Retirement

Yes it is scary, and as someone more than twice your age it is scarier still because hindsight is not that much use as the conditions have changed so much over the last 25 years. Our pension planning was based on final salary pensions. Forget that. And being to afford to buy a house in your twenties. Forget that. One thing that could be said to have changed for the better is that there is a chance your parents will be able to pass on some decent money to you from the sale of the house when they pass on, but people are living so long these days that this is no guarantee. But this has driven the (undeserved) popularity of equity release.

My advice would be start getting into the saving habit as early as you can. Save for a house (bricks and mortar); if you can find an employer that contributes to a pension scheme it is advantageous; then drip feed spare money into stocks and shares through a unit trust, hindsight does show that over a working lifetime equities have a better than average return. It may not get you to Micky's £500k, but if you have to live off the state pension alone you are stuffed.

Good luck.
Cheers for this Elmet, appreciated 😊
 
So, shropie says invest in the internet, Bowden says spend it on Leicester tickets, beer and strippers (basically) Hampshire makes a great point with the lack of straight forward answers and soho thinks I’m F*cked haha cheers gents, love this board 😂
spread your investments around, pension, property, gold, crypto, vintage cars, comics whatever. Most importantly, see a financial advisor don't just listen to us here because our situations are all different.
The one thing you shouldn't do is, nothing.
 
Indeed it’s a minefield. I’ve moved around a lot and had to sign up for several pension schemes before they became supposedly portable. Result is they are front loaded with charges and you only realise that when you stop paying in As your contributions make it look like it’s still growing. In reality, Instead of watching your investment grow you are paying the salaries of the so called “independent” advisors and pension fund staff.
I remember getting a statement from Scottish Widows which was headed “what a difference a year makes!“ and the robbing twats had given me an overall loss of £2k on my £8k Pot.
 
Indeed it’s a minefield. I’ve moved around a lot and had to sign up for several pension schemes before they became supposedly portable. Result is they are front loaded with charges and you only realise that when you stop paying in As your contributions make it look like it’s still growing. In reality, Instead of watching your investment grow you are paying the salaries of the so called “independent” advisors and pension fund staff.
I remember getting a statement from Scottish Widows which was headed “what a difference a year makes!“ and the robbing twats had given me an overall loss of £2k on my £8k Pot.
Yup, been there done that. my old british shoe pension has been sold 3 times over the years.
It's currently with clerical-medical.
it earns about 0.5% per year which is well under the 5% that happened when i worked at BS, and that pension trustees are meant to get. some years that 0.5% doesn't even cover the 'admin fees' they deduct.
i can't touch it as it was sold on after BS went bust, so it's stuck with them earning FA.
 
Problem is these days Haardass that public sector average pay has overtaken that in the private sector.

That means in the long term the economy is fucked
this past year maybe - that's why they got no pay rise this year. we got fuck all the last five years under Cameron. One per cent one year, as a one off. At the end of the year it was taken away then "awarded" again the next year. Ad infinitum. I reckon my pension and lump sum took a 20% hit by the time I cashed out. Mind you I took an easy part-time role for the next five years to get my own back.
 
spread your investments around, pension, property, gold, crypto, vintage cars, comics whatever. Most importantly, see a financial advisor don't just listen to us here because our situations are all different.
The one thing you shouldn't do is, nothing.
Good man teabreak, thank you 👍
 
Without wishing to point out the bleedin obvious, don't forget that ISAs are usually the best vehicle for savings.
Tax-free on exit, unlike 75% of any personal pension (but which are, at present, tax-free on the way in).
 
Well at least I know where my pension went retired at 60 to look after a disabled
Wife and as a carer got £60 a week for looking after her and finished 5 years later on on £64.75.
 
I’d say you need 500k but we’re talking cash as not including our houses aren’t we?
Personally I’ve always played the stock market and use as much as my yearly ISA allowance as possible.
Would not want to be working past 60 but you never know it’s a gamble.
 
Talking of unions, Unite have spent £100 million of members money building a hotel in Birmingham, POWER TO THE PEOPLE😕😕😕
 
Semi-retired, now 54, planning to raid my small pot next year.

Meanwhile we get by on my wife's pension and rental income.
 
Luckily had a decent works pension, it changed from defined benefit to defined contributions a couple of years before I retired so I consider myself lucky to have been in it for the best years. With my wife and my state pension it's not too bad but if you've only got the state pension to rely on you're stuffed.
 
Snap aged 44 self employed carpenter work 6 days a week can’t sit still either ,not got a pension or a pit to piss ,in I’m going to work till I drop What a way to go out lol 😂
Use your skill to your advantage, renovate or help build your own house. do it every 5 years and you will retire in comfort.
 
Manage your life to suit your income.

We have a home, nice but modest car and do not owe a penny to anyone. We took care of our family 'obligations' about 10 or 12 years ago and what we have left, is for us.

Our combined pensions are ample to live on, in terms of day to day living, because of the lock down we have actually saved a good few bob over the last year. We live a relatively simple life, not extravagant but we hardly go short, if we want anything special we have cash reserves to pay for that if necessary.
 
Seems to be in both areas now.
Who is hoping to leave their riches to their kids or does that just make them lazy spoilt bastards?
 
In my book it's fine to leave what you've got left over to kids or friends if you so choose; if you're worried about them getting too much, spend some more on yourself (y)
 
Seems to be in both areas now.
Who is hoping to leave their riches to their kids or does that just make them lazy spoilt bastards?
Don't know about you but I want my kids to have more than I did. I'm hoping to give them each a decent contribution when they buy their first house as things have changed a lot since I bought my first house, eg average house prices, 100% mortgages.
 
Don't know about you but I want my kids to have more than I did. I'm hoping to give them each a decent contribution when they buy their first house as things have changed a lot since I bought my first house, eg average house prices, 100% mortgages.
We did that and sorted out other family obligations about 10 years ago. Effectively we have a home, a car and some 'cash', that is it, nothing at all complicated.

Assuming that the world does not change beyond all recognition, if we need more cash we would do equity release on the property, unlikely to come to that though.
 
I wouldn't worry at all about a pension, Blue Streak.
After 30 years of Brexit you'll all be wandering around homeless and jobless dressed in rags, sleeping on straw and eating grass. With your ribs sticking out of what little flesh remains on your emaciated, scurvy infested carcass preparing yourself for another 10 hours of street begging next to the sole surviving communal water pump in your neigbourhood which will have been reduced to rubble through decades of neglect.
A pension won't even be a distant collective memory.
What are the negatives then?!
 
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