Do you have questions about your pensions? Ask PensionBee’s finance and investment expert Becky O’Connor - £200 voucher to be won

[CeriMumsnet]

Pensions are invaluable for our future financial stability and wellbeing, however it can be hard to feel on top of them or know how best to manage them. To help you out, PensionBee has invited their expert to answer your questions around pensions and saving for the future.

• Everyone who shares a question on the thread below will be entered into a prize draw.
• One lucky Mumsnet user will win a £200 voucher
• Becky will be back online in a few weeks to answer a selection of your questions.

About the expert
Becky O’Connor joined PensionBee in January 2023 as Director of Public Affairs. She’s a Personal Finance and Investment Expert and award-winning Journalist with two decades of experience in journalism and communications. Prior to joining PensionBee, Becky was Head of Pensions at Interactive Investor, and previously acted as a spokesperson for Royal London, the mutual insurer. Becky’s also the Co-Founder of the ethical personal finance website, Good With Money; the Author of a book on sustainable investment, The ESG Investing Handbook, Chair of the Ethical Advisory Committee for Castlefield Investment Management and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Here’s what PensionBee has to say
‘We are a leading online pension provider with a mission to make pensions simple, so that everyone can look forward to a happy retirement. We’ve helped thousands of savers feel pension confident by enabling them to combine, contribute and withdraw from their pension, all in one place.’

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw
MNHQ

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@BeckyPensionBee Thanks for answering

Hi Becky
i was medically retired in 2010. Just had the invite to apply for state pension (June) and checked my forecast. It says I have 38 full yrs contributions yet is only forecasting £151 and not the full £185 per week, is this right? I tried phoning future pensions centre but cannot get through to see if worthwhile paying for the 11 yrs missing since I was medically retired on private pension.
can you advise?

When I had a baby, they had just changed the rules, so that I wasn’t eligible for child benefit because DH’s income was too high. So I didn’t apply for it because the newspapers were full of articles telling me I wasn’t eligible.

Several years later someone said that because I hadn’t applied for child benefit, the government had not been making national insurance contributions on my behalf as they usually do when you are sahm to a young child.

So I then applied for child benefit (which obviously I wasn’t given) but was told they only backdate the NI contributions 3 months from the date of the form. That doesn’t seem right? Is there anyway I can claim the NI contributions the government should have made on my behalf? How was I supposed to know that you have to fill in a child benefit application to get pension protection, it definitely wasn’t publicised at the time!

@Zarqon

i think your best bet is to
check your National
Insurance gaps and pay.

Not sure if deadline extended but check before tax year end.

I have no pension at 42. I want to set up a private one as don’t work (carer) what do you recommend.

When will it be easy to locate all your pensions based on your natonal insurance and ID? I have had many short term jobs when younger and feel like i will lose it on all of these at retirement age

What if you live to 103 ?

My pension is lacking - are you at leadt paying into work pension ?

I have a few different work pensions having been in a few different jobs. Am I best consolidating them all into one? If so, how would I go about this?

Thanks.

@DanBenandBud pensions work on compounding. So it's not easy to make up lost time earlier on. You'd be better off putting less money in when younger, as if it has 40 years to grow, that is better than putting in much more when it only has 10 years to grow.

What's the best thing to do with contracted out serps pension available to cash in at 60 which i now am but I've got to work at least another 3 years . I'm in Lgps .

Come back pension bee lady!

i have a similar qn about serps. I didn’t even know I was!

I'd like to understand what happens to your pension fund when die, either before you retire or after?

So for example, if I die aged 70 after retiring at 65, what happens to the money I've paid in? Does it go to my beneficiaries or is it just lost?

Thanks, Becky