Anyone else in their 30s not have a pension?

[25BeautifulGnomes]

I am really freaking out about our financial future at the moment. DH is self employed, I work part time, and neither of us have pensions. I (foolishly in hindsight) opted out of mine as I didn't believe that I could afford it, and the years have just rolled by.....

We are in the process of buying a house and have agreed to sit down and go through all our finances once we are settled in, but I just can't stop panicking about the fact I/we don't have a pension. One of the reasons we have not done anything about this kind of thing yet is that we have been saving up for our deposit for the last few years, so this really has been our only focus in terms of savings.

I want to change career after we have another child (if I am lucky enough to have another one) so I don't know if it is worth opting in to my work pension scheme for what could be a relatively short time?

What does everyone else do in terms of pensions/savings? I am sure that we are in a minority in not having pensions and I feel very stupid about this. What would the best idea be for us moving forward? Both get pensions and have other pts for any other savings we could make? (I fear that just mortgage repayments/day to day living in the new house is going to eat up whatever money we have coming in)

I also have a nagging feeling that I should not be placing all my future financial security on DH, and should be looking out for myself too?

I know that we will most probably come into some inheritance in the years to come but I don't want to count on this as anything could happen....

Any advice/experiences gratefully received.

I'm in my early 30s and don't have one - usual story of meaning to get round to it but student debt then buying/maintaining a house then maternity leave getting in the way.

DH is in his late 30s and has a small private pension. I wouldn't rely on this providing for me anyway due to the risks highlighted by pps, but in any event I cannot see it funding a retirement that could in any way be described as comfortable.

I know I must get my head out of the sand and sort it, but DC2 is on the way and loads needs doing to the house and we need to sort proper savings for the DCs and.....

Cofito
Indeed, but I am about to complete a 25 year endowment policy that was taken out to cover a £30,000 mortgage (the cost of a three bed terrace house in the South East back then)
The original paperwork projected that it would return around £50,000 including a terminal bonus rate of 147%

Instead I will get just over £20,000 including terminal bonus of 18%
I'd have done better keeping the money in a savings account or sticking to a repayment mortgage.
But then the men in the city would not have extracted their fees from my premiums every year even when the market was falling.

Sorry but I see NO EVIDENCE that the market will pick up its state of Euphoria any time in the next ten years, and the rot at the heart of the system (see LIBOR fixing etc) needs to be cut out before the changes in the indices convert into true investor returns.

I am all for putting money aside - I have ISAs, savings and other plans for when my mortgage is paid off, but I have absolutely no intention of locking my money up in a pension 'fund' over which I will have no control.
Nor do I recommend to my clients to do so.

sorry Cogito, did not mean to mis spell your name

Endowment policies were badly missold and the interest rates and projected fund values were massively overstated at the time. I didn't take one out myself for the old reason that if something seems too good to be true it probably is. The statements and projections I get from various pension funds today are very conservative by comparison.

I'm in my (mid) 30s and have no pension, and never will have one. Pensions are a con. Do you seriously think these companies take your money and store it away while it gathers money for you, ready for you to claim in 30-60 years? All because they are nice people? No, they will shaft people and give them next to nothing...serves them right.

ISpy
first of all fill up your ISAs and your DHs ISAs and your kids ISAs
then pay down debt
then make sure you regularly give them money for savings up to the limit so that their University fees are paid for
only THEN think about putting money into a fund that you will never be able to get it back out of.

My Aunt bought £100,000 annuity with part of her funds.
She died six weeks later before they had had to make a single payment.
That money was pure profit for them and pure loss to her family.

They don't just take the money away and hide it. You can research the admin fees before you take out the pension in the first place, get regular statements, see how funds are performing on-line in the interim, and can actively manage your contributions and fund selection if you wish. Obviously, you don't put all your eggs in one basket, but I don't understand the demonisation.

cogito
Endowments were a total con.
Nearly as bad as interest only no repayment vehicle mortgages.

BUT in 1987, nobody would give us a repayment mortgage other than at crippling rates of interest - FAR higher than the endowment route.
I get my 4% / 6% / 8% red letters for my two endowments.
I ask them how they derive the figures (bearing in mind I check all the numbers on my actuarial spreadsheets) and they cannot tell me.

Unless YOU can calculate the projections, using YOUR numbers, they are still untrustworthy.

