What to do with old pensions

[PensionHelp38]

I'm looking for some pension advice.

I am 38 years old, I currently work in the NHS, have done 5 years. And pay into the occupational pension there. My intention is to stay in the NHS for the rest of my career, or at least for the foreseeable, though of course nothing is certain. In addition to my NHS pension, I have some premium bonds which I use for ad hoc things (major car or house expenses, or for that matter dental emergencies) and a lifetime ISA for retirement. I contribute to these generally whatever is left at the end of the month.

In my 20s I had two jobs which also had occupational pensions. Neither were well paid jobs, and I didn't contribute to either for very long. One job paid roughly £20,000, I only contributed for a few months (had no idea how important a pension was then!). The other paid about £19,000, and I contributed for about 18 months.

So my question is what is the best thing to do with these 2 pots of money? I figure they'll both be very small, so it's probably not worth keeping them separate, is there somewhere I can go that will combine them and keep them till I retire? Unfortunately I'm not able to add them both to my NHS pension (I already asked and they looked into it).

The one that I paid into for 18 months is with Scottish Widow - can I out them both into that?

I am kind of looking for the easiest option that isn't just forget about them. It's not much but it's still money!

Try contacting Pension Bee for advice.

First I would find out exactly what those old pensions are. They might be a Defined Benefit scheme... like your NHS scheme. Though they may be a Stakeholder Pension, Money Purchase, so something which actually has a pot of money attached to it.

The one with Scottish Widows may accept a transfer in from another scheme. Fund choices within the pension may be good, or may not, and it may have quite high fees, or not.

I had some pensions with Friends Provident which had fees of around 1%, which I moved to Vanguard, who had a fee of 0.15%.

Try this video, see if it helps:
10 Steps To Organise Your UK Pensions

Put them into paying off your mortgage sooner.

@felulageller
Can you withdraw them to pay off your mortgage? I thought you couldn't access until 55?

In any case, it's generally better to stay invested, as the investment returns plus the 20% uplift from the government tend to mean your returns would far outstrip your gains against mortgage interest.

The benefit to leaving both pensions separate is to reduce your risk, it may be worth checking your eligibility to the state pension. You can do this by checking how many years of national insurance you have paid to make sure you will have enough to retire once you reach this. Paying off a mortgage why it can be a nice thing to do may leave you lacking in cash when it comes to retirement.

Have a listen to the Meaningful Money podcast. He talks a lot about this. Bascially you need to double check they don't come any other benefits, check the fees aren't low then move and combined to a low cost fund.

meaningfulmoney.tv/category/podcast/season-11-pensions-masterclass/

I moved my old pension to Vanguard and now invest it in the FTSE Global All Cap, but they also have specific pension funds if you want to set and forget.

Thanks all for replies. Work has been insane so haven't had chance to reply till now.

@felulageller mine and DP's joint financial situation is quite complicated for reasons I don't want to go into, but paying off the mortgage is not an option.

@nannynick and @MrsWombat I'll watch/listen to those - that's perfect.