To think I am fucked for retirement?

[Realstudd]

despite a decent job and income, I am absolutely rubbish at anything financial. I don’t understand pensions etc.

i became a single parent last year and I have one dc, 9. I am 42. I have 3k in savings but these are used for car stuff or emergencies and never get beyond 3k.

i looked at my pension pot the other day and it says 2,400… I’ve been paying in for over 9 years, 8 percent of my salary. My salary has always been over 35k and for a few years has been over 50. I don’t get how the pot can be so low?

the only positive is I have 140k left on my mortgage which I overpay so could be paid off in 6 years. But what good is that really if I can’t afford the bills! I feel like an idiot for not having planned ahead, I guess I will lose my home and have to go into rented to pay bills when older? What do people do? I go from feeling insanely stressed about it to accepting that that’s just how it is but I can’t picture my future anymore. What do you do in this situation?

You need to find out how much each of your pensions will pay you at retirement age. You have 25 years left to pay in which is loads of time, unless you want to retire early. You can always equity release in later life if you really need to.

Chill.
You have over 20 years to add to your pension which will be easier when kids are off the books.
In principle there will be a state pension which is currently £11.5K.
You will be OK, but take time now to understand your pension.

I suspect that’s a year.

You should meet with a financial advisor, who can review your plans and advise the best foot forward.

Mine is Scottish Widows and that shows on my online banking because I have accounts with Lloyds and Halifax which are all part of Lloyds banking group, if I had other pensions they wouldn't show as they are not part of the same group. You probably need to log into your actual pension websites as there will be more detail than shows in your online banking which will not show all pensions

Do your own self-invested pension plan (SIPP) with a low-fee platform such as InvestEngine, and follow Damien Talks Money on YouTube. His videos specifically about pensions are here and helped me to turn mine around.

Good luck! You've still got plenty of time and you are being very clever to think about it now. I left it much later!

I have consolidated my pension pots as I have changed jobs, it's not difficult and the new pension provider gave me the info/forms to do it. If that's what you want to do, then you don't necessarily need a financial advisor to do this on your behalf. Having all my pensions in one place is easier for me to feel organised because it's one provider and I get a better broader view of my fund, and projected retirement amount

Other posters have given useful info on how to trace the others, they will be there somewhere so definitely take some time to find them.

What you could then do if you wanted to is consolidate them all together so all the pension is in one place, or chose to keep them separate. Once you have the details for the other accounts you can figure that out.

Usually the headline figure they give is a projected annual pension amount, which may look tiny but you still have time to add to it and over the years it should increase far beyond the actual monetary contributions you’ve made.
It is usually more efficient to pay more into a pension than overpay a mortgage, unless your mortgage rate is astronomical. That could leave you a lot better off in the long run than getting rid of the mortgage a couple of years earlier.

As others have said there is a government pension tracing service.

In addition to this the larger pension providers such as Legal and General or Aviva will also go away and find you previous pensions and consolidate them all in to one pot (which may be cheaper than having them separate - and they’ll tell you and not consolidate them if it obviously isn’t).

Given the figures you’ve quoted I’d imagine you have a total of c£40-50k between the pots so I imagine you are in a better position than you think.

Financial advice sounds like it’ll be worth it, but I’d personally split the mortgage overpayments and put more in both you pension and short term savings.

I've been self employed all my life and only just realised at 38 I ought to save for a pension - its been literally month by month living until recently.

If you have moved jobs, you are likely to have paid into the pension plan related to each job. So you may have 3x 2,400 (depending on how long you worked at each employer).

Use the links others have posted to find your previous pensions, and contact your current HR to find out your current pension provider. You should get proper financial advice to find out if it makes sense to keep each pension pot separate or combine them.

I've got 3 pensions - one private pension which is worth approx £buttons a year. Then a public sector pension that I started contributing to at 23 and carried on for about 15 years - it's OK but because I was part time for a good while it isn't as great as it should have been. Now in an entirely separate public sector scheme and need to get advice to see if I should roll them all into my current one or if I leave them alone.

I can never figure out how much I should get a year from my pensions on retirement. But seeing as the retirement age will probably go up to about 80 by the time I'm die to retire, who knows when or if ill get my money (and buttons).

https://www.gov.uk/plan-retirement-income/get-financial-advice

OP, be very very wary of advice from random people on the Internet. This website is a good place to start, as is Moneywise.

I think, as others have said, your £2400 may be your annual income at pension age if you left your job now, ie it isn't projected forward to you accusing another 20 years of contributions. So don't panic.

