Will IFA offer value for money in my situation

[Brown76]

I'm 40 with a pension pot of £15k from a former employer and now self employed. I want to start saving for retirement again, but was a bit unsure about my options. I approached an IFA who wouldn't offer advice on pensions or give a quote without a full financial review (I was hoping to pay a few hundred for advice on the pension then pay in 150-250 per month and increase when income goes up - have two preschoolers and limited income). It's going to cost 1800 for them to advise me, which would include advice on things like income protection cover. They've said that most of the fee is typically covered by their commission but I'm worried I might not have sufficient surplus income at this point to take out all the products and could end up with a significant bill. I'm not sure whether to sign up or just start paying in again without advice.

I would learn as much as you can yourself as when it comes time to talk to an IFA you want to understand what they are talking about.

Meaningful Money podcast (and website) is very useful. I would start with that. If you want to pay for a course in understanding investments then Meaningful Money has a course available - though listen to a lot of the podcasts first.

Start small, use your ISA allowance. Pay in steadily into an investment you understand. Off the shelf portfolios are offered by many investment platforms which can be good as a starting point to learn about investing.

Thanks for your advice.

You are right to worry about retirement, however if you are self employed with young children you should use that spare income to ensure you have income protection if you get sick or injured and that your children are protected on death... after that is sorted then you can look at retirement savings.

Given the size of he pot and the amount available to put into your pension, I'd only use an IFA and you're really stuck and clueless.

Insurance is easy enough to buy and you should be able to work out how much cover you'd like based on your circumstances.

If you're now self employed, you could start a SIPP. I use the AJ Bell platform. If you have taxable income, it's much better to pay into a pension than ISA as pensions come out of gross income.

The pot from your previous employer can stay where it is - you don't need to move it anywhere unless there's a reason to do so.