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!!!

I have mine- it's OP who might not.

I was a mid ranking Civil Servant from 1978 to 2013. Final grade was SEO; OK but hardly senior management. Pension at 55 after redundancy - Qango on Cameron's bonfire.

After stopping commuting, stopping needing smart work clothes and not spending money on lunchtime sarnies I was no worse off than when working.

Totally agree.
That definitely needs to be looked at again, is there missing service?
As a public sector worker......teacher, we have a dedicated website where you can check your service history and see if there's any gaps in service.
Those figures seem incredibly low for 13 years of work.

Do you mean government as in local government, or as in civil service?

Either way, unless you were very part time, I would think it’s £9k a year.

Are you sure that's right?

My local government pension is £300 a month after 15 years service, which ended in 2001. I was at the lower end of middle management, so not sure what civil service grade that would equate to, but salaries are broadly comparable.

I've also got £13,000 in my last employer's stakeholder scheme, and that's worth something like £35 a month (£28 after tax), so I'm going to take it all (less the tax!) as a lump sum and stick it in my ISA.

He couldn't have paid much in each month.

I have nearly 12 yrs teachers pension, which should be about £7,500, so I think your 9k is about right per annum.

Thank you. I am glad for the OP’s sake that I am wrong.

As others have said, £9000 a year sounds more likely for 13 years service. I have about that in my teachers’ pension after 20 years (but some part time).

Ok, thank you, sorry for that.

I think it's highly unlikely she would get that after 13 years.

I have a friend who taught full time for 7 years then very part time for 9 years and her pension is around 3Kpa.

If OP tells us her salary we'd be able to say whether it is likely to be correct

Well, the more you earn the bigger your pension will be. So of course senior management will get more than clerical grades. It's the same calculation for everyone on the same scheme though.

There’s no way this is true. Unless you deliberately opted out. Bet it is £9k a year.

For me that was all I wanted really, to be no worse off than when working. Although nowhere near a high earner, my combined work pensions and future state pension means I will be fine. Pretty much the same as working but without any of the day to day work hassles or risks of redundancies etc. Also there will be a number of expenses I have now I won’t have then. When my state pension kicks in I will be the most financially secure I’ve been in years (thank god!)

Did you look at your Total Rewards statement, which can be low, or actually ask for a reckoning of your entitlement from your employer? The two can be radically different.

A pension of £9k a year would be equivalent to a pension pot of about £250k though. Surely, you would have to be very high earning to accrue that in 13 years - the sort of high earner who would be completely on top of their pension balances.

I do hope it is though, and you have gone from thinking you have £9k to realising you have a relative fortune, OP!

Why would you do that?

You'd be taking monies from one virtually growth free environment, pay tax on 75% of it at your marginal rate, reduce its value, then invest it in a vehicle with the same tax treatment within the wrapper. A) you pay tax. B) you reduce the effect of compounded returns.

If you need the money, fine, but if you're cashing in a pension just to reinvest in similar assets, in a different wrapper, you're just making a donation to HMRC for the sake of it.

How are they so small? I worked somewhere for 8-9 years as a secretary and my pension is slightly under £9000 pa.

.

Your friend either didn't pay into the pension for all the years she worked or she has taken a large lump sum, reducing her annual amount, taken it before the retirement date and had a reduction or was in only paying half contributions sp building at 1/98th instead of 1/49th

It will be £9,000 per year - unless you were part time and on very low wages

Completely irrelevant to the OP.
You are talking about a DC pension OP has confirmed the schemes she was in are DB

I work in government, and that definitely sounds like an annual figure going on what I've looked at with my pension scheme which is also alpha.

Based on what? Retirement age? Guarantees? Spouses pension? Indexation? Arrears or advance? With or without a PCLS?

Unless you have her information and have run some annuity quotes, leave out your poorly formulated estimates and talk OP into calling the scheme admin for clarity.