Please tell me I am not the only oldish person without a pension plan

[QuentinLettsisAbitofAtool]

Not a TAAT well it is a bit but sod it

I'm having a bit of a panic attack brought on by the MN survey about pensions. I don't have one, have a big mortgage, not due any parental inheritances and am in my 50s.

Please tell me I'm not alone as that might make me feel less dumb!

Oh and I put "oldish" in the thread title because I mean old in terms of a pension. Twenty somethings who don't have a pension don't fit my criteria!

Op, as retirement age is now 67 can't you start to do something about it now?

I don't have anything. I have never earned enough to have any spare money to pay in. But because I am now receiving carers allowance contributions are being made to my state pension.

If you go on the government gateway website you can log in and see where you are with your state pension. I am currently paid up enough to receive the full amount.

I would like to have an extra pension if one day DS is independent enough for me to go back to work but I do wonder if it'll be worth it given how few years i will be able to pay in for.

So my main plan is to make sure I keep my state pension up to date so I at least have something.

My hope is that Corbyn will become PM and give everyone a full pension regardless of contributions
Ah joy, the rainbow unicorns are here.
There is NO MONEY to do that without raising income taxes massively.

Fuzzycustard
have a private pension of around £500 a month
To get that amount from a DC pension for the 35 years of your life would require a pension pot of around £200,000
more than 90% of the population will ever have

is the scheme you are a member of in surplus or deficit?
If its in deficit (as are ALL public sector schemes) it is unaffordable.

Eek . Our house is worth about that. :(

Talkinpeece I'm intrigued by your 25% statement. That seems like a very high % of gross pay to me?

I can see that could be the case if you started a pension very late, but starting a pension at 20, to retire at 65, on a salary of 25k a year would give a £785k pot with 4% growth, even assuming no inflationary increase in contributions.

That would give 23.5k a year income in retirement which on top of the state pension would be 50% higher than this imaginary persons salary.

Half that contribution would enable them to have a minimal drop in salary in retirement, and often costs are lower in retirement too.

Obviously these are theoretical calculations, and high earners would need to save more as the state pension would be a smaller portion of their income, but I think 25% is very pessimistic.

My pension pot works out to be around £16k (will be inline with inflation) per year, i won't have a mortgage and plan on not owing a debt, so only small household bills which would be manageable on that. I currently pay 8% work pays 15% plus state pension

Nacreous
NOBODY on this thread started their pensions at 20
I started my first one in my late 40s
Millions of people never start one at all

People starting to save once their kids get to late teens have to put a LOT aside to have any decent sort of retired life

and TBH the first people hitting retirement on small fully DC schemes are only trickling through now
it will be a flood of despair in ten years

We don't have a pension and my OH is only on about £9 an hour. My other half bought his flat years ago, and then we bought my house. So realistically once the kids have gone we go and live in his flat....it has 2 bedrooms so our ASD son can live with us if need be. And then I guess we either rent the 5 bed house out or sell it? probably better to rent it out as the return would be much higher than the actual value.....say £750 a month ( now) compared to £100k to sell (now). I am only at the very start of my career after caring for kids at home but with a teachers pension even after paying in for just 20 years it will be pretty manageable for us.

I hope.

One thing I dont know, what happens to your pension pot if you die? is it like a savings account? can somebody else inherit it?

Yep , no pension plan here
Been self employed for many years , and we have always ploughed the money back into the business
Have paid my “stamp” as it used to be called , all the time , so I will have a full pension when I’m 67 , and not 60 ( for which I blame Gordon Brown )
Will sell our business in the next couple of years , downsize ( we have a huge house now that we rattle around in )
And keep working , hope I have another few years in me

Rudolph
what happens to your pension pot if you die? is it like a savings account? can somebody else inherit it?
If its a DC pension, yes it forms part of your estate (assuming you have not bought an annuity with it)

@Talkinpeece

NOBODY on this thread started their pensions at 20

I did

"have a private pension of around £500 a month
To get that amount from a DC pension for the 35 years of your life would require a pension pot of around £200,000"

No, my pension pot was a LOT less than that. A LOT. I have also worked more than 35 years.

I'm not in any scheme. I am taking my pension now. And as I said earlier, I worked in the charity sector, so public sector pensions are not something I benefit from.

Could you live on £6,000 a year? With no concession like Council Tax rebate, or lower heating costs or free bus passes either.

I don’t have a pension. I haven’t worked for over ten years as my eldest child has a disability. When I did work there wasn’t a pension scheme on offer. So I am screwed. I have given my life to look after my child’s needs. I’m early 40s and have no hope of a secure financial future. I will be near 70 for State pension. I can see us having to learn some badger recipes and learning to forage.

Fuzzycustart
If you worked more than 35 years and have now retired aged around 60
your pension has to provide you with income for another 35 years
I'm not in any scheme - you must have had one of the very first personal pensions then as they were basically not invented till the mid 80's
or are you a member of the Charity's DB scheme (as many big charities have for their staff in the past)?

THe core point is that the only pensions available to most now are DC schemes with rock bottom returns

I have a pension but have no idea how they work. I'm single with children, own my own property outright, work part time, early 40s and my projected annual pension pot is 15k in a local government scheme. Is this good or bad? I will downsize when the children are older but to help them buy a property so I will not gain any money from that.

If you are in the LGPS you are in a good place. Stay put.

Late 40s 2000 in my pension pot.
No employer offered me one. Spent 10 years as a sahm moving around with an army husband inclufing 4 stints overseas.
I now work in a job that pays a fraction over the NMW. I try to save every month into a savings account but as I take home so little there's not hundreds a month to put by.

Looking on the bright side I doubt I will need to worry too much I don't expect to live to a great age with my health issues and medical history. I'm a ticking time bomb.

I pay in 8% of my salary and my company pay in 10% but I have only just got one aged 34 and I work part time so my salary isn’t huge. The pension adviser seemed to think I’d retire with about 50% of my wage but starting to think I’ve been had reading this thread...

I started my pension in my 20s, but it was at a fairly low wage, and I didn't contribute much to it when XP left and didn't pay maintenance, and then I missed a few years being bewildered by options when I went self employed. I am contributing again now, but it is still pitifully low and not enough time to make much of a difference.

I did start a local government pension at 21 in the early nineties then I transferred it to my post in higher education . I'm also very aware that my contempories have very varying arrangements.

DH is 50 and has only got a tiny pension that he paid into for about 5 years in his twenties. He's got a year or two of salary in savings.

His plan is to die before he needs a pension .

Realistically though, I'm 10 years younger than him and I've got a decent pension (I'm a teacher, so even on the newer pension scheme it's better than a lot of people). I'll be able to claim my pension at 65, and by that time we'll have paid off the mortgage (that's paid off when I'm 54), the dds will both be adults who won't need to be supported. We should have some time then to build up more savings for retirement, hoping that nothing life changing happens beforehand then.

Isnt there some sort of minimum income guarantee if you retire on a low income?

Workreturner yes, we plan to significantly downsize (selling, not an equity release).

The state pension you mean - nearly double what working age non working people get