Pension advice - independent advisor?

[StillWearingOddSocks]

I'm clueless about money, pensions etc. I have a public sector pension & want to understand various permutations of different options. I have a stakeholder option rather than final salary but can swap into final salary if I like. Work can't advise. I've tried to google independent advisor. But seems v expensive.

What should I do to make the right choices?

You're going to have to do the maths.

1. Your stakeholder option will result in a pot of money when you retire which most people usually use to buy an annuity. So work out best you can how much is going to be in that pot based on your contributions and your employer's contributions plus a realistic amount for interest earned and then see what kind of annuity you could buy with that amount today by using comparison sites. That will give you one rough figure of your pension prospects

1. Work out your salary at the time you retire by applying a realistic inflation figure to your salary today. Then look at the rules of the final salary scheme to work out what kind of pension that would result in. It is often a sliding scaled depending on the number of years worked or the amount of contributions that have been made.

If you're still struggling, consider talking to your Union rep. An IFA may look expensive but you have to offset that against the risk of making an unwise decision.

Final salary schemes can be better as they usually are index linked (check this) and also you get a lump sum about 3 times the annual pension.

Thanks for these replies....I clearly need to do some thinking