Be cautious about using pension advisors full stop - it's a sector with a very chequered history. Be extremely cautious about pension advisors who take a permanent management fee. This is extremely bad value for money, and creates poor incentives for your advisor to suggest funds with bigger slices for them. Be very cautious about starting a SIPP if your employer is matching your contributions at the moment. (I generally like SIPPs but they are best used by people with plenty of savings who don't have or have fully utilised their employers' contribtionary pension.) Your mortgage overpayment is fantastic - as long as you have a reasonable expectation that the interest rate on your mortgage is higher than your savings interest rate, you should still overpay - again, take random advice with a pinch of salt - including mine!

If you have been in employment, rather than self-employed, and have not chosen to opt out, then around 8% of your qualifying earnings should be going into a defined contribution pot of some sort through “auto-enrolment”. Your employer must pay at least 3% of the 8%. Qualifying earnings is a bit complex, but for this year it’s broadly all your earnings from that employer between £6,200 pa and £50k pa. If you earn £50k a year, this means around £3,500 per year should be going into the pot, so it would make no sense that the £2,400 is a cumulative amount.

It is worth considering consolidating if you have worked in a number of different places - contact those previous employers if needed to get details. The government is working on some initiatives - pensions dashboards and small pot consolidation - that will hopefully eventually happen and be very helpful for those in your situation, but unfortunately they are a few years from going live yet.

Definitely call the pension administrator. Look at the Pension Wise website.

I’ve put all of my pensions into one scheme now and have an app that shows the value. Hopefully you can access something similar. It’s 35% up since 2019…

Not all funds perform the same, but I think your amount quoted is probably the projected annual value if you bought an annuity with the current pot of money.

You’ve got years ahead of you working. Pay down your mortgage, then put the equivalent amount into your pension each month once you’re mortgage-free.

YANBU to panic. I have no idea why more of my friends aren’t stressing about their future retirement. A large number have been SAHM for 15+ years with nearly nothing in individual pension.

Stop worry warting! You will pay off your mortgage by the time you are 50, will get a full state pension plus a private pension and you have 25 years to pay into it and willl be able to throw money at it once the mortgage is gone. You are sitting pretty! You are in a far, far better position than many.

The 35 years for full new state pension only applies to people that did not start paying NI until after 2016. Anyone paying NI before that time cannot rely on the 35 years. It can vary for them from high 20s to over 40 years.
The best thing to do OP is check your personal tax account online and you will get an accurate time frame for state pension contributions. Then trace your pensions and that will give you a much better idea of your position.

Deep breath, OP. You’re getting a lot of info, and you’re unlikely to need an advisor. My recommendation is to watch the Rebel Finance School videos. They’ve just completed their 2024 programme and the videos are on YouTube. They have loads of great resources and take you step by step through getting a handle on your finances and understanding your financial mindset.

You'll also have your state pension. Plenty of people live off that alone.

Understanding Pensions is very difficult for many OP, so you are not alone. There are different kinds of pensions. The following is a link to the Gvt website which explains a bit here

So before you panic any more I would suggest you do the following

1. Speak to your current employer and ask them about your pension. What kind of pension is it, what benefits you get and how it is all worked out
2. Check with your previous employers about what kind of pensions you have with them and get as much information as you can

Someone should be able to explain to you what the £2,400 is exactly. You say it is on your online banking that you saw it, but that's confusing me - usually any pension provider sends you regular statements of where you are at?

Only skimmed the thread so apologies if this has already been said but I think it means you have a pension pot that would give you around 2.400 per year when you retire.

that would work is you’re paying 8% of 35k in and your employer is paying the same. Over 9 years than means your pot would be around 50k which gives about that per year

so no it’s not loads yet but it’s only 9 years so keep going and it’ll grow. Most have to pay 30-40 years in to get a decent pot.

Contact the pension provider and ask them. Find out how much you pay every month and ask for a breakdown. It can be 2400 after 9 years

You'll be entitled to state benefit of around £900 a month, even without your private pension. If you don't have a mortgage to pay, surely you'll be able to cover any other bills with that amount? Or do what many people do and downsize, which should free up at least 100k in cash when you sell. Not sure why you're panicking about having to rent, but I admit I'm not particularly savvy about finances. I'm self employed and will be relying on the state pension lol.

If you earn around £35,000 then 8% of this is £2800, so is it possible the £2400 is what you paid in this year to your pension?

It should then say somewhere what the "pot" is, and how much a month/year this would be if you retired at 67.

OP, there is time to understand this better and sort it. I don’t think you’re in a terrible place - your mortgage progress is brilliant. Re-frame, do some learning about pensions and get every scrap of info to understand your current pension and then make a plan for the future.