Pension experts please advice as I’m worried

[ChefsKisser]

Hello- I have 3 pension pots at the moment- two NHS on different schemes and a third which is from a job I have left.
Im 34 and starting to really worry about pensions. I’m now working more hours and am on the 2015 pension nhs scheme which is understand isn’t bad for a pension but it just feels like I have virtually nothing in those pots combined considering I’ve been working for 13 years? Does anyone who knows about pensions know is this looks very bad or ok?

Sorry it won’t let me add the other pot but it says
’a pension from the retirement income builder of £1359/year + tax free cash lump sum £4079’

I'm not an expert but the hypothetical annuity pots I think give you the value of these if they were defined contribution so that would be 45+28 = 73 000.

Which is pretty good for 34 to be honest, way more than I had.

Those statements look like current values rather than a projection of what you’d get if you retired at Normal Retirement Age. You should be able to get the latter from the scheme administrator

This is decent for your age, especially if you continue in the NHS. Basically the more years you work the better

Those amounts are what you would get if you left the NHS today and didn't make any more contributions.

You're only a quarter of the way through your working life and also could get promotions over the next 34 years before your state retirement age. You will also have the option of retiring early or partially retiring (continuing to work alongside receiving a reduced pension) in your late 50s.

It's a really good position to be in compared to a lot of people. Don't forget you'll also get the state pension which is nearly £1k pm at todays prices.

NHS pensions are a nightmare, but I’ve just had a free session with these people:
https://www.affinityconnect.org/
They advise NHS employees, free, for as many calls as you like. I went to a pensions seminar at work that they ran, and my experience has been excellent. Give them a ring, and set something up, they explained my 1995 and 2015 pensions and gave me sound advice.

At your age you have already accumulated over £4K in annual pension when you reach retirement age. This is guaranteed to go up with inflation and you will add more for every day you work there.

Yeah I think those are current values but £1000/year just seemed very little I was thinking if I work 4x that would it just be £4K a year?!

You’ll get the benefit of additional accrual from the extra years you work, plus all of the pension increased with salary or inflationary increases so the total is likely to be more than that. I’d recommend asking the administrators for a projection to retirement age and then giving the Money and Pensions Service (a free service ran by the Government) a call to ask them to talk you through the figures.

What @penguinmountain said, you will accrue more years and this will increase the amount
Remember this is gold plated guaranteed pension! It's worth a lot

Apology for long thread. Remember pension compounds so you have about £2700 now and if you are 1/4 of the way through your working life so you could x 3 = at least £8,100 per year plus you'd most likely get more than this as possible promotions over the next 30 years. This will be index linked so will take into account inflation. You will also get state pension of IRO £11,500 ATM. This is today's value it will be far higher when you are 68. Both of these will also go each most years by at least inflation. You could also opt to pay some additional voluntary contributions. You'll also get your lump sum which would also be about X3 the combined amount of current lump sums. Don't forget you also have the third pension to add on too. I was a teacher for 20 years and I get about £8,500 pa teaching pension. I also took my 25 percent lump sum at 60, which was about £30k. I knew that wouldn't be enough so I took out a separate SIPP and paid into it at the same time different amounts over the years but the government tops it up by 25 per cent. £100-400 per month. I changed this into an annuity when I reached 60 and wanted to retire. That I get paid every month for the rest of my life and if I die before DH he'll get paid half for the rest of his life. I'll also get full state pension at 67 in less than 4 years. Remember by the time you are 68 you will most likely have paid off your mortgage. That's when I upped my SIPP contributions. I also put a little into a stocks and shares ISA which did quite well. I keep that as emergency funds. You have got lots of time to build your pension fund. If you are married and end up divorcing you would probably have to pension share. I had to pension share with first exh. I gained because I didn't pay pension whilst I was home with our 3 x DC and took about 7 years out of the workplace overall but he continued working so his pot got bigger than mine. He had to give me some of his which is why I had to open a SIPP. Then I just added to it.

You need to bear in mind that this is a Defined Benefit (DB) scheme - there is no 'pot' of money but rather a promise to pay you a sum every year from the time you reach your normal retirement age until your death (and then often a proportion to any surviving spouse until they die too).

So the figure may at first glance look low when compared to a Defined Contribution (DC) scheme statement (where you are indeed building up a one-off pot of money) but you need to remember that the DB figure is what will be paid to you each and every year, and will increase each year you continue to work there.

Highly recommend some of the free YouTube resources around pension planning such as meaningful money or rebel finance.

You should also check that they have your correct salary details, one mentions £42k the other £6k, that‘s obviously a huge difference.

@ChefsKisser the pensions you appear to be in are DB schemes. DB = Defined Benefit, they do not have a “pot”.

They give you an illustration of what “pot” a DC (Defined Contribution) scheme would need to “buy” the equivalent benefits.

Each year you are in the 2015 scheme you will “bank” pension based on your actual earnings. This link should help explain it https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/member-hub/membership-nhs-pension-scheme

My advice is use this website to find out and understand the 2015 scheme https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/member-hub/understanding-your-benefits-2015-scheme

Don’t try to understand it all in one go. Start by understanding the benefits.

Trust me when I say the NHS schemes are really good pension schemes. The fact you are looking at this given you are only 34 is positive and it gives you 30 years + to build your pension.

It’s confusing as I worked in the NHS full time in a lower band, then part time, then one day a week alongside another role and now back to part time but higher band now!

But all three pensions added together come to over £5k per year. Which x4 = £20k per year which, on top of a state pension currently about £12k per year would be a very comfortable retirement. Obviously this assumes you keep working and building pension up at the same rate, and the state pension is the same, but I don't think you should be worried about your pension so far.

Thanks so much with all your help interpreting this it's really useful!