Concerned that my pension pot is on the lower end of what it should be...

[hyperbole001]

I'm 36 and have to be honest, I haven't given a great deal of thought to my pension. I probably started paying into one from 2009 onwards, but have had various jobs over the course of my employment history, and until recently hadn't put any effort into trying to track them down. Naively, I had assumed that the govt would be able to do this by simply using my NI number but doesn't seem to be a straightforward as that.

Anyway, from those I've been able to track down and have contacted, I've estimated that my pot is currently sat at around £26k. Does this see on the low side for my age, and should I be consciously trying to increase my contributions?

What level of income do you want in retirement?

I'm 38 and have £70k in my pension. And every calculator/planning tool thing I use tells me I'm not on target. And if I say OK what if I up it by this? It still says I'm still not on target. I have upped how much I put in twice in the last year.

Depends what level you want in retirement. I’m a similar age and have a lot more but have a pretty highly paid role that allows me to pay more in. Those calculators still tell me it’s not enough. Perhaps see a financial advisor?

That’s really low & won’t get you very far in retirement. Can you work out how much you’ll need a year when you retire. I want 35k a year so am working backwards from that.

Presumably your mortgage will be paid off, so you probably won’t need as much as you need now. I think you’ll definitely need to up your contributions though.

Yeah I would say hats not a lot to have in your pension pot BUT its better than having nothing. All the calculators Ive used tell me Im not saving enough but I cant afford to put in any more

You can contact the inland revenue and they can help you track down all the pensions you have paid into.
Perhaps contact pension advisor and see about consolidating them all and start paying a healthy amount into them ASAP

Also how long have you been paying in and at what rate? I’ve been paying in to mine an increasing amount since I was 21 and it’s at about 130k currently.
Do you have pensions from previous jobs? If so it may be worth consolidating into something more actively managed

Bloody hell the £26k seems pitiful compared to what others seem to have!

I should add that my figure is purely a guess. I managed to log into my fidelity account from a previous workplace pension and noticed that there's been a 26% growth in the last couple of years, so presumably that will continue to grow.

I used to work in a university and had a pretty decent pension there - SAUL. I've reached out to them to find out what that is currently sat at. It was final salary too so as I understand it, upon retirement age they will give me 3x what my final salary was before I left. I've realised already that my initial calculations are wrong. I used to put in circa 3% and they would contribute 14% so I'm pretty sure that pot alone must be circa 30k (I was there for 4.5 years). But the others (Fidelity and Nest) are probably in the 6k mark and I cannot for the life of me remember the names of the other pension providers I've paid into over the years.

I'll see if Inland Revenue can help but i'm not hopeful. I'm not sure I want to consolidate my pensions. I certainly don't want to transfer the SAUL pot, and I've heard that the transfer fees can be hefty in any case.

Out of interest, what % do you guys pay in each month?

SAUL won't give you 3.5 x your last salary! It'll be in the region of salary x years service divided by 80. But don't cash in.

@MLMsuperfan

What level of income do you want in retirement?

I'd be mortgage free by then so it wouldn't need to be huge. £30k would be nice.

It is worth aggressively tracking everything down and consolidating them if possible. I don’t think you are behind the average, but it’s probably less than it should be To be more comfortable, ideally you should have 2.6x your annual income saved by age 40. If you want to replace 60% of your income when you retire at 65 and start saving at age 35, you need to contribute around 20% of your income to your pension pot every month.

Bear in mind that your final salary pension will most likely be 1/80th of your salary for every year you contributed or similar

You can use a service like PensionBee to track them all down. Have a look here: www.pensionbee.com

I should point out that I have nearly around 67% equity in my home and have savings. I've just opened a vanguard ISA (lifetime strategy 100%) and have used the full allowance. I plan on trying to hit the full allowance each year for the next 10 years or so and letting that money do its thing. I still have around 30k savings not invested and wanted to keep at least 10k back for emergency funds. The plan was to place 20k into premium bonds but I wonder if I should be adding to a SIPP.

I'm not careless with money at all, I just haven't taken pension contributions as seriously as I should have done!

SAUL won't give you 3.5 x your last salary! It'll be in the region of salary x years service divided by 80. But don't cash in.

Further proves the point that I'm clueless about pensions!

@hyperbole001 I'm fairly sure that your final salary scheme will not give you 3x your salary when you left if you were only there for 4.5 years. There will be a factor which reduces it according to how long you worked there which as PP have said could be as low as 1/80 for each complete year of service there.

Generally speaking your pension is a much more tax efficient way to save for retirement than an ISA so if you’re able to save that much I’d definitely consider increasing your pension contributions

Sipp over Isa if for retirement. Isa for funds you might need before retirement. That's very low if you want an income of £30k a year.

Well this is depressing.

I have less than you op and really wished I hadn’t clicked on this thread

To retire on £30k a year your pension pot will need to be hundreds of thousands. You need to look into it urgently and I expect you will have to up your monthly payments considerably.

@NoSquirrels

You can use a service like PensionBee to track them all down. Have a look here: www.pensionbee.com

Tried this today but got the impression they would trace them on the condition I transferred over, which I don't want to do

@Coriandersucks

I have less than you op and really wished I hadn’t clicked on this thread

Sorry!!!

That being said, as pp have suggested, I need to aggressively track down all pots. Fingers crossed it's a bit more than my estimations!

A £26k pension pot will provide about £1,500 a year from an annuity if you retire at age 67.

Of course you should also get the state pension and by the sounds of it you have other albeit small occupational pensions from previous jobs.