"research the admin fees"
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18883932
"21 out of a sample of 23 firms failed to disclose the full investment costs"

www.thersa.org/projects/enterprise/tomorrows-investors

You seem to be basing your decision on a short term low in the market, an unlucky aunt and conflating pensions with missold endowment policies. I still think there's a case for an investment scheme (even with costs) that adds 20p to every 80p contributed when Cash ISAs are only making 3%

Cogito
Read the link to the RSA documents

• if the UK pensions had the same transparency rules as those in Denmark, returns would be 50% higher
• 21 out of 23 companies misled investors about their costs
• nearly 40% of all premiums are swallowed up in costs (at which point the extra 20% becomes an irrelevance)

most of the "growth" over the last 15 years since financial deregulation has been a debt fuelled bubble. It will not return.
I have spoken to people who were at Broon's Mansion House speech. they knew he was deluded. He still does not.

DH and I both have Force's pensions, he retires next year at 40 with a big lump sum and nice monthly amount, about £900, it is then index linked at 55.

My pension is worth peanuts ATM, I'm going back to work in about 20months time and my pension will reopen again, but in the time I left to have the DC the force's pension scheme has changed and isn't half as good as it was, changes again in 2015 I think and my original pension will change with it.

DH is 15 years older than me, can't rely on him to provide for me in my old age. Not sure if his pension goes to me when he dies.

talkinpeace well I've NEVER told anyone that AMC's are the only charges. TER?s are what count and even then, there can be further charges (smoke and mirrors indeed). However, my assertion of rubbish is the fact that you hold up ISA's as the great alternative. Charges on ISA's are high too! They are not the panacea you seem to think.
If you have a larger fund there are ways to drop some charges (money talks as always) E.g: Use a standard Life SIPP, buy ETF's and tracker funds from low cost provider (e.g Vanguard) at total expense ratios around 0.2% and cherry pick advisers in mature markets that have a decent long term alpha. (I am however aware that not everyone has a large fund).
Bad advice comes from advisers with a poor understanding, something the industry is moving some way to addressing (RDR), but someone that?s just picking off the shelf isn?t going to address this.
NEST by the way is not the only provider for the new workplace pensions and the alternatives can be more competitive.
If you are talking cash ISA?s over the life of a pension, inflation will take you down if it runs high for any period.
Risk in the stock market is the risk you need your money in a slump. If you plan and have flexibility you won?t even be on the markets with your pension fund as you draw towards retirement. You use the business cycles and build in some flexibility. Long term savers (21+ years) should be taking risk and going into overseas and growth markets. Short term, think cash. It is not a once in a life time decision when one invests.
The other thing about pensions is that you can remain invested or take an annuity and annuity underwrites the longevity risk...
Oooh I could go on and on, but doing nothing, frankly is the only thing that?s a totally bad idea. Doing something (as you clearly are) leaves you in a stronger position.

notmadeofrib
my point about ISAs is that for the 63% of the population earning under the mean wage of £26,000 and the 50% earning under £18,000 a year,
private pensions are an irrelevance until they have filled up their CASH ISA allowance every year if they can and paid down debt.

talk about SIPPs and ETFs and trackers is only relevant to the top 5% of earners with enough money to make the hassle of moving it around greater than the fees

and yes, I know that NEST is a Brand - the paperwork I've tried to stay awake reading so far has been from the Co op and NFU - two of the lowest cost Auto Enrollment providers - and I will still be struggling morally to do as the legislation demands and opt people in.

Talkinpeace - thanks, that's really useful. We have got some savings in an ISA but are way off using all of our allowances each year. Think this is something we do need to address as a priority as well as being clear about earmarking savings for short, medium and long term and sticking to it.

Ispy
be willing to move your cash ISA every year to keep the rate at over 3%
put in as much as you can each, every year
some will get drawn out in the short term but the more you can leave in there longer the better and extract the tax free income if you need it

and have lateral thinking ideas about how to provide income without relying on state pensions that are likely to be worthless within 15 years.

I'm 46 and don't have a pension. I have no intention of getting one, i need the money to survive now not in 20 odd years time.

Besides the chances of me living to pensionaable age are small

There are loads of great articles about pensions and savings for you future at the MyFamilyClub website. Might be worth taking a look :-)