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?

I agree with this too @Realstudd - My defined Benefit pension NEVER showed on a bank statement. I suspect you have a defined CONTRIBUTION pension. But really, you need to speak to your HR or similar to ask them. No-one on here can definitively give you the correct answers. Plus, your previous employers will need to have your current address for their pensions andif you have moved, they won't know when it times to claim your pension(s). You really need to get some advice/learn about your pensions right now so that you know what the score is when you come to retire.

if you've moved jobs you'll almost certainly haev different pensions at the different jobs so three pots not one.
Ring them up and ask them to explain
however you're not in a bad posittion. Keep paying in, ideally pay in a bit more. But in returement if you've paid off your mortgge then living costs will be much lower than now. And if say you pay off your mortgage in less than 10 years then that will give you another 10 years at least to save up.

It is definitely the combined pension but what does that mean for the 2400 currently showing?

You can't have 2.5k in your pension pot after 10 years of paying 8% on a 35k salary, I'm guessing that's your annual payment but you should have state pension on top of that and plenty of time to increase your earnings and up the pot 💐 don't panic, see a financial advisor xx

@Realstudd contact the HR dept at each company, ask details of pension, subsequently amalgamate them into one. It's not stressful. It didn't take me long. You just need your NI number, dates you worked there and they will provide details of the pension provider. I did it a few years ago. Of course, you don't have to amalgamate but for ease it's simpler to have a singular workplace pension

If there is just this £2400 on the online banking and no other figures, how is it described, it will likely be the pot, can you log into you actual pension website as there should be much more details on there, usually if there is a projection and a load of blah about how they get to that sum which I doubt would be on your bank account. You may have to contact the pension company for log in details.

OP contact the 3 companies you have worked with and find out who their pension provider is, then call the pension company, they'll be able to track your pensions through your NI number. Once you have the details of all 3 pensions move them into one pension, see a financial advisor to determine which is the best scheme for you.

I think it probably is the projected pension but you need to check. This isn't nothing, you will state pension, your pension pot will grow. Remember when you retire you won't have a dependent child, you won't have a mortgage. My pension is way less than I earned and I've never felt so well off, my youngest graduated a few months before I retired, the mortgage had finished, I had no commuting costs. Try not to panic.

You will be fine OP
check your entitlement to full state pension.
use the tracing service to find all your old pensions
Open a SIPP (self invested pensions plan) and transfer all old pensions into it.
You then have 26 years to plan and make payments to your SIPP and workplace pension to make sure you have a healthy retirement pot.
Aim to retire mortgage and debt free with a workplace pension, state pension and Sipp all paying out.

You keep saying "online banking".
Where exactly are you looking because it won't be your normal bank account, it must be a pension portal or statement?

It could be that you have just looked at one of the three pension funds, possibly your current employer? You will have the paperwork somewhere re pensions from when you first started working at a company. Otherwise use the link someone has provided to search for the other two companies.

A pension will grow quicker if you put all three pension pots into the same one, your current employer will let you know if that is possible.

How much longer will you be paying off your mortgage? The bulk of my savings were accumulated once the mortgage was paid off and I was able to invest the same amount each month into various funds.

But that's not what you were originally saying. Your original comment was that you'd get the pre-2016 pension for contributions before 2016 and only the current, higher, level for contributions since then. At no point did you mention contracted out years.

Believe me, at close to state pension age I am totally on top of what I'm due to get, as is my financial advisor!

Being generous, I'll assume we're talking at cross purposes and not continue this discussion with you.

Sorry - not quoting the right post, but I wanted this to be directly to @Realstudd

https://www.gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details

If you've always paid into a pension over the last 3 jobs, the pension you can see on your existing online banking system is likely only one of the pensions that you've contributed to.

You need to find the pension pots you've previously been paying into. Above is a link to the Pension Tracing Service, but you should look back at any paperwork or emails you might have had from your current and previous employers about who their pension scheme is managed by.

Pension companies are, I believe, supposed to write to you every year with information about your pot and projected income. It's possible, therefore, that they've also got the wrong address details for you.

This webpage - https://www.gov.uk/transferring-your-pension gives you a link to MoneyHelper which gives free, impartial information about transferring your pensions, as you do now have the ability to combine your pots with one provider.

The main MoneyHelper website (https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement) might help you understand it all a bit better.

Please do also sign up for a Government Gateway account to check the status of your State Pension pot also. https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

If it's the same as mine, because Scottish Widows is part of Lloyds Banking Group I can see my pension pot in my list of accounts on Lloyds and Halifax bank but it's very basic. OP needs to go to her actual pension website. I find it quite handy as I'm retired now and the pension sits there and I can see the amount hopefully go up, though it has sometimes gone down.

It might be that's what you are looking per month, or lump sum payout before monthly income?

Hi OP - are you getting paper statements on a yearly basis? These should have more information about what’s been paid in over time.

Also can you log in to your pension provider on a computer? I find the app for mine doesn’t have much detail, but from my laptop I can find out more, like a projected income, and how long I’ve had the pension for.

You can absolutely turn this round.
If you pay off your mortgage in 6 years you'll be 48.
Put that mortgage payment into a pension immediately (don't give yourself the chance to get used to a higher income).
That, with the tax on your contributions will build up to a decent pension in the 20 years to your retirement age.
You will get pay increases over these years so be able to build up your savings and have more disposable income.

OP, this is meant kindly but you need to get your information right before you start panicking. No one here can tell you what kind of pension you have or what the £2.4K figure means. If it’s the case that that is your current annual pot value, plus you will receive state pension, you feasibly have enough time to both pay off your mortgage and build up your pension pot even further before retirement. Your current pension forecast may well be ~£13.5K (existing pot + state) and if you are mortgage free by then it’s a good start. You might be in a better situation than a great many people are.

If you've worked for 3 different companies then you'll have money with all 3 of them, and yes, it's likely that's the projected annual amount right now- it will be a lot more by the time you retire. You'll also get state pension, and if mortgage is paid off your cost of living won't be that high.

Nobody can answer this definitely until you give some more information. Where do you see this number? You keep saying "online banking", but your pension won't be in your normal online banking.

Also what does it say next to 2400? As there will several different figures in your pension account.

I don't think it's that bad, if you will have your mortgage paid off by 48 you will have 12 years at least to save £2000 per month that you have been paying? And that's only working to 60.

OP you really need to start getting into this. Pensions are not that hard but we just don’t like looking at them do we?

they’re really just saving schemes so if you have been paying in for 8 years at 8% then you will have a total which is your pot. You need to get all the paper work together. And if you have moved three times then you may have 3 sets of paperwork. Start working it out and then see where you are. You still have lots of time to save!

You have 20+ years until retirement so you are definitely not fucked, but you do need advice on putting together a plan for retirement in place. Get sorted now and you will have a secure home and a fair income.

@Realstudd no one can confidently give you the right answer as we can't see the information you are looking at.

Don't catastrophise. You have 20+ years left to work, are 6 years from paying off your mortgage and are on a healthy salary. You are in an ideal position to save for a personal pension to add to your state pension entitlement.

You have had some good advice. Prioritise tracking down your other pension pots and getting yourself more informed about pensions generally. You should receive an annual statement (either online or in the post) which will tell you the size of your fund and your illustrative benefits on retirement.

You need to find all your pension providers and consolidate them all into one place - probably the current one you are paying into now!

then you need to phone up current provider after that and ask for more information about how much you actually have

what do you mean in your online banking??

have you actually logged into your pension account / platform??

who is your pension with

also you will get the state pension too!