How much in pension pot at 41?

[chubbaa]

I have almost 44k, which I think is shite. Trying to build it up as much as possible now though. What does everyone else have in their 40s?

44 here and have about £420k in there at the moment. Paying in about £2k a month combined contributions with my employer match. I've been paying in anywhere between 6% and 25% myself since I was 19, and have been fortunate enough that the 5-6 employers over the years have always matched it up to about 10%. My current employer will pay in 15% if I pay in 7.5%.

I've always made sure to understand the pension as part of any benefit package when changing jobs. If you can get a job with a decent match it can be very valuable. Big thanks to a guy called John who gave me the pension low down on my first day when I was 19!

Based on the current rules I cant access these funds for another 13 years (which in many ways is a good thing) but I certainly dont want to have to wait until then before I retire/semi retire. So I'm paying in now to max the employer cotribution plus a little more for the tax relief, but focusing now on S&S ISA that will hopefully act as a bridge from 50 to 57.

At 41 - zero. Actually I had maybe $400 in a overseas pension that I still can't access.
When I was about 46 we started up a company - I ploughed all my salary into my pension. It's looking quite healthy now but I really wish I'd thought about it before giving up paid work to look after the kids for (quite) a few years.

This might help with the ISA vs Pension investment decision.

Do you work in finance? This sounds like an amazing private pension deal!

I work in tech (mainly US headquartered) and haven't come across one yet contributing more than 5% 🥲. Some didn't contribute at all when it wasn't mandatory.

No, I've worked in various utility companies such as Energy, Telecoms and Water. It is fairly typical for these types of companies to have pension matching up to around 10% in my experience. I have now what I would call a very comfortable salary of around £80k gross, but for the first 10 years it was all sub £40k. I didn't go to uni, but went via the apprenticeship route and worked my way up, moving companies where needed to get salary increases.

Last year I was offered a job at a different company which was around an extra £10k a year gross, but their pension matching was awful so it made sense to stay where I was, even though at first glance the extra salary was tempting.

I realise I have been fortunate in getting decent employer match, but at the same time I've been able to be consistent in prioritising my pension contributions, at one point at was paying in 30% and my employer 10%.

I’m 41 and have £55k in my pension and about £180k in other investments (ISA, premium bonds, shares). I’m a SAHM currently so I don’t have any ability to increase it through employee schemes. We’re mortgage free though so hoping to increase it rapidly when I return to work.

I have £215k at age 35, which should be around £400k in real terms by age 41 with my current contribution amounts plus expected growth. I can access it from 58 by which time is should be around £1.5m in real terms.

My focus just now is building ISA savings so I can retire at 50 and live off these until 58. I was paying more into my pension until last year but have now brought these contributions down to a level where I'm still maximising employer contributions but no more and diverting the difference to this ISA bridge.

I currently have around £50k in my ISA (I already had some savings to start with) and hope this will grow to £215k by 41 and £320k by 50 when I will start to draw down from it.

My husband has a similar approach (although is a higher earner and a couple years older) and so we will have both our ISAs & pensions to combine at the relevant points in time (but I also am happy I am not relying on him incase we ever ended things, which I don't plan on happening but my own freedom is important to me).

Thanks for everyone’s posts. I feel a bit less worried now. My work pays the minimum and I currently pay £300 in monthly. Will try and increase that too. I didn’t account for growth over the next 20/25 years either so hopefully it does ok while I’m adding to it. It’s with Nest in their high risk option which seems to have done quite well. There’s not many options to pick from.

I’m 48 and have just over £200,000 across 2 pension pots. I can’t quite believe it. Not enough I suppose but I still have almost 20 years to work and for that to grow.

I agree with what you are saying about checking pension contributions when looking at other jobs. I have told younger people to always check th pension. When you are in your early 20s people may not think about it as much, but is it worth giving up a final salary scheme where the company pays 150% of your contributions to a defined contributions scheme that only matches, for a salary of just a few thousand more?

If your work pension is limited and you've maxed out the contributions, you don't have to put everything into your workplace scheme. A good option would be to max out what you need to contribute to be eligible for the supplier match and then to set up a SIPP (with Investengine or similar) for everything over and above that, benefitting from lower fees and a better choice of funds. Good luck!

Good advice. I've just been adding to Nest as it's easy but I assume there's better options! My work only pay the minimum amount required by the government, so I may be better to open a pension elsewhere for the additional £300. Will have a look at Investengine, thanks!

39 and have a civil service pension which is currently 14k per year value.

My private pension is currently 48k across 2 providers (1 Hugh risk 2nd medium risk).

Aim is to get private pots to around 350k so this can be used to retire around 60 as civil service is linked to state pension age unless I want to get hammered by 5% per year early taken reduction and my state pension age is likely to be around 70.

How do you expect your ISA to grow from £50k to £215k by 41? Are you using mainly stocks and shares ISAs to add £20k every year then that's assuming 5% min interest per year?

@Bunny44 £215k is actually pretty conservative. With 20k invested annually and an 8% growth rate the expected value after 6 years would be £226K. 8% is realistic based on historical returns by the S&P500. Just to be clear, this isn't interest, it's growth. If you stick your money in a cash ISA it is likely to devalue in real terms rather than grow.

Do you recommend any specific ISAs? At the moment I've got most of mine in cash ISAs as I'm considering buying a 2nd property this year or paying off more of my 1st mortgage, but I think you'd suggest it's financially wiser to use stocks and shares ISAs that pay off the mortgage if it's a lower interest rate? I'm over 60% equity.

@Bunny44 I need to preface this by saying that I'm not a financial advisor, this is just what I would do and a lot depends on your attitude to risk. I use the InvestEngine S&S ISA and the Invesco Global Equity fund. Over the long term, this will always beat a cash ISA but if you need the money in the short term, cash is best. A lot also depends on the interest rate of your mortgage, but to give you an idea- overpaying my mortgage would have saved me £1660 in interest payments over the past 3 years- the same amount in the S&S ISA has provided a £27K gain.

Can you salary sacrifice which is before tax in your work pension? That might be better value than a separate pension.

I have no idea if I’m doing ok pension wise. 48 yrs old. Got a £10k annuity (and £27k lump sum) from previous jobs, and then £37k in pension pot from current job. Is a £10k annuity equivalent to approx £200k?

I think the annuity depends on if it's for life or a set number of years. For example it could be 20 years, so 200k. Or if it's for life and your live 30 years or more after retirement it could be more (or less I guess depending on how long you live).

54 and nearly at £500K. Just 🙈 shy!

Invested money generally doubles every 10years so 200k at 40 is 400k at 50 and 800k by 60 supposing you didn't add to it if you keep adding to it it could be a million by 60 it just after

@chubbaathank you! I’ve looked and it’s for life which is good.

@YellowEllie13thats great! Is that public sector?

@chubbaa it’s a university/USS one, though I do have a tiny public sector one