What can I do about pension?

I would consider looking for a public sector job, if you have had that much experience in the 3rd sector, you must have transferable skills.15 years or so in the public sector would increase your pension significantly

How is this helpful? Public sector schemes are way more generous and not available to the OP.

OP I would pay in what you can - you still have 20ish years till retirement so plenty of time to build a reasonable pot.

You should not pay off your mortgage first. You will be using post-tax income, whereas if you contribute to your pension it will be out of pre-tax income and you will benefit from compounded returns which are also free of tax.

The earlier you start your pension the better. For example, if you put £1.20 in your pension you will lose £1 post tax income (if you are a basic rate taxpayer). So, instead of paying £1 off your mortgage (which will save you 5p in interest), you get £1.20 in your pension. And then that £1.20 grows.

Don't worry about whether you or your husband are making the contributions, if you divorce a pension is marital property and will be divided between you.

I would get a pension advisor to help. There are many options. I am rebuilding my pension with a mortgage after my ex took half in our divorce, legal division of assets that personally I think is morally wrong. Long story! Ultimately it is never too late and investing the mortgage payments sounds ideal as you are already paying them and won't immediately miss the amount!

@MiddleAgedDread - but it’s not necessarily a lack of ‘basic common sense’! OP has children and works within the third sector, where employer contributions usually amount to a few percent and may have only come into play a couple of years ago. It’s perfectly understandable that the OP would prioritise from her part-time salary paying off her mortgage (unlike you, she has dependents she needs to house), paying bills and feeding her kids before she thinks about topping up pension contributions.

You sound pretty judgmental and patronising for someone with a completely different situation.

I also wouldn't necessarily pay off the mmortgage s&s isa would be better
20k each this year and in April will take up 80k put the other 20k into pension

@quiltofstars I always assumed that basic common sense would tell people they need to start paying into a pension scheme before they're more than half way through their working life! It shouldn't have needed an autoenrolement scheme for folk to have that moment of realisation. It doesn't matter if you have kids or not, it saves you tax and you get a contribution from your employer (even if it's a crap one like ours).

it told me that this may not be the best idea and depends upon the interest rate.

That would be because it failed to take into account the tax benefits of being able to divert current mortgage payments into pension contributions.

@SriouslyWhutNowyes I agree to a certain extent however what it spewed out was interesting and made me see that there were factors I needed to consider that I hadn’t thought of. I would never just use the ‘advice’ as gospel. For example many posters are saying just pay the mortgage off however it told me that this may not be the best idea and depends upon the interest rate.

I have to say my experience if using IFAs hasn’t been positive and personally I wouldn’t take this route other than an initial free consultation. Many are very expensive and the OP has limited funds. There is so much info out there that with a bit of research the OP can work this out. Seeing an IFA isn’t a guarantee of good advice or outcome.

Honeslty yes you are going to be piss poor unless you do something drastic.
I wont say how much I have in mine... but i have prioritised it for this reason.

I'd say you need about 1k to live per month
Food and bills is prob 600/700 assuming no mortgage or rent.
Then you need transport and clothes as a minimum so £1k

If you have 25K now by 60 you can expect it to x0.5 so about 37.5k that will last just over 3 years so def not enough.

So I'd be VERY concerned and looking at how to address it now.

How big is your house?

A very good option for income might be lodgers...
A smart thing to do would be to keepcthe lodger income (tax free) into S&S isa leave it to grown and when you draw it down you'll avoid paying income tax as you might with a pension

@MiddleAgedDread - how is your comment helpful?! Remember that auto enrolment didn’t kick in for many people until 2018, and you also don’t have children so that won’t have adversely affected your income or financial priorities.

OP if it helps, I am in a similar position to you, although mortgage free. I work freelance and have done for over a decade, didn’t prioritise pension but intend to going forwards. I suggest you pay off the mortgage, get advice and do the same. I am entitled to the full state pension and also trust that the increase in house value will be helpful when we do eventually sell our property.

Also, if he needs care then his entire pension will be used to pay for it and you’ll be left with nothing. Much better to split it.

Very good point.

Are you both working now? If either of you has the option to join an employers pension, you should do that and contribute what is needed to maximise the employer contribition. You can only contribute what you earn into a pension. If one or both of you aren't earning your contributions are restricted to £2880 pa net which with tax relief is £3600. You don't need to have paid tax to get the tax relief.
It probably makes more sense to get as much of the inheritance as possible into pensions, but there's a lot to be said for that feeling of security of having paid off the mortgage.

I just put your OP into Chatgbt, thought it would interesting! It might be worth you doing that to get a clearer picture and some ideas as your actions will depend upon your mortgage interest rate (if it’s high prob better to pay it off) when you want to retire etc.

Under no circumstances should you ever use Chat GPT for financial advice. It's out of its remit. The AI tech I work with has a flat refusal to people asking for financial advice, IDK why OpenAI didn't put one in, but asking it for financial advice is a really really bad idea. Ditto legal advice and medical advice.

There are different ways of doing this, personally I'd use the inheritance money to pay off the mortgage and then I would put any spare income into pensions for both of you. You've still got time before retirement to boost your pension pot.

Even if you do stay together, you're better off doing this OP as I understand it, because then you'll both benefit from the tax threshold when you come to draw it. Whereas if it all goes into one pot, you'll potentially get taxed on it more due to how the tax threshold works.

I’d be worried too if I were you! For neither of you to have a pension pot at that age is surely concerning? Have you checked you’ve maxed out your national insurance contributions for state pension if you’ve only worked part time?
in answer to your question, I’m a year younger than you and have £220k in mine. Mortgage almost paid off. No dependents though.
id see an investment advisor about the £100k, if your mortgage rate is low or there’s penalties of paying it off early then it might be better elsewhere.

You’ll get lots of differing advice, but I would pay the mortgage off and then plough as much money into your work pension as possible. You still have time.

I assume you have checked your state pension statement and you will have sufficient qualifying years by the time you retire?

I just put your OP into Chatgbt, thought it would interesting! It might be worth you doing that to get a clearer picture and some ideas as your actions will depend upon your mortgage interest rate (if it’s high prob better to pay it off) when you want to retire etc. You maybe need to think about keeping some inheritance in an ISA as a buffer? Once you’ve paid off your mortgage or put into a pension that money is tied up/used.

If you've put all the inheritance into the mortgage, all you will have is the property: you won't have any savings/pensions and when you sell the property you may lose money due to capital gains tax.

This has to be challenged. To begin with capital gains tax doesn’t apply to your primary residence so that’s nonsense. Added to which if you pay off the mortgage the money currently used for repayment should be diverted to pensions so the money benefits from tax relief.

Look into starting a SIPP.
It is tax efficient, the Government actually tops up what you personally pay in – they’ll add 20% tax relief if you’re a basic-rate taxpayer,

You have 18 years until state pension age. So plenty of time to save.

Just crack on with it immediately.

You ve gone part time because of your joint kids. He can now compensate you and boost your pension.