to inflation, not saving it... 

It just seems like not enough people are being financially responsible and taking steps to ensure they have a comfortable retirement. I absolutely promise you when you're 65 and freezing cold in your home because you can't afford to put the heating on, eating from food banks and having no money to do anything, you'll totally regret not being frugal and investing for your future. 

I think too many people live in the here and now without a seconds thought for the future. I understand that money is tight for many people but surely you can put a little bit away each month to supplement your pension when you're old?

I think financial education should be mandatory in schools with students being shown videos of old people living in poverty because they didn't invest in their retirements.

Personally I don't classify investing as being 'financially responsible'. Far from it in fact, its gambling with your hard earned money, in fact its worse. Its letting some other pleb gamble with your hard earned money.

Saving yes, investing no.

You could lose not gain. Not just in comparison to inflation but proper loss.

And life is for living, especially when you're young.

Good for them I say.

Agree with you and that's the way I've been brought up - low risk.

There's a lot material out there that seems to give the impression investing is a given - whack some money into x, y and z and you'll be worth millions in a couple of decades.

[Deleted User]

artyboy said:

[Deleted User] said:

[Deleted User] said:

I work in a slightly below average pay job and I've probably spoken to about 20 out of the 30 colleagues about investing, just to gauge how common it is among "regular" people. 

And literally not one person I spoke to said they invest in the stock market, even when I asked about the workplace pension, about half of them said they opted out because "money now is better than money when I'm dead" which is just silly because the average life expectancy in the UK is 82... So what are they going to do to get by until they die? The state pension only? Yeah good luck with that.

One guy I spoke to who was in his mid 20's said he saves some money but in a savings account with a bank. I asked him what the interest rate was and he didn't even know... So probably like 1.5% if it's a regular high street bank which I suspect it is. I didn't have the heart to tell him he's actually losing money to inflation, not saving it... 

It just seems like not enough people are being financially responsible and taking steps to ensure they have a comfortable retirement. I absolutely promise you when you're 65 and freezing cold in your home because you can't afford to put the heating on, eating from food banks and having no money to do anything, you'll totally regret not being frugal and investing for your future. 

I think too many people live in the here and now without a seconds thought for the future. I understand that money is tight for many people but surely you can put a little bit away each month to supplement your pension when you're old?

I think financial education should be mandatory in schools with students being shown videos of old people living in poverty because they didn't invest in their retirements.

Personally I don't classify investing as being 'financially responsible'. Far from it in fact, its gambling with your hard earned money, in fact its worse. Its letting some other pleb gamble with your hard earned money.

Saving yes, investing no.

You could lose not gain. Not just in comparison to inflation but proper loss.

And life is for living, especially when you're young.

Good for them I say.

Please, please, PLEASE tell me that is sarcasm.

Nope. If you don't like it tough. 

AmityNeon

TheBanker said:

QrizB said:

Altior said:

Not particularly directed at the poster I quoted, but unfortunately we do have people/posters who seem very often to try and make out it's 'so bad' right now, when it actually isn't. It really isn't, in my view. If it is, however, let's see some tangible evidence.

In 1991, straight out of Compton sorry uni and before minimum wage legislation, I was pleased to get a casual job on £3.50 an hour. Inflated to today, that would be £7.90. current minimum wage is 50% higher than that so I'd suggest that the low-waged are substantially better off today than they were then.

Yes, wages were lower, but so were costs, especially housing.

Back in the '70s my dad drove a bus for a living and my mum worked in an office. When I was born at the end of that decade, my mum stopped work. She didn't go back to work for eight years (when my little sister started school), and even then it was only part time. In those days the mum staying at home to look after the children, or just working part time was much more common.

Despite only having one salary, they continued to pay the mortgage on their modest semi-detached house. I know they really wanted to move to a bigger house but couldn't quite afford it. We always had nice food on the table (mostly cooked from fresh each day by my mum), we always had clean clothes (although a lot were 'hand me downs' from my older cousin) and we got a holiday every year all be it in a caravan on the Norfolk coast. As far as I know the only state help they received was the Child Benefit. Looking back, we were poor but we were no different to all the other families I knew. Compared to their post-war childhoods, mine would have been a life of luxury.

You would struggle to make ends meet on a bus driver's wages today, even though we now have the minimum wage.

Key point. A young bus driver today simply wouldn't be able to realistically think about purchasing a property based solely on their earnings, let alone start raising a family in addition thereto. My parents were working class but from the ages of 24/25 started the family (three children) in purchased properties around London. They disliked the prospect of renting and their salaries alone were sufficient to buy (without financial assistance from their own parents), upsizing as the family grew, eventually to a three-bed detached house. They were first generation immigrants in a foreign country, and their parents (my grandparents) were from poor backgrounds of a generation where having 6+ children was the norm.

I highly suspect the number of young adults still living with their parents, or in shared accommodation, has dramatically increased in the last 20 years, as well as the number of family houses (like the one in which I was raised) being subdivided and converted to HMOs, especially in the capital.

Altior

The conversation has morphed into discussing the 'bread line'. People below this (or on it, even just above it) are not typically in the property ownership conversation, of any living generation!

tbh, the reasoning behind recent asset inflation (including property) is a whole other topic. And multifactorial. 

Someone can rent a room in a shared property, and live a decent life, not on the bread line. It's a different topic (altho I concede, the 'bread line' theme is already a deviation from the thread topic!).

Altior

It does actually highlight what I was alluding to earlier though, some people appear to assume if they can't buy their own property, in their 20s, they are poor/on the breadline. They actually aren't. They might not be in a position to achieve the life they would like to, at that particular point in their life, but that's a different thing entirely. 

AmityNeon

Altior said:

Someone can rent a room in a shared property, and live a decent life, not on the bread line. It's a different topic (altho I concede, the 'bread line' theme is already a deviation from the thread topic!).

Of course people can rent in shared accommodation, live a decent life and save/invest for a healthy retirement. Childless likely.