How much do you put in your work pension each month?

[Chloefairydust]

So here I was thinking I was being sensible paying £22 into my nest work pension every month, but after talking to my brother, I find out he’s putting £300 away each month into his (and your work has to double that so I think he’s making £600 a month in his pension! ) , and he seemed worried that I wasn’t putting enough away.

Im now panicking that I’m going to be really poor when I’m old😭…. For context I’m 30 years old and I think I have about £2000 in the pension pot. So how screwed am I?? 😱

Im on minimum wage so can’t afford £300, the most I could put away would probably be £100 at a push.

Is everyone else paying loads into their work pension pots too?

I pay 9.8% and employer pays 21.6% of salary. This is for a defined benefit pension. I also pay extra 23% of my salary for a defined contribution pot within the same pension scheme. So, a 1/3 of my pay is put into pension.
I am 44 y/o and only started working 11 years ago. So, I need to catch up with pension contribution....

About the promises? My posts above go into more detail. Essentially the UK state oension and the unfunded oublic sector pensions are a demographic and economic time bomb that all politicial parties are ignoring because it won't explode in the next 4-5 years. They all know that it will explode, but won't do anything about it because it'll be very unpopular and they hope it'll be someone else's problem so they ignore it.

But in the next few decades those promises will become literally unfundable, so they will be broken, and people won't receive anything like they're exoecting.

If you look up the scale of the liabilities (all kept off the Govt books so not even included in the debt quoted atm!!) it's quite clear they can't possibly pay them. Because it's a ponzi scheme and they've spent all the contributions people have already made and demographics etc will come home to roost, so to speak.

It's exactly like them being well aware for decades about our reliance on importing a significant proportion of food and fuel. They ignored this until it was too late because each Government hoped to pass the hot potato to the next and avoid it. Eventually, this ostrich syndrome obviously leads to disaster and unfunded public sector/ state pensions are a slow motion car crash that they see but ignore.

Oh right. I always assumed the money for public sector pensions was kept somewhere, separate from everything else. Not that they were a future promise which is yet to be funded.

£450 a month for mine. 7% of my salary. Would rather not have it come off it's a second mortgage!

My default personal contribution is 9.8% plus an employer's contribution of 21.6%, but for the last few months I've been adding an AVC of £700 a month.

So that's about £2k a month in total. But if I wasn't paying the AVC into the pension I'd be saving it somewhere else, much less efficiently.

£585 a month. Public sector. I pay extra to buy more pension. It brings me below the higher tax band.

About £700 a month, and lump sum top-ups when I can. I had no pension at all though until my late 40s (mid 50s now) due to being self-employed and not trusting pension schemes. I wish I had started earlier but have made headway.

Some are funded: university professors, local Government. But lots like teachers and NHS are not...

Haven't read the full thread so may have been said already but I'm sure employers have to set up and pay 5% into an employee's pension.

The minimum % is 8%. Employers have to put 3% in as a minimum. The employee has to pay the balance of 5% unless the employer voluntarily agrees to pay more than 3%.

Thanks @Answerthedoor I thought there was some kind of legal minimum.

@SorenLorensonIsInvisible I didn’t know that. How is it decided whose are guarantee in future and whose are relying on some magical money to appear down the line?

3% of my gross salary mandatory contribution in addition to what my employer pays (no idea how much, I am on a final salary scheme).
I also pay £200 in an additional pension pot each month privately.

Just the way the different schemes operate, they are all separate. Some are actual pension schemes with money invested. But others they are using current contributions to pay current pensioners like with state pensions so people who have made contributions for decades don't actually have a fund anywhere, it's all been spent!

It's also why it's a nonsense when people in those schemes are told their employer is making a 20 or 30% contribution. Their employer is the Government so the Government is just keeping that money and using it as a justification to pay lower salaries.

I pay in 5.45% per month and my employer pays in 27.2% on top of that, I’m with the civil service who are quite generous with pensions. I would recommend you look up the videos a previous poster mentioned, they will definitely help your understanding. Good luck

I didn’t know any of that. Sounds like a disaster! I’ve barely got any pension but now pay in 12% total into some pension company. 9% form me, 3% from employer. The pension company send the occasional letter outlining how it’s been invested.

10% fixed amount to a workplace defined benefit pension scheme and then an extra 12% on top to a supplemental pension scheme. We only began saving more aggressively in our late 30s once we hit a place in life where we finally had the disposable income available to do so. Up until that point, we were scraping along with minimum contributions because the rest of life (kids, house purchases, etc) kept getting in the way of our longer term savings goals.

I do wish we had sorted ourselves out earlier, though, because the compound interest would have been so much more if we’d been doing in our early 30s what we are doing now!

Such a depressing read for me.

I’m over 40 and pay £77.21 a month, my employer pays £46.33.

its all I can afford. But a shock to see how many employers pay more than the employee. Mine seems opposite and very low.

not sure what I can do I have no spare money anymore.

Then that's sad, but it leaves your children a helpful legacy.

I didn’t know any of that. Sounds like a disaster! I’ve barely got any pension but now pay in 12% total into some pension company. 9% form me, 3% from employer. The pension company send the occasional letter outlining how it’s been invested.

It is an absolute disaster and sadly many of the people invested in the schemes do not appear to realise either: they think that the Government have to pay it. But like with state pension, rules can be changed (even though I don't believe it's right for them to be able to do that retrospectively but they have and do!). There will be downgrading, and primarily I predict huge uprating of state and public sector pension ages to decrease what will be paid out. In the end you may have to be mid-70s to claim because that will be more palatable politicially than reducing the amount paid per year significantly.

Either way - although much poorer value for money on paper - I'd never accept a pension scheme that wasn't actual money paid into a real fund of invested money. The fact that the projected public sector pensions are so far removed from what private funds quote for the same level of contributions mean that the public sector amounts quoted are totally unrealistic and won't be paid at the levels promised. People think it's a bonus to them but it isn't as it isn't real money. I'd rather have an actual fund invested, any day, even with all the risks that involves.

The government have done plenty wrong over the years, but the bringing in auto enrolment for work place pensions has been a very good thing, so i would say your being a bit harsh here.

I pay £378 a month I pay 6% which is the max amount and my employer pays 12% because I work part time, every year I have a payrise I add money to my AVC - this year I'm paying £60 a month.

So £106 my 6%
£212 is the 12%
£60 AVC.

1k a month to a private pension
£22 is not enough

Companies are not responsible for your old age
I guess you do not run your own company
Your idea would bankrupt companies and you would not have a job or any pension