Sorting out pensions

[owlborn]

So, right now DH and I are trying to sort out pensions. As a note, I'm mid thirties, he's early forties.

We currently pay 6% (me) and 10% (him) into our pensions.

We are mortgage free and debt free which has been our focus for the last few years, but now we've made that we want to sort out our pension provision. We currently have approx £120k which we recently got as a lump sum, which we want to invest towards the future.

We do want to up the percentage of pension contributions. We're not sure what to do with the lump sum. Our options are:

Put it into an investment property which will provide us with additional income now and eventually a retirement income.

Put it straight into a joint pension and use that to enhance our pension pot.

Something else.

We're not super investment smart, having never really done it before (seriously - we've spent 15 years moving from 'trying to keep heads above water' to 'trying to get a mortgage' to 'trying to pay off the mortgage'. We've never had savings beyond 'enough to pay for a weekend's camping' before) Does anyone have any ideas?

[specialsubject]

I'm not a financial adviser.

do you live somewhere where £120k will buy a rentable house? Have you looked into all the issues of being a landlord and the real costs involved? Do you want the hassle and cost? Will the house increase that much in value?

a something else could be stocks and shares ISAs (£15k each per year) - new dividend rules mean you need to be very careful with actual shares.