Pension advice for naïve 45-year-old

DRS1

You could do worse than revisit @crv1963 's post up above.

You could also go back to HR and ask if salary sacrifice is possible for your pension or just not something the employer will allow.

xylophone

Check if you have any old pensions from previous employment.

https://www.gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details

Get State Pension forecast

https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

Find out about making personal contribution to your current scheme if salsac not an option.

Albermarle

elsmandino said:

Evening all.

I finally managed to contact my HR department, to ask exactly what the deal was with my pension.

I was told that:

1. Salary sacrifice is not set up on my pension.
2. The company contributes 10% of my salary, regardless of any contribution from me. That is unusual and probably what caused some confusion earlier in the thread.
3. I am not contributing anything myself.
4. The company does not offer any contribution matching.

Any advice, on where to go from here, would be much appreciated.

Regardless of the employer not operating a salsac arrangement, there should be no problem in arranging for regular monthly pension contributions to be taken from your salary.  Normally all you have to do is inform HR/payroll what you want to do. 
£80K at 45 is not bad but if you want to retire with a decent income and/or retire early, you really need to start building it up quicker. If you could also add 10% that would make a significant difference.

crv1963

elsmandino said:

Evening all.

I finally managed to contact my HR department, to ask exactly what the deal was with my pension.

I was told that:

1. Salary sacrifice is not set up on my pension.
2. The company contributes 10% of my salary, regardless of any contribution from me.
3. I am not contributing anything myself.
4. The company does not offer any contribution matching.

Any advice, on where to go from here, would be much appreciated.

So you are not compelled to contribute because your employer pays more than the required legal minimum into your pension. I would ask my employer and myself the following questions-

1) (For ease of use) I would ask how much I can contribute from earnings to the pension scheme?
2) Will this be salary sacrifice or not?
3) How much of my pay per month can I comfortably afford to contribute?
4) What is the scheme retirement age? 
5) Am I happy with the scheme performance or for my additional pension savings do I want to go it alone and consider setting up an alternative pension savings somewhere else? Others may advise you but my understanding of company DC pensions is they are sometimes cheaper to use rather than personal schemes because employers pay lower fees because they pay so much into it compared with an individual- but I stand ready to be corrected.
6) Also how much can I afford to pay if I make some cut backs on what I spend? An example of this is do you spend on things like meal deals for work lunch, coffee from Costa on the way in and out of work? A colleague of mine did a budget check and found both she and her husband were spending around £75 each, per week, doing just this- £600 per month roughly, more than their mortgage payment! Plus a Friday takeaway and Sunday Lunch out weekly, they adjusted spending and reduced it.
7) Look at spouse/ significant others pension provision if you have one.

Remember- yes you do need to contribute something to your pension, but you also have to have a life now, so little point in saving and sacrificing today's enjoyment because come the time to spend the pension you may well be too used to living on a small income. Not that I am knocking those that live a frugal lifestyle or save hard. Personally I take the view do all things in moderation and don't get fixed on one goal to the exclusion of other goals, balance is my aim.