Where do I put my money?

[carbhunter]

Hi all, need some advice about where to start saving extra cash for retirement?

I'm 40, married with 2 dc and have a small workplace pension (probably less than £15k). Due to being a sahm for a few tears then working part time. I want to start focusing on my retirement and building it up, but not sure where to invest?

My work pension is a good pension, I am adding 6% which is the max contribution and work add 15%. I believe if I want to invest extra I would have to take out an AVC, which I am not confident about the pros and cons of?

I also have a lifetime ISA which I contribute £120 a month to and if I carry on at that rate I will have just over £20k to withdraw at 60, which is great but won't be enough to live on in retirement obvs.

Finally I have a separate pension from an old workplace which has about £1k in and is a personal pension so I can add to it if I want.

What would you do? Add a little bit more to the personal pension to build it up, take out an avc for my current workplace pension or pile loads into the lifetime isa before I am 50? Worried that if I do a little bit of each, that none of the pots will be big enough?

Thanks....

Before you start adding to pension payments, do you have enough of a savings cushion? That would be my priority.

Thanks swimster01 Myself and my husband have about £20k in various savings pots, ISAs etc, so enough of a buffer at the moment.

You could post on the Forum of Money Saving Expert as they have a Prnsions Board - lots of experts on there who can advise.

In your position I would open a Stocks and Shares ISA and invest in some low cost trackers (US, Global etc), drip feeding the money in.

I’d look at the terms and conditions of your workplace pension. AVC can be great but some pensions are a little inflexible in terms of access to the money.

Personally, I’d probably be more inclined to max out the LISA with the allowance ar 4K a year (especially if your a base rate tax payer. Maybe not if higher).

I’d probably look at opening a SIPP too. It’s tax efficient but you get complete flexibility with the pot in case you want to retire early and withdraw larger amounts or dip into the money as and when.