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.

Stressing about a past situation you can’t change, yet showing no inclination to get better educated which you could improve your current and future pension, is navel gazing silliness. Your use of ChatGpt in this situation just screams laziness.

She absolutely would (had she transferred it).

See here: https://www.lgpsmember.org/your-pension/paying-in/transferring-in/

Scroll down to ‘benefits from another public service pension scheme’ and then again to the ‘final salary membership’ section. Confirms that transfers of final salary membership buy final salary membership in the receiving scheme which is then linked to the final salary when leaving LGPS.

Those still in TPS will still get final salary pensions based on service up to 2015 (or potentially 2022 depending on McCloud judgment) and that is the final salary on leaving, not the 2015 final salary.

I have worked in the LGPS industry for over 20 years.

Sorry, meant to quote GlowingUp there.

It depends when you started teaching. Anyone joining the teacher’s pension scheme after 2007 doesn’t get a lump sum and only gets a pension based on career average. People who joined before that get a lump sum and a choice between final salary and career average.

I am sorry, how frustrating for you.

I was teaching in FE in Twickenham for 13 years before I moved up to Northumberland, and was lucky to find a part time post. It all happened so fast I didn't join the pension scheme immediately and when I wanted to join, had such a fight on my hands. I had to give up in the end as I was going in circles and HR were stringing me along - and I was then made redundant at 49. Lo and behold when some hours did come up the following January a 'local' got them. Bitter, moi? Luckily my late husband was a level headed man and I finally accepted it.

OP none of us do, it's a bit of a scandal really as financial advice is only available to the very rich so the rest of us are pretty in the dark about our finances. On the plus side it doesn't sound like your pension will be too bad.

I've got a final salary pension from working at the Coop for 7 years from 1988 to 1995. My final salary was less than £15k. Its due to pay me £7250 a year from 2035. Just to give you some idea.
I thought you were going to say that you had cashed it in or something! Yes maybe you could have done something else, but leaving it alone really isn't the worst thing in the world. I

It’s not. My local government pension based on more years at a higher salary is far less than £10k.

I’ve possibly done the same. No idea. Joined nhs pension in 2008, left in 2017 and went to teachers pension. Some of my nhs pension would be final salary and teachers is career average. No idea of the implications and i can’t change it so it is what it is!

I get the same amount as @moderndilemma £1875. It's nowhere near 10 grand.

But surely you still have the bit of the final salary pension for those 5 years?
When i left my first job about 38 years before I retired, I still got/get the small final salary pension from that first job (compounded for inflation).
Even tho I failed to update the pension dept with my current address, my NI number and other data, they were able to locate it.

No you are wrong. As you say yourself “those in TPS will get final salary up to 2015”. So how can it then also be “the final salary on leaving, not the 2015 salary”? It is of course not the final salary on leaving. Otherwise why was there such a fight about it at the time if everyone could just stay in the scheme and get their final salary pension when they retired, decades after the final salary scheme ended? And could move jobs and transform their new career average pension scheme (here the LGPS) into a final salary one for the remainder of their career?

Final salary schemes are only "gold plated" if you end up living a long life. If u don't, it's lost as there is no pot of money left, just spouse's 50% or thereabouts pension - if they live long enough.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.......!

40 years ago I used to go round public sector hospitals, schools, Local Gov Offices etc giving talks about their superannuation schemes/National Insurance etc.
I used to go home amazed at the recklessness (of, in the main, women), opting out of their schemes where they could, withdrawing their contributions, etc etc. Yes they wanted their money now not in 10, 20 + years, people in their family never lived long so it wasn't worth their while paying in. No they wouldn't work more hours, ideally full time for their last few 3 years to boost their pension because they liked to go out with their Mum on Mondays, do their shopping on Tuesdays, housework Wednesdays, so really 2 days a week was the most they wanted to do. Could I just wave a magic wand and double their pension for them??
Even worse many people never look properly at their pay slips. They don't know they never joined the Teachers' Scheme because their private school had not joined etc. or they had opted to pay the reduced stamp....because they rarely opened their pay slips and/or certainly never looked at the little boxes only the one with the net pay.
Unions/the relevant pension schemes etc will often be able to give advice/ information but there really should be a compulsory information talk by the Employer in the first year of people starting a job to tell them this and the basics ( and the extras eg early retirement and payment of enhanced pension in ill health) and the unusual (eg perhaps being able to opt for a pension for a dependant relative eg disabled sister.) I have lost track of the number of people I met who knew nothing of either.

