Pensions

[Jacksgranda]

52 minutes ago, weirdcal said:

Just be careful, your annual allowance for payments into pension fund is £40k (you can carry forward from the last 3 tax years for additional as long as not over your current salary, burst the annual allowance and you get additional tax on it... Used to be £255k limit ) this amount includes company contribution too.
 

I never earned £40,000 p/a, so I didn't have that problem.

[bishopburn boy]

48 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

I never earned £40,000 p/a, so I didn't have that problem.

Aye , you wouldn’t get out of bed for such a paltry sum

[Le Tout P'ti FC]

Good grief man, we've been hit, we've been hit!

My monthly valuation made for pretty grim reading this morning. March had a fall in value big enough to take the fund back down to its October 2018 valuation, 17-months of savings wiped out.

Good time to buy, and a good time to cry.

[weirdcal]

Good grief man, we've been hit, we've been hit!

My monthly valuation made for pretty grim reading this morning. March had a fall in value big enough to take the fund back down to its October 2018 valuation, 17-months of savings wiped out.

Good time to buy, and a good time to cry.

Fund prices can go down as well as up. A phrase I may have said about 40 times this week alone.

Some people are hilarious at the moment, apparently given the opportunity to pick your own funds mean I should personally be micromanaging it in order to stave off loses.

You wanna stick in equity when markets wobble, crack on.
You wanna invest it all in a cash fund (cash fund does not mean it's cashed and stays same value, see above about fund prices...) Crack on
Just don't come whining to me when it's dropped in value as if I can actually do something.

[Adam]

Good grief man, we've been hit, we've been hit!

My monthly valuation made for pretty grim reading this morning. March had a fall in value big enough to take the fund back down to its October 2018 valuation, 17-months of savings wiped out.

Good time to buy, and a good time to cry.

Mine is similar, done a double take when I looked yesterday.

[Hedgecutter]

An older acquaintance of mine who's finally hit pension age has just swapped out his long-term partner for a richer retired dame following the realisation that he'll be forced to live in abject poverty for decades otherwise because he's built up no private pension savings.

Have any members of the P&B massive made this part of their long-term pension plan?  It certainly wasn't an option brought up in my recent meeting with the pensions advisor.

Edited March 29, 2023 by Hedgecutter

[Sergeant Wilson]

15 minutes ago, Hedgecutter said:

An older acquaintance of mine who's finally hit pension age has just swapped out his long-term partner for a richer retired dame following the realisation that he'll be forced to live in abject poverty for decades otherwise because he's built up no private pension savings.

Have any members of the P&B massive made this part of their long-term pension plan?  It certainly wasn't an option brought up in my recent meeting with the pensions advisor.

Absolutely. I'll be a kept man...I am now when it comes to it.

[TxRover]

4 hours ago, Hedgecutter said:

An older acquaintance of mine who's finally hit pension age has just swapped out his long-term partner for a richer retired dame following the realisation that he'll be forced to live in abject poverty for decades otherwise because he's built up no private pension savings.

Have any members of the P&B massive made this part of their long-term pension plan?  It certainly wasn't an option brought up in my recent meeting with the pensions advisor.

Halfway there…the difficult part is yet to come, I suspect.

[greendot]

6 hours ago, Hedgecutter said:

An older acquaintance of mine who's finally hit pension age has just swapped out his long-term partner for a richer retired dame following the realisation that he'll be forced to live in abject poverty for decades otherwise because he's built up no private pension savings.

Have any members of the P&B massive made this part of their long-term pension plan?  It certainly wasn't an option brought up in my recent meeting with the pensions advisor.

 

 

Is sticking money in premium bonds, savings ISA, stocks and shares ISA and pension not enough these days? 

[Hedgecutter]

Just now, greendot said:

 

 

Is sticking money in premium bonds, savings ISA, stocks and shares ISA and pension not enough these days? 

Been genuinely waiting for that. 

Seriously though, I've had multiple folk, particularly older workers kicking themselves with hindsight, recommending that the expense of getting one is worthwhile in the long run.

[greendot]

11 minutes ago, Hedgecutter said:

Been genuinely waiting for that. 

Seriously though, I've had multiple folk, particularly older workers kicking themselves with hindsight, recommending that the expense of getting one is worthwhile in the long run.

I'm at the stage when I'm thinking more about it. I recently subscribed to meaningful money on YouTube which has some decent tips. I'm at the stage where I've got a comfortable month by month spending and sticking extra into savings and pension and increased my pension contributions from my salary so I'm paying less tax on what I earn. I'll be increasing my contributions year on year as well to increase the pot providing I don't pop my clogs beforehand!

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, Hedgecutter said:

Been genuinely waiting for that. 

Seriously though, I've had multiple folk, particularly older workers kicking themselves with hindsight, recommending that the expense of getting one is worthwhile in the long run.

Fee for service only, not commission. Advisors who receive commissions have a dual loyalty, you you and their wallets…fee based advisors have a loyalty to their advice working so they can get more clients when people see how well you’ve done.

