Can I just set up NEST pension myself if I’m unemployed?

[HannahMontana101]

I’m about to be a sahm, ni will be taken care of, want to set up a private pension.

Reading online nest is good and simple, you can just set it up yourself.

(SIPP seems complicated and I have zero investing knowledge and people say stay away if you don’t know what your doing, you’ll mess things up and lose money)

Just want to make sure, can I just set up nest myself?

Thank you

I believe a NEST pension can only be opened by your employer, or by an individual if self employed. If you already have an existing NEST pension at work and then become unemployed you can continue to contribute into it.

NEST pension charges are relatively high compared to other pension options. If you are not working a SIPP or perhaps a Stakeholder pension would be a good alternative.

There is always a risk with investing of losing money, or poor returns. Charges on investments however can also have a significant impact on the performance and growth of any fund.

SIPPs are not complicated at all, but you need to do a little research.

If you are wary of picking the funds on a particular platform there are default retirement fund options that will do the work for you. These are often low risk options similar to NEST but the ongoing fees are likely to be lower.

For instance Vanguard has a Target Retirement Fund - you just pick the date you're likely to retire and it adjusts the mix of shares and bonds accordingly and runs the fund.
Wealthify (owned by Aviva) is a robo-investing option with a very easy user friendly website. You answer a few simple questions online to evaluate your attitude to risk and it will then allocate your investment to one of 5 funds from cautious to adventurous. The investment is overseen by managers of the funds but essentially run by technology.

These are suggestions not recommendations. Most investments are transferable so if you start one up you could then continue with your research into pensions and investing, and transfer to NEST or another SIPP provider at a later date when you start working or build up greater knowledge, if that's your preference.

A further option is simply to start saving into an ISA. At a later date when you start earning you could then feed the saved amounts into a pension up to your net income. This would give you greater flexibility for access to your capital in the short term.

A SIPP from Vanguard or Dodl would be really easy to do and cheaper than NEST, though you may not be able to pay tiny amounts in. Dodl monthly minimum I think is £25.

Opening NEST without an income I don't think they would do. If you already had it via an employer then you could likely still pay in. I've done that in the past.

Be aware that most providers will limit your contributions to £2880 as without earned income that is the max amount per tax year that is eligible for tax relief (£2880 plus basic rate tax relief = £3600).