Pensions advisor for 50th birthday

[ShavingTheBadger]

I'm hitting 50 in 2022 and have been putting a bit of money away to treat myself (just a couple of hundred in total). However, I've been thinking about whether this would be worth spending on a session with a pensions advisor.

For reference I've probably got the following:
Old final salary pension (1) - £2k payout per annum
Old defined benefit pension (2) - £2k payout per annum
Old defined contribution pension (3) - £35,000 pot
Current final salary pension - £9,000 a year if I stay to age 67.
Up to date with state pension contributions.

Don't have much in the way of savings - renovating a part-inherited property so money goes into my bank account and then into the house, but plan on downsizing in a couple of years when finished and freeing up maybe £100k. Current value is around £350k and I've got a mortgage of £80k - final payment when I'm 65, so a decent amount of equity.

There's a lot going on there, and it would be nice to be able to have at least a vague idea of the options of when I could retire, and what the outcomes would be. I've never seen a pensions advisor before so I've no idea how they charge - would it be by value of the pension or an hourly rate?

You've got defined benefit pensions of £13k a year plus a small DC pot and £9k state pension when you're 67. Do you want or need more? If you do you'd be better off buying pensionable years for your current pension rather than putting money into your existing DC scheme, and you don't need a pensions advisor to do that - just email them yourself!

So I'm not clear what value a pension advisor would be in your case.

If you're in a union, you might be able to get a free session with a pensions adviser via that, I know ours offer that as a perk.

Otherwise, advice might cost more than what you've budgeted for, I think the minimum is usually slightly more than 'a couple of hundred'.

This flowchart was linked by someone on here and is always useful, as is the Meaningful Money website and podcast.

I’d recommend firstly doing some work on how much money you need / want to live on in retirement, then see how far away you are from that.
Then working on current budget - do you have spare money monthly that could be working better for you.
And finally, are you maxing your current pension contribution opportunity?

Thanks for the feedback. Good idea re union benefit and pensions advisor - just looked and ours does offer a free 30 mins. I think my initial questions would be:

1. should I buy pensionable years for my current final salary scheme by moving my old FS pensions (1&2 above) - current transfer value of about £80k.
2. what happens if I die early? Does it all disappear into the scheme or into my estate (I have no kids or spouse or parents)
3. Should I put the old DC pot into my current FS pension or use it as a draw down?

So much to think about, and I'm not financially astute. Will contact the union rep and take it from there.

It'd also be helpful to know when would be a good time to retire. My parents and brother died at 53, 62 and 47 so weren't even old enough to claim their state pension. We don't tend to live very long in our family, although I'm hoping to break that pattern, so I'd rather retire as soon as it's comfortable for me to do so.

It may well not be possible for your old final salary pensions to be transferred - often there is a two year time limit. There probably wouldn't be much advantage anyway, unless your current scheme is significantly more generous than those earlier schemes. In which case even if you did transfer them they wouldn't add the full two years service - it could well buy much less.

The best thing you can do though is work out how much income you would need once you stop working.