What Should I Do?

dingodollars

El_Torro said:

If you're an employee then is the 5% going into your pension just your contribution? How much is your employer contributing? It's worth playing around with a free pension calculator (plenty of them can be found online) to see what your pension could look like in 23 years time. It's worth understanding the assumptions made in the calculator too, and changing those assumptions if you think it's appropriate to do so. 

I agree that your two priorities should be buying a place to live in and building up a big enough pension pot. This might be an ambitious plan but might also be doable. You have left it a bit late to build up a decent pension but 23 years is still a solid amount of time to get going, if you're serious about paying in to your pension every month. 

I wouldn't focus on building up too much money outside of a pension. Yes, you need to have a big enough deposit but when you retire you can for example use your 25% tax free lump sum from your pension to pay off remaining mortgage debt. 

Exactly what I would do in your situation depends a lot on your financial specifics, which you haven't provided.

mnt99york said:

Hi!

I'm at a crossroads, and not sure what to do for the best.

I'm 45
I work full time
I rent, and don't own any property.
I'm paying 5% of my income into a workplace pension, but I've only been doing this since 2017 and the balance is £14k - obviously nowhere near enough to live on continuing at that rate even with another 23 years before I reach state retirement age.

I don't have any debt, or any credit cards. I won't be inheriting anything. I've had bad credit in the past but it's all been paid off for a long time.

I'm been living the high life for a few years but realise this can't continue.

I have £500-£600 a month I can save, I've been putting half into a stock & shares ISA and half into a 3.5% interest savings account for the past couple of months.

I KNOW I now need to urgently make plans for retirement. Should I massively increase what I'm paying into my pension or continue saving into my ISA/savings?

My thought is that I don't really have much choice but to continue paying the bare minimum into my pensions and cram everything I can into saving towards a mortgage deposit? I've calculated that I can achieve around £50k in 6-7 years when I'll be 51-52.

What would you do in my situation?

Thanks
Matthew

You’re definitely not alone in this — a lot of people hit this exact crossroads in their 40s.

One thing that stands out is you’ve actually got good fundamentals already (no debt, saving monthly, pension started even if late). I’d be interested to see what others think, but personally I’d be wary of going all-in on just one route — flexibility feels really important at this stage.

Fair play for facing it head on now rather than ignoring it.