To ask how much is in your pension pot and your contribution %

Age 45. About £100K. I'm self employed so no employers contribution which makes it harder. Luckily, I love my job and it's flexible so I plan on working part time from 60 onwards which will help. DH also has a hefty pension.

44. I don't have enough in my pension pot and not likely to ever! I'm paying 12% but haven't been doing that for long enough. Apparently, 12% is what is needed according to the Living wage foundation. Retirement won't be the same for me as it has been for my parents! My Dad was retired for nearly 30 years by the time he died 😳

Not much - about £10k because I didn't put much in in my twenties.
I'm now 32, and pay in 8%, and my employer pays in 12% so it's 20% total. But that's only happened in the last year because I had to work there for a few years in order to qualify for them putting in that much.

Portu.. you're another great example of my advice above. You're doing the smartest calculated action here even though future tax payers will end up at breaking point once more retirees get older and do the same.

That's the way our government has designed pension benefits in this country.

You have to do whatever is best for you though.

@AllSuggestionsTaken how have you managed to get enough years of NI contributions already?? That's impressive at 40!

Those of you saying it isn't enough ( a lot of those seem to have hundreds of thousands in the pot) what is it not enough for?

I'm one of the posters with a bigger pot than average but who's saying it's not enough.

Bluntly, I need it to fully pay for my own retirement plus my spouse. At average life expectancy I need a pot significantly higher than I'm currently building so will ramp it up once small DC are older to give it a boost.

Compare that to the poster on page 1 who has a £10k pot in her mid 50s who's paying zero. She's smart. That's exactly what I'd be doing if I weren't a mid-high ish earner in my 30s.if you have little time to build up a pension pot in the UK, or have many many years out of work due to illness or caring responsibility, there's no point going half in. Gov pension plus non means tested top ups mean those in the middle get fucked over, just like when they were working.

You either need to blast a hole by charging your pension to a scary number in the UK or don't build any really significant pot and let the government deal with it once you reach state retirement age.

You could argue that those building no real pension will face poverty and it's definitely something I wouldn't seek myself. But I have a choice. And time to build the pot. That's crucial.

I work in a field where this calculated risk/reward optimisation is what I'm paid to do.

My comments here are fairly ruthless. and the current tax system in this country incentivises this view, if people were to act in a truly rational manner. It's amazing any middle earners pay a penny into their pension.

So: my view= good for an individual.
Longer term, likely to bankrupt the country when all those people who didn't build up pensions themselves all start looking to the DWP for their monthly income and there are fewer workers to pay for it all.

My advice for the next 10-20 years is to milk it. Or push past the threshold where you're penalised for building the pension pot.

Don't be in the middle.

£50k in a few different pots. So fuck all really.

Like a pp I'm not going to put any more in, although I do have savings. Hopefully those together with drawing entire amounts including what's allowed tax free under the small pots rules will let me go part-year in my early 60s and travel a bit then while I can.

I rent from a housing association which is great as it means I'll always have a home. However it does also mean I'll be paying rent till I die and if I waited till I stopped working and took an annuity all of that pension money would go on rent and bills within a few years. On the other hand if I have no money when I do finally stop working my rent will get covered and I'll get whatever help is available for people on state pension alone.

I think anyone who is renting needs to think carefully about whether it's worth building up a pension, unless they can get a pot more than £600k.

I think Martin Lewis suggests contributing half your age as a percentage when you start your pension, so at 30yo it should be 15% / 40yo 20%. Its also important to increase your contributions with inflation each year. I'm in the position many working mothers are and am trying to pay catch up. I'm aiming for £250k, which isn't amazing, but my NI will be fully paid. I'm married and a home and additional property owner.

Not enough

That’s what we had been thinking, but our mortgage is c £450k and once we’re subject to new interest rates (luckily we fixed just before they went really high!) payments will be over 2.5k per month at current rates.

Financially it makes sense to pay into the pension, but I’m going to save the money into a S&S ISA for a year and then see where we are at the end of next tax year (and perhaps then pay it into the pension). My job is well paid but not 100% secure, and the thought of having a lovely large pension fund but losing our house doesn’t appeal!

My pot is probably around £180k. Early 40s. To avoid the 60% tax trap and keep my net adjusted income below £100k so that I can still qualify for free hours at nursery and tax free childcare, I’ve committed to paying 29% of my income into my pension this year alongside 10% from my employer. So that’s roughly £50k going in a year. Will try and keep it to that for a couple of years until my youngest is in school.

Those of you saying it isn't enough ( a lot of those seem to have hundreds of thousands in the pot) what is it not enough for?

Do you have a list of things you intend to spend / splurge on, is it to pay off a mortgage / to go on renting, is it to put food on the table and switch on the heating?

I'm interested as this is such a subjective topic.

