To ask how much is in your pension pot and your contribution %

[Vistada]

Just that really?

I'm starting to put a lot of thought into my pension (something that in my 20s I thought just ticked over) but its difficult to get a good gauge of what one should have saved.

WIBU to ask (if you're happy to share) your age, salary, pot size and what you contribute per month in %?

Me: 33, £23k pot, £55k PA (only recently) and joint 13%

Ermmm, I knew that but thanks. It’s still annoying to me however

No not for my kids or me - in general, it seems a complicated choice.
I was reflecting on people who work for the state - having an amazing pension but a low salary - in a sense opting for pension over home ownership, as they don't have a choice to invest in pensions or save a deposit for a house.

Well I’m not sure I totally agree that people working for the state are that badly paid, but yes it is pension ahead of immediate reward. Those that ignore pension saving in the private sector are hanging themselves out to dry and being aided by government legislation (although that has improved a little).

@Tedaaaaaaaaah @Waitingforgeorge

It depends. Inside the M25 one can earn significantly more in the private sector than in the civil service/local government/NHS/Education. Outside London, particularly in the North, those employers are the employers of choice paying more usually than other local sectors.

For the next generation, the gold plated public sector pensions are likely to be significantly diluted.

For some quite unknown reason I was always a bit anal about pensions and savings and contributed as much as I was allowed from the moment I started work on the basis that if it never hit the bottom line, I would never miss it. I was unusual though.

When I see what people who come to our company are paid in the Civil Service I know they are very underpaid (even when pension contributions are taken into account - there's a massive gap) - granted that's just my experience - this latest report backs it up. I don't know anyone saying teachers of nurses are well paid either. But it's all relative - if you are on minimum wage of course anyone earning more than you can feel like they are well paid. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/22/chronic-low-pay-hurting-civil-service-staff-morale-recruitment-say-mps

It’s a big issue in professional roles in local government too - paid vastly less than private sector equivalents and has started to seriously hurt recruitment.

Public sector careers are rarely as precarious as the private sector. Income, particularly where pensions are concerned, needs to be assessed over 40 years. I know very few highfliers who have maintained very high incomes across entire careers. There are few white hairs on the average trading floor.

I earnt six figures mid/late 80s to mid 90s. At 35 I was completely burnt out. 30 years on I just about earn six figures in the public sector. It suited to work locally when the dc were small. DH went sideways aged about 54, reducing his income by £400k to do something sustainable but public sector for the next 10/15 years.

The biggest pension issue for me has been state pension. Retired from education at age 57, five years ago and as the LGPS was 'opted out' status, despite me paying more NI than a lot of folk, I was not eligible for a full state pension.
I've just paid £2,700 to top it up.
If you've worked in NHS, local government, education etc do make sure you get a state pension forecast from DWP.

25k pot. I've just increased my contribution to 8% as my employer only pays 3%

Oh I'm 38

If you are self-employed/freelance or an entrepreneur, then you need to pay particularly close attention to your pension. Because only you are contributing to it! (Mine owns one industrial building, close to a key road junction) Anyone working independent of an employer must have a proper legitimate structure for retirement saving. It is one of those situations where failure to follow the rules exactly is most likely to go wrong. Take proper advice. Not from me. I'm neither an accountant nor an investment adviser, but I worked for a huge pension fund in the USA in the 80s, and the general principles are:

If it sounds wonderfully promising, it won't be as great all the time.

If the advertised return is attractively high, halve it... they were lucky that year.
There is no free lunch.

Any investment that promises to perform consistently outside the averages is simply lying. It's possible to get lucky for a year or two, but for most non expert people, most of the time the best option is to stick your money into the cheapest fund (which is the one with the lowest charges) that indexes the S&P500, and stop thinking about it for 10 years. Across every five and 10 year period since 1929, the S&P has matched or just beaten inflation. And for retirement preparation, that is seriously most of what you want to achieve.

Precisely@Papyrophile. DH was self employed for most of his career.