My pension is worth NOTHING

[RosieBright]

I had a job for 13 years in Government and kept thinking it was a great pension as folk kept telling me. I looked at my pension paperwork when the annual statement came through and I have £9000.
I thought that was A YEAR!!! But no, it's worth about £30 a month 😱
How can I boost this? I need anoth £100K to even have half a decent pension

Help!!!

Ok. I have a USS pension so maybe my queries are a little different: DB (annual amount plus lump sum) and(?) DC (which is a pot that I assume is a lump sum that they keep investing and adding to?) pension but it isn't clear if this is hybrid or if I have to choose one or the other (DB OR DC)? Also, it's unclear whether the amounts are what is there now (as in, were I to pause, this is what I would get at 65) or if they are projected (as in, what I will get if I continue to pay in at this rate)?

It’s likely you will get both. I know some DB schemes closed for existing members and were replaced with DC schemes. Anything in the DB scheme is paid as per DB scheme rules. The same applies to the DC schemes.

The op has both NUVOS and Alpha which are both DB pensions but one is payable in full @65 the other at state pension age.

Were you working full time or part time?

@Katey83 - If you don't understand your statements for the USS pension, look on their website to see if there's an explanation. If it's still unclear, contact them to ask for clarification and suggest they improve their materials.

www.uss.co.uk/

USS is a hideously complex scheme, being hybrid. AIUI, you start in the DB scheme. If your earnings are above £X, then contributions from the portion of your salary below the threshold continue to go to the DB scheme and 'excess' contributions from the bit of your salary above the threshold go into a DC scheme.

It’s not that complicated really - salary below £60k is all DB (earlier thresholds were slightly different), salary above goes into the DC pot. Annual statement tells you exactly how much in each.

The salary threshold for USS DB/DC is £71,484.

True, the basics are fine. It's the constant revaluations and politicing of the members that aare the hideous bit.

Oh they can be. I temped so have loads of little pensions that I can't combine. I've tried, but I can't answer the questions online to combine them.

Even better! (The higher USS DB threshold)

The TPS pension is basically one of the best out there. Employer contributions currently at 370% of employee contribution.

Civil service pensions never show you the value of your fund only what it will pay out as a pension - I think you probably need some professional advice but as an indicator I did 6 years on a low salary and 22hrs PW my pension pays £110.00 PM

Those figures seem wrong. Government pensions are usually the best .I have a pension that I haven't cashed in yet that I accumulated from 8 years in a retail job I had years ago and it's worth more than that.

Yeah my local authority pension for ten years service will be about £10000 if I left now

There isnt a fund so obviously they can't tell you the value of sometjing that dosent exist.
What can a professional tell OP that her statement dosent? It literally tells her how much each her pensions is worth per year and when she can take each. She will get annual statements telling her how much it has increased.
There really isnt anything else that she could be told.

Really, you have a pension that will pay uou £9000.00 a year for your whole retirement from a retail job that you did for 8 years?

I think you are way out there, unless she was in a very highly paid job. I had 20 years in and now get £6,600

I'm due to get £16k per annum at 67 as a teacher, that's with 35+ years of service, a mix of full of part time. It's a lot lower if I leave at 60 which is what I'd like.

I think you’ve read it wrong. My local authority pension is £632 a month and I did 17 years full time and paid into LGPS the standard amount

I think you have it wrong. It's gotta be £9k p/a!

READ THE THREAD. OP knows that it is an annual the question was answered correctly more than 24 hours ago.

No they aren't way out at all. Even minimum wage would be accruing at £453 per year plus inflation. Plus pay rises each year.

If you were in Nuvos from 2008 you may also be affected (in a good way) by the mccloud remedy- worth enquiring about this with the scheme (noting as a PP said they may take a while to get back to you due to the changeover)

That seems low. I tapped into their online calculator starting service date 1/09/25, age 55 working to 67 and salary of £30k and it spat out £12k pension.

Very difficult to achieve the same pension on 30k per year outside of such a scheme.

It might be worth checking if you have any gaps in your state pension that you can top up. It can quite an economical way of helping get as much of the state pension as possible.

Log in to your gov.uk account and it should tell you if there are any gaps in your NI contributions.