Wish I’d sorted this years ago..

[Cherryana]

Age old story.. when you are 20 pension age is far far away. Now I am 44 and know how fast the last twenty went it feels close!!

I have four different piddly pensions from different jobs.

I am looking to go back to work full time in part to get a pension that I can live on in twenty years time.

Does anyone have any advice - should I try and amalgamate all the pensions?
Who do I go and speak to?
Will they laugh at me because the amounts are so small?

Because even if they do - it’s better now than later I guess.

Get an IFA and no they won't laugh at you. If you do go back to work you should be offered a workplace pension and it may be best to amalgamate all your "bits of pension" into the workplace one but the IFA could advise.

Oh, and they charge thousands, most likely for each pension (defined benefit that is).

Some I contacted refused even to do it.

How much have you got in your 4 pots so far?

If they're not great you could try to contribute as much as you feasibly can as quickly as you feasibly can so the funds have as long to grow as possible.

Are your current pensions and the new workplace one defined benefit (ie guaranteed payment in retirement) or defined contribution (building a pot)?

have you checked your state pension entitlement?

Yes it may be better to combine them to be able to keep track and ensure costs aren't eroding value. Some companies like wealthify and pension bee offer this service, they'll do the legwork and have shiny apps. But watch out for costs. A SIPP invested either in a balanced retirement target fund or low cost tracker on a platform like vanguard may do the same thing for lower charges.

You'll be enrolled in workplace pension and may be able to transfer other pots into that.

If they're defined benefit you're probably best leaving well alone. And as PP says you'll have to seek specialist IFA advice about transferring them and that's not cheap.

The old "rule" used to be to pay in half your age as a % based on when you start contributing. So if your pots really are tiny, that would mean paying in 22% (combined your, employer and tax relief contributions). But pretty much anything is better than nothing.

Thank you for your replies.

So IFA is the way forward for specific advice.

If they charge thousands to move them - then that is already a ‘no go’ as there is not enough money to justify that.

They are all defined contribution (building a pot) - apart from one, part of my teacher pension is a final pension salary but it’s from years ago and only spanned about three years.

I am assuming I won’t get a state pension. I thought they were stopping?

Thank you for your advice.

@Schoolchoicesucks you must have been writing as I was replying because I just saw your advice. Thank you for the calculation..I am going to get moving on this now I have started.

Thank you

The state pension is very much still a thing. Of course no-one can guarantee it will stay so it’s best not to rely on it but it would be incredibly difficult politically to just stop it. You can check here www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

do You have up to date amounts for each of the pensions (including current amount for teachers pension?

the point about the thousands is very specific to transferring defined benefit pensions so don’t be put off

No, state pension is very much a thing. You need 35 (I think) years of NI contributions for a full one. Around £9k per year and index linked.
If your pension pots are small, state pension is likely to be a significant chunk of your retirement income.
You'll get it at 67 and can check your NI contributions online to make sure you're on track. You should get credits for any years you've not been in work but have been looking after primary aged children or in receipt of benefits.

For each pension, find out as much detail as possible about the fees, then funds, what can be changed.

Moving Defined Contribution schemes is usually quite easy, just takes time.

This podcast episode may help with gathering the info: meaningfulmoney.tv/2021/03/16/uk-pensions-checklist/

Having a few pensions under £10k can be useful, as they can be accessed using the Small Pots Rule. Look that up, see if it may be useful or not.

I would leave the Teacher scheme alone... keep that as it is. You may do work within teaching again in the future. As a defined benefit scheme, that scheme is a lot more complicated to move.

If your pensions are defined contribution then it shouldn't cost u thousands but I can't see why u would want to amalgamate them.

As pp said, get details of what they are and whether u can access the statements online to see how they perform and whether u have a choice to switch to different type of funds within each.

If u are able to access to view them, then I wouldn't bother amalgamating them, just review them every so often.

Thank you @nannynick and @nannynick that is helpful advice from both of you x