I have way less than 50k in my pot, early 40s, on track with state pension payments. I may or may not inherit, but plan to have paid off my mortgage and don't go on big holidays or buy lots of stuff. Concerned about what i might have not considered!

Currently £150k in my early 40's. More than 1/3 of that is due to having an employer that makes very generous lump sum contributions as a part of our profit sharing agreement. The amount coming from salary sacrifice is combined 9%.

40, £65k per annum and 20% contributions but only upped that from mandatory minimum about 3 years ago.

Only £45k in pot which provider predicts to give an income of between £29 - £53k per year for retirement. I don’t think they’re right and I think I’m way behind.

I already have enough credits for full state pension, but I don’t factor that in.

I’m looking at property investment so I can have another disposable asset in future if needed.

58 and I've got £261k. i've already taken some out to put my kids on the housing ladder. I'm on a final 5 year kick to up it before I retire.

I'm 45. Not currently working so not currently making contributions. I anticipate that to change soon as I'm becoming self employed, but will initially only be able to afford £200pm contributions. I'll increase it as my income increases.

I have one final salary pension, which will give me almost £10k per year if I retire at 65.

I have a further private pension pot, which currently stands at just over £90k.

Dh has 3 pensions, two of which stand at £300k total, plus £5k per year (RAF pension). He's 54.

Less than 10k in the pot and I'm putting in zero! Won't go into the background but I've done the sums and at my age, mid 50's, and in my personal circumstances, there's no point now chucking money at it. Not that i have loads to chuck at it! All it would do is make me ineligible for the help I'd get on state pension alone and wouldn't make me any better off financially. What it would do is make my quality of life worse now. So whats the point?

I'm not going to want to travel widely. I already find it quite tiring now. So am doing it while I still have the money (that i'm not putting into a pension) and energy. I can still work a couple of days if I want extra money, a couple of people in my team are 70+. My expenses are quite low, I have cheap hobbies. I don't have a partner and no plans for that to change. Most people who have a big list of things they want to do, have someone to do them with! I don't. I'm not really worried.

I don’t think the posters here are representative at all.

I’m not sure a huge number of people on lower or even average wages have pensions at the top of their priority lists at the moment.

With cost of living increases, mortgage rates being pushed up, childcare costs etc, many don’t have the capacity to save for retirement even if they wanted to.

57

Complicated because I have 12 years in an old final salary scheme which current estimate says will give me a pension of £14k at 65

Changed employer a couple of years back and contributions combined are 18.5%. Previously 8% on a significantly lower salary.

Pot is currently around £100k. Aiming to get it to around £300k across the next few years so that I can retire at 65.

Give or take a damn I'm hoping for a pension income of around £50k for the two of us once we start getting state pension.

I have many spreadsheets for this!

Mine is on just over £90K, but like a PP I had to stop payments over covid because I couldn't work and couldn't afford them. I can't remember when I started it, at around 37, I think (am 51 now).

I'm paying in the bare minimum now things have settled down (£100pm plus anything extra if I have it), but it's something - I'm self employed and my income varies, so staying out of debt and paying my rent and bills is the priority atm.

Some of these pots are huge! Posters must have either a huge salary or a very generous employer contribution. I started my pension at 28 (employer before then didn’t offer one), new employer put in 3%, I put in 7%. I now put in 8% and my current employer puts in 7%. This is generous for my industry. Current pot after 12 years: £36k. I’m on target to be able to maintain standard of living on retirement assuming full state pension but won’t be retiring until I’m 68 at least and no doubt the government will have moved the goalposts by then.

The most tax efficient thing to do would probably be to keep on contributing then to use (some of) your tax free amount to pay off the mortgage. See if the numbers would work for you. I appreciate that doesn't help if you were to find yourself unable to work before you could access the pensions.

PS other risk is that Labour have said they will bring back the LTA so perhaps defer the decision until they are in power (which presumably they will be).

Early 50s with around 500k.
Had a large pay rise 2 years ago so am paying as much as I can to keep my salary below £100k. Been paying small amounts in since I was early 20s and first started working.

Mortgage will be paid off in 3 years just as last kid leaves school. H has a final salary pension and a similar size private pension. We plan to stop working at 57 and enjoy life while we still can.

I'm 31 and earn 51k PA and have about 38K so far been contributing 3% ever since I started my career almost 10 years ago.
Reading the comments now realising perhaps it's no where near enough. Apparently if I carry on working until retirement age my pot will be 250k. Don't think that will happen...
But it still won't be enough as my husband opted out his company pension plan (as it was garbage anyway).

But then who knows if I will live until 68?

I sometimes feel like the whole thing is a scam.

I’m mid 40s with just over 500k, I’ve always contributed more than the minimum and am very glad I did.

Am currently torn between keeping my contributions high (I had been paying c £40k a year in recently) and taking the tax hit to help pay off the mortgage, so that we can have the security of not having to pay that if either of us couldn’t work.