To have neglected my pension

[Moonsey123]

I moved to the UK 17 years ago and only worked part time for about 14 years due to childcare. I only started making contributions when they became compulsory for small and medium companies, probably about 8 years ago. I only contributed the minimum. I am closer to 50 now and only started worrying about it 2 years ago and started making additional contributions.

I feel there should be more information about it. is this something schools should be teaching our children? or is our duty as parents to inform our children. I come from a working class family so didn't have much information about savings, pensions or investments.

What does being working class have to do with not having a pension. Pensions (Employer contribution ones anyway) are by design for working class people, since your employer takes some of the burden of your future retirement. OP, you also mention that you don’t want to talk to your children too much about savings to not make them money obsessed. There is no such thing. This whole ‘money doesn’t buy you happiness’ rhetoric is not helpful. It’s not the school’s role to teach kids everything. It’s absolutely fine to talk about this amongst family, to your kids. In fact if we spoke more about money, we would actually fewer issues like the one you describe and gender pay gap etc.

Agree there is more information now with the internet, but only probably over the last 10 years.I wasn't like this 20 or 30 years ago. If your parents had some knowledge on this and transferred this to you that's great but my parents never talked about it to us growing up. They were busy making ends meet.; I am sure this is the case for many people but not saying for all people.

Investment, pensions all woefully hidden in the shadows

People don't understand investing at all (many people).

It should be taught along with many basics.

Op I'm going to open up a sipp for each dc this year, a self investing personal pension.

Opening these things up is the hardest part once they are open, bunging money in every now and then is then easy and they will have years to add to them and years for the them to grow.

Imagine if the government pushed this and encouraged it, every parent to open up a pension account for their dcs future.
Even if the parents fall out with the child that money will always be tyere for that child!
Imagine how wonderful having that little nest egg coming in older age would be!

I think 50 is the age lots of us start thinking more about pensions as we are closer to retirement. It is not to late to start contributions-or increase contributions.
Some posters have been contributing from an early age - although I wonder how many of these are referring to a company pension and their contributions to it in which case they didn’t really make a conscious effort to start a pension they just were lucky enough to work at a company who had set one up, that what my first pension was at age 18.
I have started to increase my contributions although as one of my parents died at age 51 I have always conscious that I did not want to be saving too much and not spending and enjoying life now, as I might never even get to retirement …

The current state retirement age is 66, but will increase

Mine has been set as age 67 for a long time but it looks like they are going to add an additional year

Yes, we we are thinking on starting a SIIP for the children, just contribute a small amount each month, it will grow over the years.

Thanks to the internet I do have more information now that I had 10 years ago.

OP I get where you are coming from but it’s a money thing not a class thing. I too grew up hand to mouth and my Mum had absolutely about money other than how much was needed immediately to feed us and keep the lights on. I didn’t have a clue about pensions and didn’t make the best decisions in my 20’s. For example i prioritised saving as I was so scared of having no immediate security (having never had any) but didn’t know to think about my pension (assumed a state one would be fine like it was for everyone in my family).

I think the comment up thread that you are passing the responsibility on is unfair. We’re all starting from different points and some people have more information about how life works than others (this applies to loads of things including finances, health, legal rights and so on).

I don't think this is the job of schools- they should focus on education. Although DSs school offered a lunchtime finance class which he did and found interesting.

If you have spare money then start a pension for your kids now. I've done that and DS will start contributing when he's earning money. Although you'll probably need to sort your own pension first.

The thing is, lots of people lost money on the stock market when I was growing up. I remember my mum had a pep that lost thousands, people with endowments were told they were going to have shortfalls after being promised huge returns for their investments. Pension funds collapsed such as equitable life and there were loads of scandals following embezzlement (eg maxwell).

We are in a bull market still so all the talk is about growth (and I have invested thankfully) but I think there are probably a lot of people approaching retirement now that thought the whole thing was a con so it's hardly surprising that there is such disparity between pension pots.

None of my family have made it to pension age so it’s really not something I worry myself over.

