I threw away a final salary pension and feel sick.

[CommanderTaggart]

I was a teacher for 5 years at the start of my career and I had a final salary pension. I then moved to a local government role. I left my teachers pension in its pot, as all I really knew about pensions at the time was that a final salary teachers pension is an amazing thing that I was lucky to have and should hang onto. So I did.
Anyway I am now older, earning a lot more and researching and learning about pensions. I realise to my dismay that if I had transferred my teacher’s pension into my LGPS pot within 12 months of leaving teaching I could have retained the final salary link for those 5 years. Safe to say my final salary is going to be very considerably more than the 30k ish I was on when I left teaching.
I am absolutely kicking myself. I had no idea. It was a huge financial blunder that will cost me dearly in retirement and I just feel that I was in no way prepared for or helped to make this decision. “Seek financial advice” is all people ever say, but realistically when you are young and have no investments and very little in the way of spare cash, seeing a financial advisor is not something that you do.
I’m not sure why I’m posting here really, I just had to vent my huge disappointment and frustration and am seeking commiseration I suppose.

5 years in teaching?

The difference to your pension won’t be remotely substantial

Local government pensions are still significantly better than most private company pensions so I'm pretty sure you are going to be fine.

i thought it was a legal requirement to take financial advice before transferring a pension if it is over a certain amount. happy to be corrected though.

Also, 5 years, yeah not gonna make much difference.

Ah edited to say ignore the first sentence as I see you DIDN'T move the pension.

They are both good schemes though?

Well it cheers me up to think that so I hope that you are right!
I still have over 20 years left until I retire though, and given inflation and assuming a promotion or two my final salary might be as much as £90-100k by the time I retire. I assume that even just 5 years’ worth of pension based on that final salary is not to be sniffed at?

Have you worked out what the difference would be between the two? 5 years of contributions isnt much but I understand what you are saying on your salary now vrs then but in reality how much is it?

It's not a huge financial blunder if you ended up on masses more than 30k though? You made the financially savvy step of progressing in your career in local government and the vast bulk of your pension will be at that salary rate. Then you'll still have a chunk extra from the five years teaching.

Ok, if you were really on top of things you could have had more - but you'll have a lot more than you would have had if you'd stayed in teaching.

We all could have made different decisions, but your life is not a financial disaster and you need to let this one go.

This. How much money are you actually talking about?

Your teaxhing "final salary" will have been adjusted for inflation though. I doubt it makes much difference, definitely not as much as you're catastrophsizing

I know, I’m not complaining that I will be poor, I’m just frustrated and upset that I missed out on a valuable opportunity.

Not properly. I am not good with numbers (as my post probably shows). I asked chatGPT and it said something like £10k difference per year. I know you can’t trust chatGPT with things like this so the number likely isn’t accurate, but I still feel shit.

I think you are getting confused. You don’t have a ‘pot’ of money with a local government pension. You get a monthly defined amount. Yes your 5 years should have been transferred into the LGPS and would have compounded over the years to give you a higher monthly pension when you retire. Plus final salary schemes are mostly now career average schemes. Hopefully you’re saving into the LGPS now and you can always increase your contribution.

Yes sorry I shouldn’t have said pot. I suppose years of membership is a better way of measuring it. I am paying into a career average pension now, which I know I am lucky to have. It’s just galling to have missed out on 5 years of final salary, which is an opportunity I can’t get back and wish I had understood at the time.

It's a pain, but it's worth taking the time to learn how to calculate your own pension. I say this as someone with remedial level math skills.

OP you need some proper pension advice because you sound muddled about what you have.

And now you’re annoyed that you are missing out on an imaginary 10k that never existed in the first place when you will have a perfectly adequate pension.

£10k a year! yeah, I'd be feeling sick too. Didnt realise it was that much.

This

In spades

Well I don’t disagree with you that I need pension advice, as this is clearly not my strong point! Unfortunately the free advice is only available for those approaching retirement, which I am not.
But I have read about this quite carefully and it really does seem that I could have carried over my final salary benefits if only I had known/understood.

If it makes you feel better final salary schemes closed in 2014 so lots won't get them!

But you will still have the final salary pension, it will pay out whatever it is worth when you reach the pension age for that scheme. It hasn’t disappeared.

So you are not willing to pay for a professional view on your pension, but instead just get pissed off about what you think you’ve missed out on, I it’s a something plucked from thin air £10k figure

I doubt 5 years of contributions even into a final salary scheme will make a 10k a year difference. Have you actually been told this is the case or did chat GPT tell you?

OP are you sure it’s this much? £10k difference for only five years? Thats an eighth of the total number of years you normally need to build a full pension entitlement.

I could understand it if you had twenty years in teaching, but £10k for only five years (and this is just the difference) suggests you are planning on a pension well into six figures.

I think the max it would be is £6k a year difference and that's not accounting for inflation linking. Yes it's rubbish but there's nothing you can do about it.
If you are going to be on 100k then your pension will be pretty massive anyway.

5 years in a final salary scheme is unlikely to provide a £10k pension. My DH & I each have 15years paid in & we are currently looking at £10k pensions when we retire.