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See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

How much savings do you have - in cash and in your pension pot?

387 replies

suebfg · 05/06/2013 20:37

I am 40 and whilst we have quite a lot in savings (over £150k and no mortgage), my pension provision is practically nil. I chose to pay off my mortgage instead of paying into a pension as tbh, I don't trust pensions.

But it does worry me that I have little saved for my retirement - mainly the equity in the house I guess.

Just interested in what others have done.

OP posts:
Original poster
suebfg · 06/06/2013 18:07

I do find it mildly amusing that if I'm being flamed by certain quarters for saying I have £150k in savings but if I had it in a pension pot, I doubt I would be criticised ...

Anyway, we have the savings in a mix of cash, cash ISAs, NS&I savings certificates etc so it is spread around. But I agree that we need to sort ourselves out with a proper investment plan and sort out our pension provision.

OP posts:
Absy · 06/06/2013 18:11

That's scary. I remember at a lecture on pension types they showed the difference in how much you have on retirement between a defined contribution and final salary scheme. It was terrifying. For final salary it was fine, but for defined contribution you basically have about a few hundred a month to live on. It sucks.

lechatnoir · 06/06/2013 18:40

DH & I are almost 40 and have zero savings or pension Sad. We partly ignoring the inevitable, partly relying on inheritance and mainly planning on downsizing/moving to fund our retirement (not unrealistic as we have c.75% equity in our home and live in a pricey area for commuting reasons which we won't need in retirement.)
We are barely scraping by each month so no chance of squirrelling anything away for the foreseeable future.

LynetteScavo · 06/06/2013 18:51

(£120,000 a year day and night care in his own home)

That sounds like an awful lot, Xenia, but hey.

If you hadn't worked you could have shared the care, spent time with a loved one, and inherited the money. Wink

lljkk · 06/06/2013 19:15

A fair whack, don't think I need to say. It never feels like enough, though. I must be the most insecure person about money, ever.

janey68 · 06/06/2013 19:18

I doubt Xenia needs to inherit- her earning power is much greater than her inheritance would have been

pointythings · 06/06/2013 19:26

I'm in the NHS pension scheme so that's pretty good, house is paid for. DH gets his US air force pension and has a job with a pension scheme, we have a total of about £100k in savings. We know how lucky we are and are being stingy and miserly very careful with our money in case of redundancy etc.

MNHQ
RowanMumsnet · 06/06/2013 19:42

Hi there

This one isn't really an AIBU so we've moved it to Money Matters.

Lioninthesun · 06/06/2013 19:55

Just read first page - so tired my eyes can't do much more!
What was the issue about buying a house to let?
I do this and it gives me an income but it is changeable dependent on whether anything breaks etc. If you got a 2 bed freehold flat though you presumably would pretty much cover the cost with savings you already have and get around £700-1k in a month depending on area. Then any extra you can make up in next 30 years (presumably somewhere around the same amount, unless you were working from 10yo!) can be the 15k each for 10 years?

trice · 06/06/2013 20:20

I have a good pension but I am not going to live to enjoy it. Dh will get it though, so it is not completely wasted. I wish I hadn't bothered, I saved hardest when I was in my 20's and could really have done with the extra money. I thought I was being so bloody clever. Sod's law.

AntoinetteCosway · 06/06/2013 20:23

DH and I are 30 and 29 and we have just under £10k in cash (which has taken some doing), have a £115k mortgage on a house worth approx £130k and have been paying into pensions since we started working, though I'm quitting work this summer to be a SAHM. We have been thinking about opening a private pension for me as I won't be able to pay into my work one anymore but I'm sceptical and don't reckon pensions will exist in their current form by the time we retire.

mamageekchic · 06/06/2013 20:30

I'm 26, have approx £3k in savings, £15k in pension, no debt but don't own our own home. It keeps me awake at night :(

flowerpippin · 06/06/2013 21:53

I just want to add...

Don't rely on inheritance. My Grandma has been care for 7 years and has spent in the region of £300k on care...

