Pension help please

[2000lightyearsaway123]

Hi all,

I am not too clued up when it comes to pensions (working on it!) and have a question.

I have just started a new job which has a Nest pension. I have 3 other pensions from previous work places (legal and general, standard life and aviva). They all have small amounts in them. I dont think any of them have as much as £1000 in them.

Would it usually be advisable to transfer them all into one place into the Nest scheme? Are there any draw backs to doing that? I am hoping to be in this job for atleast the next few years.

I am mid 20's if that is relevant.

It really depends on what each pension offers…they can all be very different. for starters there will be an annual management charge and you should pick the scheme which has the lowest.

Overall, yes, it is better to have less funds, as you will be paying a management charge on each one, so better to only pay one.

I was in a similar situation and I measured the 4 funds against, average interest earnt for the last few years, management costs for the fund and any insurance I had via the fund. This made it clear that 2 funds were good, 2 were not. I picked one of those 2 and transferred, and 15yrs later haven’t looked back.

Go through each one and educate yourself and choose. It’s a good idea to consolidate.

My understanding is the Nest management charge is quite low but I'm not sure about the others.

So say it turned out one of the others had lower rates would I merge the other 2 into that and then obviously I have to keep the Nest one?

Sorry if I'm over symplifying. I can go hoke out my paperwork after work. I think they are all probably very basic pensions.

So really should I wait a year or so to see how the Nest account performs before consolidating into it? And in the meantime. Once I figure out which of my other 3 is best consolidate them? Although I know it being a long term investment a year won't tell me much.

Hi @ifadirect

Thanks for your input! I thought that was what the 1.8% was about. I believe it doesn't apply to transfers in but I'm not sure.

I do plan on being in my new job for the long haul but probably not my whole working life. But of course plans change and who knows where I could go in 5 years.

Looks like I need to deep dive into my other pension providers to make a choice.

Sorry @2000lightyearsaway123 I didn’t see until now that you had asked a question after my answer.

I literally drew up a simple table - my four funds on my side and the categories of amount of $ in there, management costs of the fund, %return on the fund and any insurance (life or income protection I already had (or could get) through the fund and the cost).

Like you, one fund was new as I just got a new job. In that case I used figures from their reports to show the average return for the fund I was in. I also check led this out for the other funds too - in case I was in a poor performing option, but there was a better one with the same fund.

It became clear that 2 funds had expensive fees and two didn’t. That was my first criteria. Looking at the 2 funds, one had slightly lower management fees and a slightly higher return, but it was a less well known company. The other I had cheap life insurance in it, and it had better digital
Options (apps etc) and it was easier to contribute more or vary things etc.

I went with the second one, consolidated it all in and haven’t thought about it for a decade now.

Work out which things are important to you, at your age (if you are young, high return and low fees, I would guess, unless you have. Medical condition or dependants) etc.

Talk to an advisor of you need too. This is a decision on your financial future and this is all real money that you will be glad you took care of one day.