Maybe Logan’s Run isn’t so far-fetched after all.

errrrrrrrrrmmmm pension?

Couple of pots from previous employers totaling about 100k. Now at 43 have 10 years service on a company final salary scheme which was accruing at 45ths. Can no longer contribute so have dropped to 60ths so looking at how to invest the 5% I was contributing. When I initially changed jobs in 2006 I took a 40% pay cut purely for the pension. One of my better decisions in life.

Starting saving into my pension aged 24 (now 43) and am looking like I’ll have c£6k a year to live off so I’m screwed, despite doing the right thing and trying to make a provision for myself. IIRC I’ll need c£1m pot to get an income of £25k and I’m somewhat off that, not least because L&G managed to have less money in my pot last year than was in there the year before…!

Don’t expect state pension to exist by the time I retire. Will almost certainly work till past 70, although who’ll employ me and at what wage I’ve no idea. Hopefully the robots will have taken over by then and we’ll all be on a basic state income.

Stopped paying into my pension in 2011 in an attempt to save to buy a house, to find prices have gone from £250k to £450k in that time, which I’ve no way of keeping up with. Have moved out of London to try and resolve that one.

When the sub-Boomer generation (mine) realise to what degree housing ‘wealth’ is not real wealth and they can’t just ‘cash it in’ to fund their retirements and what their retirements are eally going to be like (having sunk everything into property and not saved properly for our retirements), well there’ll be plenty of jobs going for riot Police.

I’m only half joking about that – pension-wise we are so seriously up the creek, but funnily enough, subsequent governments have failed to tell us… and when the masses finally realise how dire their futures look, well…

Coincidentally, I’ve just been looking at what the state pension is – £155 per week if you’ve been contributing NI for 35 years up until April 6th (from what I can gather).
I was made redundant after 33 years of contributions, so can’t see if that means I’ll get a bit of it or sod all. They don’t make it simple.

I’ll need c£1m pot to get an income of £25k

Not being funny, but will you need an income of £25k? (assuming mortgage planning has that paid off)

You’ll get almost the full amount but you can also top it up

I think Wiltshire farm foods are pursuing a more aggressive pricing strategy, so possibly, yes

No pension here, I’ve always eyed pension companies with suspicion, I just don’t trust them with my cash!
However, we do have a plan to have 4 or 5 rental flats all paid off for our retirement ‘pension’.
It’s going well, we are on track.

Holy crap. I’ve just read that as a rule of thumb if you’ve not been contributing to a pension then you should divide your age by half and put away that as a percentage of your salary until you retire. That makes my monthly contribution about £400 for the next 30 odd years. And I’ve got a kid on the way. And I don’t own a house yet. 😥

Anyone want to buy a bike? I can’t afford to run it anymore!

I’m 40 , and pretty much screwed.

Always had work ones, but at this point that doesn’t add up to a huge amount. OTOH I’ve got a short life expectancy.

TBH it’s one of the likely terminal crises for feudal capitalism, this. Pretty soon we’ll have an entire generation working to pay for people 2 generations ahead to retire comfortably, while watching their own retirement age increase and pensions collapse, not to mention working benefits- and simultaneously telling their kids that they have to pay for things they never had to, and will likely never be able to afford their own house, or repay their £50000 (and spiralling) of student debt, or receive any number of other things that were taken for granted (and which were inexplicably affordable in the ruins of a world war, but not in the greatest time of plenty in human history)

Very optimistic about my future…

Not being funny, but will you need an income of £25k? (assuming mortgage planning has that paid off)

You need to allow for inflation, £25k maybe ok today but what will that buy in 10 or 20 years

Jeremy Corbyn (or any long serving MP) has a final salary pot worth £1.6m for his pension of £50k pa.

Personally not in as good shape as I was due to divorce, I had always saved ontop of company contributions. Given a big part of my job is managing money for pension plans you could say I practice what I preach. Truth is our and future generations will not be as wealthy as our parents and the Golden age of final salary schemes

Got one pension with about 29k in it(from another work, plus when i didn’t have a pension for a good few year i contracted out, so I got about 5 year of those, thought i might aswell pocket those as i’ll manage the 35 year requiremet, my wages where terrible for that pension so i wasn’t contributing much) and i’ve another that just started with the work last year, with the government requirement. paying 1% and 3% in to that. the works cotribution due to go up to 4% i think, my plan is to start bumping my contributions incremetally over the next 20 year.

I’m 38. so fairly screwed. I really should sit down and do some sums to see where i want to be.

What i really need to do is buy my self a cheap house, now, 15/20 year mortgage so I don’t need to worry about rent when i’m older. That’s my main concern at the moment, what ever amount pension I get will probably just be to offset what ever work i’ll need to do to fund whatever lifestyle I want to live in the future.

Ive been saving in a pension since i started work. Current one is good and the equivalent of 18% ends up in there. Still young. But when you look at the projections for defined contribution you need silly amounts to be able to live like current pensioners.

