Soldato
- Joined
- 12 Dec 2002
- Posts
- 2,950
I intend to be mortgage free on 4 or 5 houses by the time I'm 50ish then live off rent.
Apparently the rule of thumb is to take the age you start paying into a pension, half it, and that's the % of salary you should be paying in every year until you retire, including employer contributions
Thing is these pension calculators are just putting me off going that route. If i put in £350 a month for the next 35 years (£147k), i'll have a total pension income of £15k including state pension at retirement age of 67, and half of that is from state pension.
That's a pretty rubbish pension calculator 'cos it doesn't account for any growth! 3% growth will hoick up you pot to around £250k
Do you know of any good calculators? Why do you say 3%, is that considered average performance? (I know you can invest in millions of different things so defining an average will be impossible!)
I believe 7% is average for properly managed stock investments over a long time periods.That equates to double your money every 10 years. but this hides the fact you can go long periods with 10-15% returns, period with losses, and longer periods of small growth in 2-3% range. So you only get 7% on average over say 30 years, which is kind of what your pension does.
3% would be relatively low and extremely safe, e.g. using long term bonds and the like. 5% I think is realistic if you spread investments into different risks and you pay an investor to manage your finances.
Thanks very much for that D.P. That rings a bell as I'm sure I've seen the 3/5/7% split mentioned before. My pension is with Fidelity and the scheme I'm in has 3 levels depending on how close you are to retirement. Being younger I'm in the riskier category for the foreseeable future.
I work for a Financial Institution, specifically within a Pensions servicing area. I'm amazed at how many people are opting to take all their pensions pot as cash. The tax they are paying is eye watering and a lot of them have openly admitted all they want to do is spend, not save.
Regardless of whether they are a 'con' from a corporation tax perspective, that doesn't change my opinion that for many people company pensions warrant serious consideration. With matched contributions you basically double your money even if the fund performance is flat - I suspect quite a few young people are too dismissive of pensions (as I used to be) as they don't want to think that far into the future.
I really don't understand why more people don't take a keen interest in their retirement income earlier on in life. I don't want to keep grafting til I'm 68 for the reward of living on £8,000 per year!
Even if it means working extra hours or even two jobs while you're young to pay for it, it's better than working hard as an old man, do the work while you're young and fit I say.
One of the best things I ever did was start pensions for all my kids when they were born. I have put on average between 25 and 100 per month into them. My two eldest well let's say allowing for conservative growth they will never have to contribute in their adult life to reap a good pension when they are older. My youngest at 4 already has 7k in their pension pot. I would recommend everyone do this even 10 quid a month at 65 years of growth will help them immensely.
For myself I am not that bothered I aint expecting to live that long tbh.
The problem is if it's not matched, which most won't be, then it's far less cut and dry, especially if people are trying to save up for a house at the same time. Putting 20% into a pension while paying out 40% of your salary in rent and trying to put a little away for a mortgage is just not feasible for many.