Should I stop pension payment?

[Livinlife2dafull]

I started a new job in civil service 4 months in now but want to opt out of pension to free up money. It's an 18 month position

My family are struggling financially. No savings left , husband in and out of work, credit cards maxed out and defaulted.

My pay has dropped £3000 a year I got made redundant. Redundancy money used up now as my husband can't get permanent work.

Husbands money dropped £400 month when he was working.

Mortgage killing us £1600 month was £1200 2 years ago. Fixed term ends in December but doubt it will drop.

I know civil service pension is good but I'm so stressed now to worry about future. We are barely covering bills.

My 22 year old has just left uni and got a well paid 30 grand job starting soon. I cannot ask her for money as she has given us money already from her savings

Any advice please.

Ask your mortgage company for a payment holiday or a temporary move to interest only? You don't say how old you are, but don't opt out of making pension payments as you benefit from the tax relief. Get some debt management advice now before things get worse.

Have you had professional advice? Because if not, it sounds like you need it urgently.

Normally it's a very bad idea to opt out of a pension and it probably still is in your case because you need debt management help and the payments you will make towards your debts will be worked out after your normal household spending, including your pension payments.

You need to stop paying anything towards your debts and ask for breathing space (industry term). Look at the debt help advice on Moneysaving Expert or a free charity and follow it.

Your DH needs to get any job he can, the retailers, parcel delivery companies etc will be looking for seasonal staff soon, so that's good place to start.

Your DD needs to pay a decent amount of board to cover her costs. She's a working adult who will be taking home around £2k pm, so should be paying you around £500 pm in board once she starts earning.

It sounds like your credit rating is shot and if you don't get on top of your debts soon, you're at risk of struggling on for years, paying thousands in interest and getting nowhere fast if you don't get and follow free professional advice.

So its the worse advice to opt out of a pension plan. However if this really is an at top an 18 month contract - you can possibly take the hit . But do check your state pension entiletlment, make sure that is up to date. I had to pay for 6 years recently , but I had enough time and enough years that I paid the cheapest six years which didn't cost a fortune

Do not feel that you can not ask the 22 year old to contribute? Aged 16 I was out working and covering my wee sisters school costs and feeding the family of 3 . If its 3 adults at home, apart form rent/mortgae , bills should be split 3 ways

If DH cannot get a permanent full time position in his line of work, he is going to have to do what so many of us do, and get the hours somehow - somewhere - even if that's a shift on a bar at weekends

The Civil Service pension is incredibly generous, if you opt put you'll lose out massively unless it's only a short pause.

We made that mistake with my OH's teacher's pension. It pays about £600/ month. If she'd kept paying it would be about four times that.

Don't opt out of the pension. I did this years ago with an NHS pension because I thought I couldn't afford it. I didn't understand about pensions either. With hindsight and a bit of juggling, and some financial advice, I know that I could have got through those years.

Get some advice. Go and see a mortgage broker and get the mortgage payments down rather than opt out of your pension.

Debt management to sort out maxed out cards. Yes you can asked your dd to help. Your mortgage may well go down again at the end of the year, talk to a mortgage adviser now as you can fix in a rate. Your DH needs to get a job, any job.

If you are only in the CS pension scheme for less than 2 yrs they will auto refund your contributions anyway when you leave CS.

Your dd is an adult working so she contributes to the bills

That.

Exactly.

Don't opt out of the pension, a civil service pension is generous, and more often than not temporary contracts become permanent within the civil service. You need debt advice for now, but that pension could see you to be comfortable in retirement

Just to say even if you opt out, you won’t get back the amount on your payslip due to tax relief. So say you’re paying £200 a month it wont be that you get an extra £200 a month take home due to dropping out. Worth checking this

No. Cut in other ways

Can you/your husband get some kind of cash in hand side hustle like selling on car boots/handyperson/cleaning/dog walking etc? Purely as a temporary measure.