Still i’m going to do the best i can as i dont think relying on the government and state is a viable option either 40 years down the line.

Not amazing but better than many. I’m 37, last year’s statement said there was around £70k in my company pension, with another £20k or so in long term savings/investments elsewhere. Mortgage should be paid off within 10 years. There may be an inheritance in the next few years to help things along (my sister and I are my grandfather’s only living relatives).

I’m about to start a new job so intending to bump up contribution levels a bit more when setting up the new arrangements.

My advice to young people I work with and my own kids is to start your pension early and let intrest do the work for you.

30k @ 7% growth and £200 added each month for twenty years is £250,000 which wont give you a brilliant annuity income but is still a substantial lump sum.

I’m lucky in that pensions are compulsory over here. Everyone has at least one (State) anyone who works probably has a company pension plus another private/investment one on the go.

I’ll not be rich when i retire, but I’ll be able to live. Will probably be working until compulsory retirement add i didn’t really join the world of work until my mid 30s.

When I looked at transferring my UK pension pot over, i got laughed at as it was so small compared to the time I’d spent paying in. And that was one of the better UK company pensions around at the time. (But i was only there a couple of years)

My basic plan is tonwork until I’m mid sixties, give any property to the kids, buy a camper and spend the next ten years travelling, living of the state pension and savings after which I expect my body will expire and pensions wont matter

I don’t think it’s fair to say that previous governments haven’t warned us about the reality of future state pensions. I picked up the message loud and clear at age 21, in 2001, so under Blair’s second government, right? At the time I’d started as a trainee investment manager at a small private bank. I was on a final salary scheme there, making over-payments on the student loan, and using some of my ISA allowance (not all of it, it wasn’t a great time in the City…). Whilst the job security and benefits were solid it was still working in a bank, right, so I quit after two years to get back into academia. And therein lies the rub.

During the PhD and postdocs most waive their pension contributions as the salaries are so small but as we (and I presume other professions) are effectively in training for so long it means we don’t start pension contributions until our early-mid thirties… I’m now a state researcher in France and even if I worked until the (current) compulsory retirement age I wouldn’t have done enough service for a full pension. You should see a French payslip too, they often run onto two A4 pages with all the deductions and weird calculations the state makes.

In essence, I’ve got a job I love with a mediocre salary but ace job security. What’ll happen to me in the 2040s, I’ve no idea… So depressing but I’m going out cycling now, am in the Alps 😀

£250,000 which wont give you a brilliant annuity income but is still a substantial lump sum.

You haven’t factored inflation into the calculation – £250,000 in twenty years time will be worth much less than it is today.

My pension plan statements suggest that at 50 I have funded a lot of expensive cars and fine wine for some spiv in the city but I end up in a cardigan with holes eating dog food. I plan to work till I drop.

We recently found out that the sister in law is mid 40s with no pension, and a 100% interest only mortgage (Edinburgh new town so should be appreciating nicely but…..) and just lost her nicely paid financial job (£60k+) she’s just had to borrow £400 to get her through the month.

Although my pension is being squeezed I feel better about it.

36, One UK pension pot of around 1k in 2001 – not checked back on that one for a while.
Then about 11 years as agency/contractor not paying into anything
Just short of my 2 years in the not quite gold plated company scheme when I move to Oz so I got my cash back but the company got their 8k back out of that one 🙁 👿
Finally getting some paid in here in Oz where the minimum company contribution is nearly 10% just checked up to nearly $8k(Aus)

I don’t expect to ever buy a house, I work with my brain so as long as that is good I’ll keep working. After that it’s lottery wins and any inheritance. It’s a really depressing situation if you keep thinking about it but in reality I’m doing what I can. The amount of money required to service the promises made to people already is staggering (the Steel Works thread highlighted it like many other companies is mostly a gaping pension black hole with a bit of industry on the side) the monumental increase in housing prices that has mostly benefited those that had the pay bugger all in pension get a magic bag of cash every month till you die no strings attached is going to hurt a lot more people.

I’m sorted as I’ve got one of those gold plated NHS pensions. It’s worth loads apparently 😯

Being slightly more realistic though it would appear , from the statements they’ve sent me, that despite my contributions having gone up a couple of times recently and apparently going up again this month I’ll be able to claim the pension when I’m 69 and it’ll be worth a fairly paltry sum.

Not quite what I keep reading about how this fantastic pension will leave me retiring and living a lifestyle similar to Hugh Hefner!

Those pension return figures are terrible. £1M for £25k! The only reason I can see to pay into a pension is the free money from your employer. As I don’t have one of those my meagre savings have been going into property and shares. Not a huge amount but it’s currently returning £400ish a month, plus a bit of capital growth. The nice thing is it is doing that now so I can reinvest. I imagine I’ll still do a bit of work well after ‘retirement’. Not sure if this is a good plan but the only alternative is dying young.

Many are sadly screwed especially if reliant on public sector ponzi pensions

And the interest only mortgagae route to financial salvation may also be a disappointment

Not sure about the term feudal capitalism NW – although it has a nice ring – but our selfishness and lack of planning will have adverse impacts in future generations. Either that or the public pot ends up being considerably smaller than expected.

