£50k lump sum. Top up Dh’s pension or something else?

[Opihr]

We’re very fortunate to have £50k to spare.

I have a reasonable local government pension but DH’s private pension is very poor, having only paid in £100 a month over the years with no employer contributions for a long time.

Would we be wise to pay this money into his pension (can you even pay in a lump sum?) or should we invest it elsewhere?

There's an annual limit to how much you can pay in each year - £60k or his annual earnings, whichever is lower.

Why isn't he getting employer contributions?

That limit includes the tax rebate, so the actual amount of cash you can pay in is lower.

It’s the diet of things that needs so much more connect for advice, have you got a mortgage, what’s left? Kids, age, debt, etc for starters.

He is getting employer contributions now but didn’t for years in the past so his pension pot is small.

No mortgage or debt, we have other savings allocated to things like uni fees for the kids etc, but have £50k we could do something else with, hence my thoughts on pension. It’s a very privileged problem to have, I realise that.

It’s currently invested in shares but I wondered if a pension top up would be better.

Thanks for all thoughts so far.

No one can give you any meaningful steer based on the info you have provided.

How old are you? What are your incomes? Do you have an emergency fund?

You say you invest in shares - that's very broad. is it in an ISA wrapper?

Putting the money in a pension may well be an efficient route, but also you wouldn't be able to access that money until 57 at the earliest. Investing in a pension is likely to mean investing in shares as well, just a different tex wrapper.

Of course you don't have to do 100% of any option. You could split the funds between pension, cash buffer, S&S ISA and to be honest put 10% of it aside for maybe an amazing family holiday.