Ask a Scottish Widows expert your questions on pensions and retirement - 3 x £100 voucher to be won!

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We are working with Scottish Widows to help answer any questions you have on pensions and retirement. With minimum workplace pension contributions increasing in April, from 5% to 8%, we’d love to hear your questions or any thoughts you have, either on this or about pensions and retirement in general.

Scottish Widows Retirement Expert Jackie Leiper has volunteered to answer your top questions and is passionate in helping women plan for their financial future.

Jackie said: “We know women face their own unique challenges in saving for the future. With more women working part time and many of us going on maternity leave at various points in our careers it’s often difficult to know if you’re saving enough for your future.

With an increase to workplace pensions in April I want to help explain what the changes could mean for you and how a small increase now could really make a big difference to your future.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions on the changes or anything that’s in the back of your mind regarding saving for retirement.

To help get you started and explore the upcoming changes you can watch our Pension Basics film or visit our website to see how it could impact you.”

Whatever questions you have around pensions and retirement, please post them below and we will choose 10 for Jackie to answer. Everyone who posts a question below will be entered into a prize draw to win one of three £100 vouchers of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw.

MNHQ

Terms & conditions apply

How can I work out how much I need to live off in retirement and how much I need to save to achieve this?

Can you advise me of a good place to look for really basic information, I want to make sure I fully understand it all

Is it better financially to overpay my mortgage or to pay money into a locked away private pension?

Do you expect minimum contributions to rise again in the near future from the new 8%? Do you worry about them becming unaffordable for many and then people 'opting out' and therefore being worse off in the long run than if they'd just been allowed to continue with their 1% or 2% which may have been managable for them?

I will be concentrating on paying my mortgage off rather than saving in a private pension, and will be downsizing to release income when I retire - what are your comments on using my equity as a pension ?

I have just gone back to work after a 5 year break, I have enrolled on the works pension, my question is - what is the best way of making up the 5 years I've missed - through my works pension - making additional contributions, or take out an additional private pension.

I have just had a pay rise, instead of taking the rise (which works out at £75 per month) can I increase my pension contributions by this amount ?

After being a SAHM for many years I didn't pay NI contributions. I'm now working overseas. Is it with starting these up again?

How does a person go about setting up am additional private pension? I have a civil service pension but am assuming I won't be able to live on it so think I need another private one. The only problem is that it's all totally bewildering!

If I leave my current job after less than 2 years, will I have the option to keep the money (about £3K) in the pension scheme, or am I obliged to withdraw and invest it elsewhere? Will there be tax implications if I withdraw?

I have been a SAHP for 8 years but previous to that I was a secondary school teacher. How do I find out what I need to know about my pension contributions from when I was working? I have no idea where to start. Thank you.

I have several pensions, none of which are marvellous (charity sector worker). One of them is very, very small - how do I know if it's worth merging it with my current employers pension?

how does 'carry forward' work if you have a high (100k plus) nhs pension, 30 years service and are 58?

I have cashed in some shares so therefore have some money to invest (in my pension...)

Can I use my salary to make larger than the typical monthly payments DIRECT to my pension (within my annual allowance) and so save some tax or NI? Or am I dreaming?!

(I'll then live on my shares £ for a bit).

Thanks!

is a treasury backed pension just as vulnerable to change as every other policy of government, like good social care, school funding, state pension etc. (I agree that it is less important than school funding, but would like to know what a professional thinks about its security).

Should I pay out of pocket for the NI contributions I missed from previous years?

How easy is it to combine several pensions?

If you are in line for the maximum state pension, how much extra in terms of private pension do you recommend people aim for? (I know everyone's circumstances are different, but assume it's a single person, no housing costs and wanting an average lifestyle.) Thanks.

Should the government take more responsibility for educating the public regarding pension options?

I was in a final salary scheme with the bank I worked for, 21 years in total, although the last 2 were part-time (which probably now makes the pot next to worthless). I have just left this is as it is. Is the correct thing to do or should be be doing something pro-active about it/something better?

My DH has had a number of different jobs and therefore has lots of different pension pots all over the place. We successfully tracked all of them down recently and we were surprised to learn that since we had never administered them in any way, my DH hadn't ticked boxes that stipulated that his pension funds would be transferred to me, his wife, if he passed away. Do most providers operate this kind of 'opt in' scheme for what I presumed was a given i.e. that pension funds would be transferred to family if the worst was to happen? This is our hard-saved cash after all.

Is it realistic to survive in retirement on just a full state pension? What kind of lifestyle would this provide?

How do you track down different pensions you've held through different jobs?

How easy is it to combine pensions? My current employer will pay into whatever pension I designate: how can I tell which of my pensions is giving me the best return?

Do you think that there will be a national universal benefit scheme in 20/25 years or will it be phased out?