Help me understand my payslip/ pension

[unmp]

I am not that financially savvy at all, so need an idiots guide/ breakdown of my pension situation. This is a pic of part of my payslip, at the left side of the screen it says ‘cumulative year to date’, then the description is visible as are the amounts

my question is:

1. how much do I currently have in my pension is it the £31k figure?
2. is the employer’s pension in addition to the above amount making it £37k?

this has been gathered after 3yrs in role and making 50% contributions, employer matches this

thinking of making full contributions now but unsure how this would impact my net take home pay

1. Also if I remained on this figure until I retire, 40 (this yr), what is my likely income going to be from state and work pensions, at current rate of the 50% contributions and then at 100%?

thank you in advance for taking a look

The pensionable gross is the amount of money you have been paid and the figure used to calculate your pension contributions. It is nothing to do with your pension "savings" which should be communicated to you seperately, but I doubt it's anything close to £30k after 3 years.

The taxable gross is less, because you don't pay tax on pension contributions, so that is your gross salary less your pension contributions and the figure used to calculate your income tax.

You can't tell how much is in your pension from your payslip, you need to get the figure from the pension company.

Are you really contributing 50% of your salary and if so are you sure your employer is matching this? That would be very unusual to say the least.

Lots of variables including what kind of pension scheme you're in, but as above, your payslip can't tell you how much is in your pension savings (plus you don't say if your pension scheme is a defined benefit - like a final salary scheme - or defined contribution - like a svaings acocunt).

Your employers' pension contribution is 20% of your pensionable salary, but because I don't know more baout your shceme, I don't know if that's entirely theirs, or some makes up your contribution (by way of a salary sacrifice). When you say 50% contribution, I presume you mean you can pay up to say 20%, but at the moment you're only contributng 10%?

Also if I remained on this figure until I retire, 40 (this yr), what is my likely income going to be from state and work pensions, at current rate of the 50% contributions and then at 100%?

Nobody on Mumsnet can tell you this, you need to talk to your pension provider.

Your payslip doesn't tell you your pension pot, just like it doesn't tell you how much is left on your mortgage, or how much you have in your current account. It tells you how much you have earned so far this year (£31k), and what deductions have been made. Do you mean you are contributing to your pension at 50% of the usual rate? Surely it's not 50% of your salary? (Actually the rate might shown elsewhere on your payslip, under the monthly deductions section).

As above, these are not your pension contributions. These figures are how much you have earned to date and as you pay tax after pension contributions you have the taxable amount. So, to use simple figure, if I was paid £2000 a month and paid £200 into a pension then £1800 would be taxable as you pay pension before tax.

These are obviously very simple figures to illustrate that you pay tax after pension contributions, in reality you have your tax free amount as well but I don’t want to complicate things by including this in figures.

Only employers pension is shown (or visible) which would indicate that your company uses salary sacrifice.

OP do you know who your pension provider is? It's actually really easy to log in online to most of them. Your work should have the details of who your provider is if you aren't sure.

Thank you all, I am with Kent pension team, and yes it is salary sacrifice, I am contributing 50% of the normal contributions rather than 100% or opting out at present, let me look for the statement from Kent and will ask more questions if needed

It sounds like you are on a LGPS pension scheme is that correct? Teacher, school, local government staff?If so you dont have a pot of money as such you will will accrue an amount each year 1/49th of your annual salary if paying full contributions or 1/98th for 50% contributions.

To add to my above post. Each year will then be added together to give you your pension amount. This will also be recalculated each year for inflation. I think you have misunderstood the 50/50 part of the scheme this just means that both you and the employer contribute half the usual amount each year. The actual amounts that you and they contribute are pretty much irrelevant.
Your scheme will have a members page you can log into which will give you how much you have accrued to date, also you should be able to use their calculator to show how much it will be worth in the future.

This is a really good tool to help you calculate what your pension will look like when you retire:

Pension calculator | Work out your retirement income | MoneyHelper

You need to find out who your pension provider is and how much you've already got sitting in there.

I think you've confused some people. as when you say you're making 50% contributions it sounds like you're putting half of your monthly pay into your pension - and there's not many employers in the world who will match that!

Your LGPS will send you a statement every year.

Just in case you don't know - the financial year starts on 1st April. So April is period 1, May is period 2 etc.

Yes this is correct, this sounds about right

Yes, not putting half of salary in, just making half of the normal contributions

To find out how full contributions would affect your take home you can use this calculator. Make sure to input your tax code, student loan etc too so it's accurate. Input your pension contributions as an £ amount versus percentage, unless you can find out what actual percentage of your salary youre paying (i.e not 50%, more usual to be around 5-8% but you should ask HR/payroll). The £ amount would be the actual amount coming out of your payslip each month (possibly no more than a couple hundred a month on your salary) not the 31,000 you mention in OP which is just how much of your salary can be used to work out your pension contributions - some employers will contribute x% of your entire salary and others only x% of part of your salary.
www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php

Also worth seeing if you can book a quick call with your HR/payroll team or your pension scheme so they can explain how it all works. Vital that you understand it all so you can make good choices and not sleep walk into a shitty retirement.

OP has lgps pension scheme which is quite literally the best there is. Though I would advise her to stop paying the 50/50 scheme and start paying the full amount.

Thanks I will do this