Pension / future planning for SAHM - long!

[beadyboo]

At the beginning of this year I was made redundant. I had worked at the same company for a long time (although part time for the last 9 years) and received a decent settlement. I had a good company pension too, again reduced for the last 9 years.
My job made me miserable, and life has been much more settled since I've been a sahm. All money earned by both of us has always been spent jointly. Our family income is sufficient to live adequately on one salary, though obviously we have less than before and we have jointly decided that I'll stay at home at least for the next couple of years.
We are not in receipt of child benefit, but we are registered as DC were born before the means testing was introduced.
I am now not contributing to any savings or pension (I have saved my settlement sum) and believe that I'm being inefficient and setting myself up for problems in later life.
DH is self employed (if that makes any difference)
What should I be doing with regard to plugging the gap in any pension or NI contributions? DH thinks I should use some of the family money to make a regular contribution to some sort of investment but I don't know where to start.

Are there no independent financial advisers near you?

Your NI is being credited if your child is under 12.

As a family where are your pension savings? How much is your husband saving?

To be honest you need advice, find a local IFA, pay the fee and relax knowing your on the right track (once you've implemented their advice!).

Op, we use online stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown (there are other similar ones) to drip feed money into both stocks and shares ISAs and SIPPS (self invested pensions). You can select a wide range of funds for either option, and there is a wealth of info on all funds.

There are different advantages and disadvantages to ISAs and SIPPs, not least how and when you can access the money - so we put money into both.

We drip feed money monthly, to smooth out the peaks and troughs of stock market, and into a range of funds, so not all eggs in one basket. The only fund I have lost money on was from dotcom boom years ago, and I did put all ISA money into one basket that year. Big lesson learnt!

We have never seen an IFA (total distrust after one persuaded me that a personal pension was better than an employer FS pension in my 20s).

We are not experts, but have learnt techniques (eg drip feed and spread money between funds) as we have gone along, and now teaching our teenage kids, who have pension pots we paying into, and ISAs we originally set up but now used to invest inheritence they both have.