@nomoneytreehere

The thing is, lots of people lost money on the stock market when I was growing up. I remember my mum had a pep that lost thousands, people with endowments were told they were going to have shortfalls after being promised huge returns for their investments. Pension funds collapsed such as equitable life and there were loads of scandals following embezzlement (eg maxwell).

We are in a bull market still so all the talk is about growth (and I have invested thankfully) but I think there are probably a lot of people approaching retirement now that thought the whole thing was a con so it's hardly surprising that there is such disparity between pension pots.

Exactly. The Equitable Life collapse was a huge scandal which may have been one of the drivers to an inflated BTL market. Plus, many people's parents had good workplace pensions so didn't really need to talk about it. Having said that, the Philip Greens of this world are still about.

If you live hand to mouth then pensions are seen as a luxury. And for my parents’ generation, your employer would often take care of it. My family were all public servants and never had to think of pensions. My father would say he got far more from his pension than he ever got working as a policeman. No financial education in my family so I do think it is a bit of a class thing.

A previous poster made a good point about the need to educate women on financials. How many posts on here have women saying “It doesn’t make sense for me to work once I’ve paid for childcare.” Or on the salary threads “My DH earns squillions”. I know so many women who neglected their own earnings and are now miserable in low paid jobs, minimal pension pots and insufficient time to turn finances around. Financial management is as important as careers advice (which was shit anyway - in both my time and my DCs!)

@WhenSheWasBad

I’ve taught pensions as part of a PSHE lesson.

Sadly 15 year olds aren’t particularly interested in financial planning for their 70s. It’s hard enough to get them to plan for independent living at the age of 18 or 21. Let alone get them to take on planning for their retirement.

Absolutely this!

I think it also depends on where you work. I've always worked for small businesses and charities and before the minimum contributions were made mandatory a few years ago, there was nothing at all from my workplaces and it wasn't really talked about. I only started thinking about my pension when I became self-employed and there was more talk about it on websites geared towards freelancers.

And obviously it depends on your income in the first place. These threads always attract people who've been putting hundreds of pounds into their pension since they were 20 but you can only do that if you have enough money left after covering other essentials. Many people are not in that position. I live alone and a huge chunk of my money goes towards bills and house maintenance at the moment. I'm sure if I had a partner covering half of those costs I would find it easier to save more into my pension.

@WhenSheWasBad

I’ve taught pensions as part of a PSHE lesson.

Sadly 15 year olds aren’t particularly interested in financial planning for their 70s. It’s hard enough to get them to plan for independent living at the age of 18 or 21. Let alone get them to take on planning for their retirement.

Yes

I have a 15 year old and his school offers a finance qualification but it's not very popular.

This is an age where some truly believe that they'll become a wealthy TikToker overnight so don't need to think about savings never mind pensions.

Op, don't think do!?
Procrastination is the enemy of investing.

You will malt make more money on something invested in June than in September

Also open up stocks and shares isa. Vanguard is a good company with low fees but not 10%% sure they do children sipp yet.

Once it's open, putting a little bday money in here and there will be so much easier!
And have more time to to grow.

Mine have bank account with money I've been putting in since little, only few hundred but that's for their spending eg dd used some with bday money to buy a computer.

Or a necklace. I'm hoping that will help them manage a bank account.
Then they have enough money in a cash Isa for a car and lessons.
Again this has no interest of interest... But I've kept it there again as a barrier and hurdle to another amount...
Which is a small inheritance for them which is growing rapidly in a stocks and shares isa.. This is their main capital.
For house deposit or even to grow and live on the interest.
One dc is so sensible and I'm sure will regulate and carefully use her money but the other dc is incredibly impulsive and its her I'm worried about.
L

Through a catalogue of disasters, I have almost zero pension. My state pension is up to date though.

I have about 5 other pensions knocking about that will probably give me about £20 a month if that.

Mine was no ones fault but circumstance.

I hate these threads when people presume if you don't have a pension, or you haven't been paying £500 a month into one, you're somewhat of an idiot.

Things happen. Life happens.

Also just to say, I personally can't see the point of having zero life now paying huge amounts into a pension. I know 3 people who did that - all died aged 40-48 before even getting their pension.

Being able to pay £300+ a month into a pension is a luxury a lot of people can't afford.