To think I am fucked for retirement?

OP I was like you and didn’t understand all the terms. We went to a proper financial adviser (personal recommendation) and asked for a one off session to sort out retirement planning. It was reasonable (I think £250 but many years ago now). He gave excellent advice. He traced all of our bits of pension and gave us a printed booklet with all the information clearly set out. The best thing was a graph showing our ages and predicted income. It was so helpful and made things clear and immensely reassuring too.

I strongly recommend you do this now while you are young. Don’t panic. You are on a great salary and have done amazingly well to be nine years from mortgage free. When it’s paid off you can put more money into savings and pensions, but ask the FA if it would be better to put more into pension now and less into mortgage as earlier payments might be more effective.

Also check what your employer is contributing. Now I’m retired I realise how valuable this is so it might impact your job choices in the future if you know it will make a difference to your quality of life when older. Many people are living long retirements nowadays.

A year.

But it's not your only pot. As well as these three employers did you have any others when you were younger? There may be other pensions lying around you've forgotten about.

@Realstudd don’t forget you may be entitled to a state pension of up to £12,150 per annum (2025 rate).

Can you post a picture of what you’re looking at with identifying details removed? I think only then will people be able to tell you what the £2400 is. Don’t forget you’ll get state pension as well.

It's unusual that all 3 previous employers will use the same pension providers and judging by how little you seem to know about your current arrangements it's also easy to believe that you didn't actively transfer all the past pensions into one?

Eg

Employer 1 used Scottish Widows, total pot = £xxx which delivers an annual return predicted of £yy

Employer 2 used Aviva, total pot =.... annual return predicted ....

Current Employer uses Standard Life, total pot
=....., annual return predicted =

Which of the Employer schemes can you see in your 'online banking'?

You are likely to have 3 separate accounts / log in / portals to access all of the pensions

This, if your mortgage is paid off in 6 years you’ll have no mortgage to pay and that’ll free up more income while you’re still working as you’re only early 40s.

You could put more into your pension then, or eventually downside and buy a smaller property outright where your outgoings will be much less. Theres no reason whatsoever to think selling your house and going into rented is necessary or even a good idea at all.

Ah that makes sense if it's linked to a pension company

You aren’t that badly off, and if you want a higher pension, contribute more than 8%. I increased my contribution by 1% every time got a pay rise until I hit the maximum allowed (in the US, there is an IRS limit on how much you can save). That way I simply got a slightly lower pay rise instead of trying to manage on less pay.

It's not that unusual. My current work pension is with Scottish Widows & I can see it in my Halifax online banking screens as they are part of the same group. It does show the monthly contributions in the transaction screen - as you suggest, checking that would help work out if it's a current pension, or one from a previous employer.

I guess I will lose my home and have to go into rented to pay bills when older?

I really can't understand this 🤨 If you pay off your mortgage in 6 years, how will you lose you house when you're older? It's your house, not the bank's.
Stop panicking, you're not thinking rationally!
You're young, you've 20+ years to pay into a pension.
Go talk to a financial adviser, they'll help you understand what position you're in now and what you need to do to maximise your pension for retirement.

Agree. Just to add, when I joined my first company pension scheme in around 2007 I remember the scheme rep who visited our office advising against contracting out. I think you’d probably have to go back a lot longer than 2016 to find a high proportion of people who are affected by the contracting out issue.

Is the one you can see on your online banking defiantly the one you have with your current employer? It's highly unusual that it would be linked to a bank if it is. Can you see a contribution history on there?

@Catza

In fact, my employer contributes an equivalent of £3 an hour towards my pension which brings my total hourly rate to £26,52. An equivalent private appointment would cost the public anywhere between £90 and £350. So I am happy to finance my own pension if you are happy for the NHS to be fully privatised.

In reality, the employer (or Treasury) contributes far more than 13% to your pension given the cost to service it once in comes to fruition.

Yes, more than happy for the NHS to be fully privatised, if that matters.

You need to find all your pension providers and consolidate them all into one place - probably the current one you are paying into now!

then you need to phone up current provider after that and ask for more information about how much you actually have

what do you mean in your online banking??

have you actually logged into your pension account / platform??

who is your pension with

also you will get the state pension too!

@Realstudd no one can confidently give you the right answer as we can't see the information you are looking at.

Don't catastrophise. You have 20+ years left to work, are 6 years from paying off your mortgage and are on a healthy salary. You are in an ideal position to save for a personal pension to add to your state pension entitlement.

You have had some good advice. Prioritise tracking down your other pension pots and getting yourself more informed about pensions generally. You should receive an annual statement (either online or in the post) which will tell you the size of your fund and your illustrative benefits on retirement.

You have 20+ years until retirement so you are definitely not fucked, but you do need advice on putting together a plan for retirement in place. Get sorted now and you will have a secure home and a fair income.

OP you really need to start getting into this. Pensions are not that hard but we just don’t like looking at them do we?

they’re really just saving schemes so if you have been paying in for 8 years at 8% then you will have a total which is your pot. You need to get all the paper work together. And if you have moved three times then you may have 3 sets of paperwork. Start working it out and then see where you are. You still have lots of time to save!

I don't think it's that bad, if you will have your mortgage paid off by 48 you will have 12 years at least to save £2000 per month that you have been paying? And that's only working to 60.

Nobody can answer this definitely until you give some more information. Where do you see this number? You keep saying "online banking", but your pension won't be in your normal online banking.

Also what does it say next to 2400? As there will several different figures in your pension account.

If you've worked for 3 different companies then you'll have money with all 3 of them, and yes, it's likely that's the projected annual amount right now- it will be a lot more by the time you retire. You'll also get state pension, and if mortgage is paid off your cost of living won't be that high.

OP, this is meant kindly but you need to get your information right before you start panicking. No one here can tell you what kind of pension you have or what the £2.4K figure means. If it’s the case that that is your current annual pot value, plus you will receive state pension, you feasibly have enough time to both pay off your mortgage and build up your pension pot even further before retirement. Your current pension forecast may well be ~£13.5K (existing pot + state) and if you are mortgage free by then it’s a good start. You might be in a better situation than a great many people are.

You can absolutely turn this round.
If you pay off your mortgage in 6 years you'll be 48.
Put that mortgage payment into a pension immediately (don't give yourself the chance to get used to a higher income).
That, with the tax on your contributions will build up to a decent pension in the 20 years to your retirement age.
You will get pay increases over these years so be able to build up your savings and have more disposable income.