Aibu to ask about your pension pot

[Wrongwayup]

Following on from the savings and mortgage threads can I ask how much people have in their defined contribution pensions and age. I am 48 and have a pot valued at £225,000. Hoping to get it up to £400,000 by 60

Nothing....

I don't trust the state pension will exist by the time I'm old so hoping I'm dead by then able to save at some point....

I'm not even 30 yet and never been on a "decent" wage but should be improving however with 2 soon to be 3 kids to support on a single income I don't think I will be able to prioritise a pension for a while...

@huggybear they should be sending you a statement every year. Failing that*, find out from your employer who your pension is with and ask them for a statement. Some pension companies allow you to log in online and view your pension details as and when you need to.

*if they don't send you a yearly statement find out why as they are required to. Lots of people fail to update their pension provider with their new address - so this may be why someone doesn't receive a yearly statement. Overtime pension pots get bought or merged with other companies and the pension becomes "lost".

£90k but I'm only 26, been paying in four years I think.

I'm 48 and my pension pot is around £330k.

I’ll just be on state pension. Should be mortgage free and a lump some of about £70k so it’ll be tight.

God mines only about 15k, 29 and been paying since I got graduate jobs and always more than minimum.

Last year it shrunk...

I don't have a clue what mine is. It's a final salary pension though. I've been in it 14 years and won't retire for another 20 at least. I do get a statement but can't remember what the last one said.

Zero. I'm 40 and unemployed due to ill health but not ill enough for disability if that makes sense. I guess I hope I won't live that long as it won't be fun.

Actually forgot about my workplace pension thing but suspect that won’t make me rich. About £150 a month goes into that.

@Chesneyhawkes1 there's no pot. Instead you are promised an annual pension income based on your salary and how long you paid into the pension.

Ah ok thanks TC07. It was just something I joined when I started my job. I was young then and didn't really take much notice!

Mine is around 300k so far ..I'm 40 and planning to retire at 60. I pay in around 9.5% work 13%.... will have a decent lumpsum as well

We don't have them, couldn't imagine losing all the hundreds of k mentioned above, so never had one.
That might be because I've seen so many people lose everything.

What do you mean, lose it all? Like through bad investments? If you’ve got a diversified investment portfolio you’re never going to lose it. If you had put money in stock before the 2008 crisis you’d be well up now even, even after losing a catastrophic amount in a year.
Or lose it another way? Like someone steal it?

37 years old and we have no savings or pension plans. Not even been living in UK for over a decade so even if we do come back in the future I won't have enough national insurance payments ever for a state pension. It is really scary. But right now we don't have hot water or heating so pensions are the furthest thing from our minds.

@orcinusOrca - how?! I’m 27, a higher rate tax payer, pay in total 20% and have a measly £8k.....

I think the average pot in retirement is @£120,000, so those with £500k+ are very fortunate.
I have a tiny LGPS deferred pension that will pay @£2k a year but I’ll probably transfer it into my SIPP in 8 years when I’m 60, hopefully £25k or so. I’ve had a SIPP for 3 years, paying £3k into it yearly (including tax relief), so it should be £35k +
DH is lucky in that he will get a Military pension at 60, he’s planning to retire at 62/63 so will funnel what will hopefully be £10k a year into his and my SIPPs for a couple of years to get the tax uplift. He has various old work schemes amounting to about £80k and is currently putting £5k a year into his work plan, so potentially another £40-50k . So, fingers crossed looking at a £200k joint pot which will equate to £6k a year drawdown.

We’ll also (probably) inherit half his Dad’s house at some point (he’s nearly 80) but we’re not planning on that money as he could need care etc.
DD complains about her high 10% Teachers pension contributions but it’s the best money she will ever spend.

I’m 35, have about £35k pot and paying in about £800 a month (including employers contributions). Have a mortgaged house currently worth around £800k too, so the plan would be to have house paid off and downsize to release some equity, plus whatever income I’ll have from the pension by then.

I’m a single mum with 2 kids so just pay in the most I can afford and let’s see what the future brings!!

How have people got so much?! I checked mine today weirdly - I'm 38 and got about 90k in there. £530 a month going in, I've been paying in for 14 years and always on a good salary for my age. My projection for annual income on retirement age of 60 is anything between 2k and 20k depending on performance, which is a bit crazy really. You can see why young people are put off investing if you're looking at 2k a year on a £500 a month saving 🤔 (after PCLS is taken.)

I’m my youth I spent nearly 10 years in a really good, financial services organisation. The chap I work with really drilled it into me that I should pay some additional money into it, so I did (I’ll forever be thankful to him), so I’ve got a good final salary pension. Plus I’ve always paid into a pension and now pay £400 a month. As such I should get about 36k pa pension and a enough of a lump sum at to pay off my mortgage and also move to where I want to retire.

But like anything financial, start paying in early and keep paying in, little and often is the key.

I started paying in to mine when I was 18..started work for the nhs then and bar 3 years I've always worked for the bus and I've always paid in. Ive gone up 4 bands since starting and unless I fuck up should keep going up at least 2 more bands before I retire.

£1080. But I'm 23 and am 10 months into my first full time job with a pension plan.

£20. I'm 22 and just got my first full time job 😁

£0 my employer still hasn’t sorted out auto enrolment, although they will and will hopefully backdate it. I’ll definitely be made redundant before I’m 40 though and plan to work for the council after that so should have 20+ years to build something up.

I started a LISA last year and have £3kish in there.

I am very lucky my employer still has a define benefits scheme so I will get a
Monthly pension for life set at around 75% of my final salary.

I am also contributing to an additional pension pot whcih is at around 150,000 but should each 400,000 by 60.

I don’t have one. I’ve always earned so little that I couldn’t afford to pay into a pension, I needed all my money to save a house deposit. Obviously before pensions were compulsory! Then I had kids and can’t afford to work because of the cost of childcare, so still no pension contributions. It’s likely that when I return to work I’ll continue to earn too little to afford all but the minimum compulsory pension contributions. I’m not happy about it but there’s no point stressing because there’s nothing I can do about it.

you need £600,000 in the pot to get £20,000 pension
Makes me wonder what’s the point? £600k in the bank would give you 30 years of pocket money at £20k p.a. and most of us are unlikely to live for 30 years after retirement. Even if you assume half of that is employer contributions, you’d still have 15 years worth of cash in the bank. Bearing in mind that people can’t retire till 70, most of us will be dead by 85 anyway. My grandparents died at 73 and 75, so if I retire at 70 I only need enough cash to tide me over for maybe 5 years, and I could probably get that by downsizing my house.