How much do you put towards your pension a week?

[SantaOnFanta]

I will have made enough NI contributions for full state pension and I have an NHS pension for a few years working with them. I am now self employed. I have 25 working years left and have set up a savings account.... I'll be putting in £50 in a week (this will raise as time goes on)... But hoping to accumulate £100k by retirement age.

Is this going to be enough???

I am no financial advisor but from my research, it depends if your house is paid off and what type of retirement you want.

100 k in 25 years times is going to maybe yield 3-5 k interest per year if you do not draw down on the amount so you could use it to supplement your state pension and NHS pension, if you do not have to use it for emergency spends. Certainly it is better than not having 100 k and if you divided over say a 20 year retirement it would give you an extra 5k a year right?So add that to your state pension and ask yourself if that monthly amount is enough for you-hopefully you have no rent or mortgage at that point.

Don't put it into a savings account, pay it into a pension plan and claim back the tax.

A savings account is the wrong vehicle as the money won't grow much and will constantly depreciate due to inflation. Over the long term you need to be investing the money, not saving it.

When you wrote "I have 25 working years left" ... does this mean that you are 43 and expect to retire at the normal state pension age of 68? Is that what you want? Is your work something you are happy to continue doing until then?

A good rule of thumb is that the amount of pay that needs to be put aside into a defined contribution pension is the same % as half your age at which you start. So, if you had no other pensions and were starting at 43, you'd need to put aside 21% of your pay. You would then amass a pension fund that should be big enough to generate your current level of income for the rest of your life after retiring without ever running out, no matter how long you live.

It's depressing how big a chunk of pay this is. Very few people can live on what's left if they put this much away - but doing as much as you can afford and starting is soon as possible is a really good idea.

Well state pension is I think around £9k. So it depends how long the £100k needs to last. If it was say 20 years you would be able to add £5k onto the state pension. It depends if you can live off £15k a year?

I presume you would have a bit of NHS pension too?

No I wouldn't think it is enough, there is plenty of information online, I suggest you research it carefully... my DH has recently retired and saved significant amounts into his pension scheme to enable him to do so. I am still working and adding to my pension pot.
We also took out a pension scheme for our DS as soon as he was born .

You can Google 'what will a £100k pension pot generate as pension income' and that will give you a good idea ... but obviously inflation & prices will have risen considerably by the time you want to retire.

I don’t think it’s enough, at least it wouldn’t be for me. I’m putting £450 into my work pension each month including employer contributions and I don’t think that’s enough either, but I’m part time at the moment and we pay huge nursery fees so will put in more when my DC is older. i think you need to aim for at least a £200k pot.

I pay into an NHS pension but tbh it seems like bullshit that I'm sacrificing all this money every month to get a pension at age 70. If I only live to 80 it won't have been worth it.

cripes don’t put it in a savings account!! It wil lose value overtimr

benefits of a pension fund are

• not taxed on growth
• tax relief on contributions

you need to find a good pensions fund and set that up

£100k won’t produce much of an income unfortunately

I'm putting £500 in per month currently, which should get me close to a total of £250k by the time I retire if I keep up the contributions for the next 25 years (assuming growth & inflation stay level). That will be about £1,000 per month income, plus the state pension, so even with a paid off mortgage our lifestyle will need to be quite different.

Aiming for similar to @gwenneh

Put in £2k a month (plus employee). I'm
Nearly 40 and has £138k. Moving jobs though and going to go down to about £400 a month soon.

Don't have great health and women in family seem to have strokes / heart attacks late 50. Ideally want to work FT until early 50s then part time to enjoy life before health might fail

Financial advisor told my DH and I need £250k each. He's got about £105k age 38 but pays I. £1k

Hopefully pay off mortgage late 40s and hoping not all of 3 kids go to uni as just can't afford it all eek

That’s unlikely to be enough. Will you be mortgage free? I’d work backwards. Think about how much you’ll need to live off each month when retired. Deduct your monthly NHS & state pensions and see how much extra you’ll need. Then you can plan to save that amount.