30k @ 7% growth and £200 added each month for twenty years is £250,000 which wont give you a brilliant annuity income but is still a substantial lump sum.

7% growth – where the hell did you get a fund that gives you that? Stocks, especially oil, have tanked this year. Started a pension last year, the £10k I put in over the year is still worth £10k. I make that 0% growth?

I’m with Grum, think I’ll take up base jumping when I retire. Always wanted to try it but still being young(ish), too much of a risk at this stage in life.

I’m 26 so I work till I die, I think.

My pension plan….

I’ve got 2 private pensions. one is ok. One makes me feel like I’ve been raped. But its nowhere near what I’ll need to exist at more than a subsistence level in retirement, given that the state pension will be a quaint memory by the time I reach ‘retirement age’

In all seriousness, I’ve already accepted that I’ll be working till I drop. If you’ve not, and you think you’re going to have a ‘retirement’ that in even the slightest tiny way resembles the one the baby boomers are presently enjoying, you’re delusional!

I think the private pensions industry is going to end up making the whole banking/PPI mis-selling scandal look like a minor accounting error at a corner shop

Mine has been substantially above 7% for many years, helped this year by me asking them to move it out of oil companies. I posted that suggestion on here btw and got much derision from the usuals, oh how I laughed.

I dont have a massive sum but logging in online and watching it earn more than I used to earn for working is quite nice and makes you realise how the rich get richer.

If both sets of parents die without having to go into a home for years then we’re OK.

If they go on forever racking up huge care home bills, then we’re a bit screwed.

Our main priority is being mortgage and debt free before we are 60.

We both have small pensions, but our total pot combined is probably worth 40k at the minute.

Not being funny, but will you need an income of £25k? (assuming mortgage planning has that paid off)

I love the cosy, comfortably-off, middleclasstrackworld assumption that everybody owns at least one property.

Meanwhile … back in the real world…..

I’m not too worried about myself (48) and my wife (50) as we could retire now in reasonable comfort (with some lifestyle changes), however I’m rather more worried for the situation when my kids get to retirement age.

well if financial planning comes into it it seems crazy to save blindly for something that may not happen at the cost of not having your own roof over your head….meaning you need to save even more to pay the rent during a time in your life that may not happen when you have no income. – all while paying inflated costs to rent someone elses house – surely ?

Unless you need to be flexible for work moves every few years then i look at it like paying your debts off before you save.

But i guess thats my opinion YMMV that said – i started my pension when i was 23 and put in the max i had to to get max company contributions – but no more. my own investments are outperforming my pension by a significant %age. How ever although my company pensions going down and the markets depressed – the number of units i get each month is huge compared to 3-4-5 years ago so if the market ever picks up ill see huge gains. MEanwhile its just sitting there doing its thing.

Another one screwed here.
I’m 39 and only started a pension a few years back so it will never be worth much.
As with others here the only thing I can see working for me is that we have a nice house in the South east and when we retire we can downsize and move to a cheaper part of the country.

Something just doesn’t add up with all of this. Is the only way to make money in this country any more just to keep selling/renting over inflated property to one another?

Something has to give, suspect it’s not going to be pretty!

I’m 43 and my wife 40.
She’s been teaching for 16 years, when she started it was generally understood that you’d retire at around 60.
Recent changes to teachers pensions have scuppered this – and they are now expected to work until they are 68.

I wasted my 20s and didn’t start earning ‘proper money’ until I was 33.
I’ve been paying into the defined contributions scheme at work for the last 9 years, I pay in 5% and my employer matches it.
I can’t remember how much is in there but it’s not a lot.

We don’t have any inheritance coming out way – my folks don’t own a property and the in-laws won’t be leaving us anything.

We are paying off the mortgage on a great house, which I don’t want to sell in order to fund our retirement.

So, in short – I’ve got 20 years to build a retirement fund.
On the plus side I have a job which is largely desk based, there is no reason I can’t work part time beyond mid-60’s
I’m also pretty handy with woodwork tools and can turn out saleable items fairly easily.

I’ve been to a few school reunions lately and it amazed me how many people have nothing and no plan. made me feel quite good about my own crap situation.

I plan stuff and so decided that I’d want a pension pot of £600k at 65 so working back assuming 7% growth I needed to build up £150k at 44 so did that. Now just build up ISAs so got a mix plus my home which I could downsize from/move to a cheaper area if wanted.

Buying my 1st house as soon as I started work in the mid 90s helped me a lot but I don’t earn a silly big salary.

This thread has re-affirmed what a fortunate position I’m in, despite not being a ‘high earner’

Started in a FS pension scheme 10 years ago age 22, and if joint company / Union statements are to be trusted, no intention of closing for current members.

Also received some inheritance as one of my parents died a few years ago. So long term financially I should be OK.

Do feel for the next generation. Inter-generational inequality could become a rising issue as wages / assets / houses stagnate.