My DM did this too and lots of women I bc worked with who were about 15 years older than me.

The government are doing something about this and working on producing a 'pensions dashboard' with the idea that you will be able to log on and see all your pensions from everywhere all in one place tho I'm not sure when it will be available from.
Thanks for that link about McCloud @ChessieFL ; I did vaguely know about it but because I don't work on that part of the section any more, I hadn't had a good look at it.

So you have 5 / 80 x £30k (index linked). That’s £1.88k per year, but actually with the index link is worth more - so, say it was £30k in 2005 it would be more like £3.3k (you can check this by logging in to TPS). If I understand correctly, you’re saying that you would have been able to port across the 5 years but link them to your current salary. 5 / 80 x £100k is £6.25k. (The £100k could of course change over time as well but that’s with today’s values for the two scenarios.) So, yes, you’ve lost out but not by £10k+. I get that it feels like a loss. However, there’s nothing you can do about it now and your local authority salary, and therefore your pension, sound like they will be much higher than anything you’d have likely ended up with had you stayed in teaching. You have to make peace with it and let it go - some you win, some you lose.

Edited because I used 60ths instead of 80ths.

My partner missed the chance to transfer a private pension into the LGPS which was a great deal more silly.

But compared to people who've never been able to build a good pension at all he's still done well so we don't complain about it.

It would be on 80ths not 60ths then @theresapossuminthekitchen

Yes, I realised literally as I pressed post! I’ve edited now.

I can’t say I find that sad.
Frankly I can’t afford to pay any more council tax which goes towards local government pensions.
So many local government employees are on 6 figure salaries - how on earth people expect the council tax payers to supplement these high salaries and then very generous pensions is beyond me.

I very much doubt you’ll be needing the winter fuel payment or be rummaging in the yellow sticker section.
Maybe be grateful for what you will get??

It really, really isn't 10k a year that you've lost.

I'm 25 years in at the top of the teaching scale and my current pension "forecast" is something like £13k per year

I’m sure these things are deliberately as confusing as possible - the TPS website is really hard to get definitive answers from, and I’d consider myself pretty clued up!

I understood it to work like this (though happy to be corrected):
Person works for 10 years prior to 2015 ‘banking’ 10 80ths of their final salary.
They then work for 25 years after 2015 ‘banking’ 25 60ths of their average salary during that time (let’s say it amounts to £45k ‘average’).
They retire with a final salary of £55k.
Their pension would be: (10/80 x 55) + (25/60 x 45) = £25.6k

I’m basing this on my pension statement currently available on my TPS account which suggests that my 6 years of pensionable service in the final salary scheme is closer to 6/80th of my current salary not of my salary in 2010 when I left that scheme, adjusted for inflation. However, it doesn’t quite fit either of those from what I can work out, so….

At that time I had several colleagues who privatised their public sector pensions, while I listened to people like you and did not. I retired ten to fifteen years before them on better benefits.

OP I’ve just retired from teaching. UPS3 so top of the pay scale, no leadership role.
I had 29 years full time paying into the scheme since 1996 and have only got £18k pension so I doubt you’d get £10k after only 5 years.

Have you logged onto the teachers pension website? You can see what it will be and if you were employed pre 2015 you’ll have a small lump sum too.

There’s a calculator on there to that can forecast it.