1 hour ago, greendot said:

I'm at the stage when I'm thinking more about it. I recently subscribed to meaningful money on YouTube which has some decent tips. I'm at the stage where I've got a comfortable month by month spending and sticking extra into savings and pension and increased my pension contributions from my salary so I'm paying less tax on what I earn. I'll be increasing my contributions year on year as well to increase the pot providing I don't pop my clogs beforehand!

Again, the problem with any general information, is it’s tailored to a wide range of situations and not to your particular situation. They often say in this age range (insert 10 year span here) you should so X, without any consideration of a persons intended retirement age or plans, which can massively change the situation. It’s good to know rules of thumb, but it’s better to have a tailored game plan. I’ve learned this the hard way, having lost about a 40% gain due to poor choices in my retirement fund…a 40% gain that would have made things much nicer.

[greendot]

22 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Fee for service only, not commission. Advisors who receive commissions have a dual loyalty, you you and their wallets…fee based advisors have a loyalty to their advice working so they can get more clients when people see how well you’ve done.

Again, the problem with any general information, is it’s tailored to a wide range of situations and not to your particular situation. They often say in this age range (insert 10 year span here) you should so X, without any consideration of a persons intended retirement age or plans, which can massively change the situation. It’s good to know rules of thumb, but it’s better to have a tailored game plan. I’ve learned this the hard way, having lost about a 40% gain due to poor choices in my retirement fund…a 40% gain that would have made things much nicer.

 

Certainly with my level of savings / investment funds i personally don't see the need for an advisor as such but I'm sure that'll change further down the line (I'll be mortgage free within 2 years so that frees up some extra cash).  I definitely don't doubt that a proper tailored pension plan / financial advice is invaluable for maximising retirement funds etc.  Especially when i see the general information guys using figures like £250k in the bank to have a comfortable enough retirement allowing you to have a nice lifestyle before following on with having £500k / £1million would be better type thing!

[Hedgecutter]

Aye, meeting I had involved a sit down, going through my current/previous situation and assessing future plans / potential unseen hiccups etc etc.  Risk assessment too to see how edgy I'd be with seeing fluctuations over the course of time and so on. Basically, very tailored.

Surprisingly, one of the outcomes I came away with was that 'consolidating' previous pensions isn't necessarily a good idea even though every fifth advert wants us to think it's a fantastic idea.  Same with smart meters I suppose (ie. if they want us to have one, there must be something in it for them).  Wish I could remember the exact reason why though, which wasn't simply about eggs in baskets. 

Edited March 29, 2023 by Hedgecutter

[TxRover]

25 minutes ago, Hedgecutter said:

Aye, meeting I had involved a sit down, going through my current/previous situation and assessing future plans / potential unseen hiccups etc etc.  Risk assessment too to see how edgy I'd be with seeing fluctuations over the course of time and so on. Basically, very tailored.

Surprisingly, one of the outcomes I came away with was that 'consolidating' previous pensions isn't necessarily a good idea even though every fifth advert wants us to think it's a fantastic idea.  Same with smart meters I suppose (ie. if they want us to have one, there must be something in it for them).  Wish I could remember the exact reason why though, which wasn't simply about eggs in baskets. 

Fair chance it was about investment options. If your setup is anything like here in the U.S., different companies use different investment firms for their plans…resulting in varying fees and options. A shrewdly tailored mix can often be put together by picking and choosing the option that are lowest cost in each basket, as they are often wildly different products with each company.

Example…Fund A is invested with Vanguard and has low fees and perhaps somewhat limited options…Fund B is invested with Fidelity and has higher fees, but some options that A doesn’t have that are suitable for your risk tolerance…Fund C is invested with ING and has moderate fees on most options, but a couple of low fee options that undercut the other two. With those options, you can assemble a nicely diversified portfolio between the three at lower fees than with any one of them…plus you avoid all the eggs in one basket as a bonus.

[Molotov]

I have a mix of DB pension, full SP (10 years away) and a DC pension.

I first started to look into management of my pensions after reading the excellent UK blog https://monevator.com

I then decided never to use an IFA for my pension decisions or have any active funds in my portfolio.

I did however sign up to the https://meaningfulacademy.com as a founder member in the retirement planning program.

As part of the membership you receive access to Voyant financial planning software as well as a monthly Q&A group session with CFP Pete Matthew. Any questions I have on retirement planning are answered online or via the monthly Q&As. 

Pete has a great podcast/YouTube channel if you want to learn more.

I personally keep a simple investment strategy and basically stick to it. A book that taught me a lot was the “Simple path to Wealth” by JL Collins. US author but his method sat well with my outlook. 

I personally don’t monitor fund changes on a regular basis or move between funds if there are massive changes in the market. I just stick with the plan. 

Once a month I run the numbers on “income-expenses-investment” across all our accounts and keep a track in a spreadsheet. 

My view is “if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it”.

The plan now is to get the adult “kids”to leave the nest so that we can properly retire!

That is proving somewhat difficult. 

 

[Gorgie greatness]

I’m in the “Some c**t needs to die” boat

( hopefully no me although that would be a solver)