Bosgrove · 06/06/2013 21:55

No money, one London property with no mortgage, one Peak District property with small loan (DH should pay it off next year). A few shares and two small pensions from my 20 years in banking. DH is a teacher so his pension will be ok. Our retirement plan would be to sell the London house and move up North. I don't like having no cash, we paid off mortgage as we weren't getting any interest on our savings.

marriedinwhiteagain · 06/06/2013 21:56

Trice - that sounds so sad x

Fluffy1234 · 06/06/2013 22:04

15k in savings, 250k in pension pot and £1450 added to it each month, 200k ish equity, mid 40's.

QOD · 06/06/2013 22:10

Trice ((hug))

Xenia · 06/06/2013 22:32

trice, that's sad. My father put all his spare money all his life into pensions (he remembered the 1930s, people starving, bare foot etc) and then worked full time to age 77 and died at 79. Make sure if you are above inheritance tax limits that you put the pension and life policies into trust either for your children or other half otherwise the state takes 40% of it.

LS, we did not control the care of my father - he fixed it up. It could have been cheaper to have one live in person or two doing the care rather than 10 people a week but it was certainly in line with what the agencies charge if not cheaper and his lawyer said most OAPs needing day and night care spend about £100k a year on it. obviously we all offered to have him live with us (not to save the money which was never an issue) but he wanted to die in his own home and we could not abandon our chidlren, even we didn't work to look after him as he was hundreds of miles away so even if I had been a happy little housewife I could not have left my children to caer for him. Had he saved nothing and had no pension provision thenthe state would have kept him.)

TheDoctrineOfSnatch · 06/06/2013 23:45

Trice, really sorry Sad.

Including life cover in financial planning is definitely sensible if possible. Like many people we got the obligatory cover to go with the mortgage but we have recently bought additional policies to cover other costs.

KarlaPilkington · 07/06/2013 06:49

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LouiseD29 · 07/06/2013 06:49

We are mid/late 30s, only about £6k in savings which I'm about to blow on maternity leave, but we are up to our ears in mortgages on three London properties, two of which we let out and one which we live in. The idea was that we'd appreciate it when we retired! We do both pay into pensions, but not relying on them, tbh.

Micah68 · 07/06/2013 06:54

£175,000, mortgage paid off and a final salary pension which at present would pay out £6500 a year. I am 47. The amount surprises me as I have bought my daughter up by myself, have a job that pays about the national average income. I became a compulsive saver when I split up with dds dad. I had a very insecure income at the time and needed to leave the family home for my safety. I managed to get a mortgage and frantically overpaid because I was so scared of losing the house. We lived well below benefits levels. With the help of the mse website I developed ways of living well cheaply and was able to give dd nice treats as well on a budget. Now dd has left home and mainly supports herself and I am trying to adjust to giving myself an easier time and a few treats. I am still very frugal though! I have had a partner for 7 years now, but we have our own homes and don't share finances.

Xenia · 07/06/2013 07:15

I would have more had I not paid out to a spouse on divorce etc.
(By the way I mentioned inheritance tax above - there is none if you leave to a spouse which is probably the case above although I suppose none of us know if the spouse will die in an accident tomorrow and we will be the second death so probably still wise to put life policies and pensions into trust which involves asking your insurance company for a simple form people will out all the time, not expensive to do - free of charge).

lljkk · 07/06/2013 07:57

Very impressed by the size of some of your pension pots! I thought I was doing okay but not a patch on some of these.

MsAverage · 07/06/2013 08:23

Suebfg, thanks for starting the topic, it is always interesting to listen to people on money matters. Sometimes you just are not aware of some quite significant things, and a massive discussion may bring it up to your eyes (care home prices, for example).

I am more or less in your situation: some cash/shares investments, zero pension. It is great to have full control on the money (and I am quite pleased with its growth), but state's top-up on moving money into pension is sooo tempting. I am thinking about a SIPP, and I was just wondering how those top-ups work.

If you move into pension more than your annual salary, that excess won't be topped-up by the state. On the other side, you can not set up a SIPP with anything less than £100k. So, how would one move £150k into a SIPP, having, say, £50k salary?