AIbu to wonder how I’ll cope when I retire?

Goodness, at knocking on 50 , no pension and no savings, that’s concerning, I’m not sure I’d have taken the route of spending everything I had.

if you save 2 grand a year for 15 years into a pension you will have about 180 k each in a pension, not much, but something to see you through retirement,

Oh and - because you're self employed, you will need to open a SIPP rather than paying into a company pension. You get tax relief on pension contributions. If you're a PAYE employee, that means, generally, that the pension is taken off your pay and then only what's left gets taxed, and your payslip reflects this. As a self employed person it's more complicated, you need to reclaim the tax relief on your personal pension contributions each year. But this is why a pension is so much more efficient than a savings account.

I admit it's so complicated that I don't understand it fully, but essentially, for every £1 you put into your pension the govt will give you some money back off your tax, so you basically get extra money for free. And then that money is invested so is growing for you over time.

I assume you have an accountant for your business anyway, so once you have a SIPP set up, make sure you speak to them about it.

I'm going to be honest but it's in the spirit of wanting the best for you.

You have buried your heads in the sand about this for a long time and you are not in a good position. If you really want to face up to how not good, then you still have time to make it much much better, but you need to understand how much time you've lost to understand how to make up the time as best you can now.

To get £8k of pension income in retirement, you need about £200k of capital. So if you want something you can not just live on, but enjoy life on, you need at least £600k in your pension pot.
Two can live more cheaply than one, so you wouldn't necessarily need £1.2m as a couple, but you'd definitely hope to have about £800k-£1m between you. That sounds absolutely wild but it's premised on starting to save in your 20s. The rule of thumb is that you take the age at which you start saving into your pension, halve it, and then save that % of your pre-tax income. If you work for an employer, they usually contribute something for you, which is why if you are self employed you need to factor that shortfall into your target earnings.

That system might be a bit late for that now for you, perhaps, but you need to get as close as you can to it. What would saving 24% of your income look like?

Then, since you don't work full time, could you get another job and put all those earnings into your pension? There must be work of some sort that you can fit around your primary part time job, I'd just treat all your earnings from that job as pure pension savings. You can only put £60k into a pension per year, per person, but you probably aren't at risk of exceeding that.

Basically - you've lost a lot of time and you're going to need to work really hard now to make it up, but even something at this stage is better than nothing, and the sooner you do something, the better!

And as others have said - downsizing is a good way to release capital. But it probably won't give you all the capital you need given how much time you need to make up.

As I understand it, OP, any payments into a personal pension are taken off your salary BEFORE tax. So the more you pay in, the less tax you pay. You should be aiming to pay in enough to take you into a lower tax bracket.

Do you have an accountant for your businesses? Probably worth a chat with them to see if they can help, they are likely to have other clients who do this successfully.

Personally I will have to carry on working unless my circumstances change drastically. No retirement for me.

Ok so if you save 2k a month habe you spent it all or do you have savings ?

General rule of thumb is to save a percentage of your gross earnings into a pension equivalent to half of your age when you start contributing. So if you start at age 20 you pay in 10% of gross earnings (right up until retirement), if you start at 50 then you pay 25% etc. This roughly evens out the effect of compound interest.

HOWEVER many people find this puts them off as it seems unachievable. The other thing that put people off is feeling that the money is locked away and inaccessible and therefore “lost”.

At your age, think of your pension as if it’s a special high interest savings account with amazing tax breaks. You can access it from mid-50s so it’s not locked away for long, but any money you put in it is tax free! So even if you only save £10k, that’s £10k you didn’t pay tax on.

not sure why you're worried about it being too late, you have another 20 years or so before you retire. You should start saving now though - the whole reason people encourage contributing to pensions early and throughout their working life is because the compound interest can be so significant.

As others have said, if you can't get more hours in your current job, get a second one to make it up to full time if you need more money.

You could downsize to a smaller house/cheaper area when you retire which could give you several hundred thousand pounds. You'll also both have the state pension so you'll hardly be destitute. You both earn nearly double the average wage so have nearly 4xwhat the average a single person is earning so you should be able to put something into a pension, even if it's just a LISA, every month. But start now!

Can you both salary sacrifice everything over 40k so you don't pay the higher tax rate. Both take a 40k salary, the rest in a pension? I assume self employed people can still do this.

Start by looking at your costs

You can save loads!

Put some in pension, some in ISAs

You'll be fine

If you look at the figures calmly you will see that.

What? They have living expenses and will pay tax on their earnings. But I am also not sure this is what the ops playing it as and assume to some extent lifestyle plays a part.

Also, you mention you can’t work full-time as there’s not enough work available. Could you get another part time job to boost your earnings a bit further so you can save more? Although I have to say - a £60k salary is bloody good money!

Do you and your DH save money each month? If you can both save some money every month, that will be a big help as it will build up over time into a good-size pot.

If you saved (for example) £300 each per month for the next 20 years - or invested it, if you’re comfortable with investing - that would give at least £70k each. I know it’s painful at the moment that interest and mortgage rates are so horribly high, but the benefit of that - at least - is that you can find a high-interest account to save into.

It must be. The maths is not mathing in my head either as it sounds like the OP spent close to 100k a year for the last 7 years to refurbish a property when they could buy a whole other property for that money or at least pay off their mortgage.
And here I am earning just over 40k with paid off mortgage, savings and a pension pot…

Maybe overpay the mortgage when you are on such good salaries.
Look at downsizing closer to retirement age.
Keep working past state retirement age.
Start paying into a pension now.
Don't bank on inheritance - it is never guaranteed.
You are in a lot better position than many.

Well you’ve nearly 2 decades before you retire so I’d advise you start saving into a pension and stop spending it.

I think don’t panic. I’d overpay a bit on the mortgage and start a pension now. It won’t end up huge hut it’s better than nothing. Then come retirement you can downsize if you need to

Is this a joke? I’m your age and work PT. I earn less than a third of your annual earnings and Im managing to save for my pension, and pay towards a similar SE mortgage.

I still have no idea what you’ve been spending all your money on other than you bought property that’s beyond your means??