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Do you have a pension?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I was talking to my friend the other day and when I said I don't have a pension she seemed quite surprised. My company does have a pension scheme ( final salary scheme - but I haven't signed up to it, because at the moment I am struggling financially and trying to slowly pay off debts so it just seems silly to give up another portion of my monthly wages.
I'm 24, is it ok to not have a pension?
Also my company has just announced that the final salary scheme will be closed to everyone from June and they are offering £250 towards the cost of consulting an Independent Financial Advisor.
confused!
I'm 24, is it ok to not have a pension?
Also my company has just announced that the final salary scheme will be closed to everyone from June and they are offering £250 towards the cost of consulting an Independent Financial Advisor.
confused!
0
Comments
I don't have a pension, but I intend to get one when I start my new job. Martin Lewis reckons you should halve your age at which you open the pension and that's the percentage of your salary you should be putting away for your pension- so you should be paying 12% of your salary.
12 per cent of my salary? thats just not viable for me at the moment.
i'm not planning on staying at this company •crossing fingers anyway• and they are getting rid of the final salary scheme..I never understood it anyway. A pensions woman came to speak to us during training and completely pressured and hurried everyone into signing up, but I said no.
It doesn't have to mean that you pay the 12% - most pension schemes now are contribution ones. In my pension, I pay 3% of my salary, the company tops it up with 6% and we all get tax rebates - so it works out quite well, and i'm not far off 11%, which is what i should be putting in.
The longer you leave it, the less money you'll have, and putting money in at this age will be worth so much more when you come to retire than it will if you start putting it in in 10 years.
Thing with pensions is that it's a case of pay now or pay later. Failing something horrendous happening you will get older and retire.
My mum retired aged 40 for medical reasons (from the Civil Service also) on a final salary pension. She gets more pension each month than I do salary, and I still work for them!
I think you'd probably be able to as well. I've always found that if i've got money sitting around in my current account it gets spent on bugger all. If it gets funnelled into an ISA or my pension I can't spend it but still manage to get by.
I'd advise getting a pension, because they won't be around for ever, or if they are the terms will be rubbish.
I also intend to teach so am relying on getting a pension from that.
I pay in 4% and my employer pays 6.3% - plus tax breaks, that's about 11% and I've just turned 23.