Pension fund performance - do you monitor yours, how is it doing, do you actively change it?

[slinxy]

From what I looked at as you get closer to 32k the difference becomes less and less so being at 31 doesn't mean you should rush to 32k.
There didn't seem to be a cliff edge on fees.

Obviously the lower your pot the worse savings are.


I believe the platform fee hits 4 pounds a month at 32k with 0.15pc fee?

The break even point is 32k.. at that point the 0.15% starts being more than £4 pcm.

The longer you take to get to 32k there’s more money you could be saving by moving to a different platform.

The platform fee capped at £375 pcm but you have to pay asset fees on top of the platform fee, so the bigger your portfolio is.. the more they will charge you.

 

[MichaelAwkward]

Funds.

Is that a S&S ISA or SIPP and how often do you trade?

Fidelity are cheaper for ETFs (across both SIPP/S&S ISA)(especially if you do regular monthly dealing as the fee drops from £7.50/trade to £1.50) but for funds Halifax is as little as £36/year with regular dealing with no fees/trade. SIPP with funds probably still cheapest with Vanguard. Always good to not have your savings with just one company also.

 

[robj20]

Is that a S&S ISA or SIPP and how often do you trade?

Fidelity are cheaper for ETFs (across both SIPP/S&S ISA)(especially if you do regular monthly dealing as the fee drops from £7.50/trade to £1.50) but for funds Halifax is as little as £36/year with regular dealing with no fees/trade. SIPP with funds probably still cheapest with Vanguard. Always good to not have your savings with just one company also.

It's a SIPP with FTSE Global All Cap Fund and some Vanguard 100% Equity Fund. 10% income a month goes in.

I do also have an ISA for each of my Children and one of my children also have a SIPP with Fidelity.

 

[MichaelAwkward]

It's a SIPP with FTSE Global All Cap Fund and some Vanguard 100% Equity Fund. 10% income a month goes in.

I do also have an ISA for each of my Children and one of my children also have a SIPP with Fidelity.

I’d leave it with Vanguard in that case, but you could save a bit by consolidating them with Fidelity and changing to ETFs.

 

[200sols]

Where are you better off? I'm not far off 80k

Interactive investor. Depends on account type obviously, quick maths for a SIPP its more like 100k. Many platforms are cheaper for just ETFs as well.

 

[new boy]

Ah so confused what I should do.

I've currently got £8k sat in a vanguard S&S ISA which is obviously no longer good value. I put £100 a month in ATM.

I've got 21k in my workplace pension with Scottish widows, and I have no idea what fees I'm paying there. Doesn't seem possible to see what fees my employer negotiated either on the website/app or on my previous printed yearly statements.

I think I'll call Scottish widows Monday and find out how much I'm actually paying and if its high I'll transfer the bulk of the funds to a vanguard SIPP I guess? With 29k invested total I guess the fees will be pretty good.

If my workplace pension fees are good then I'll just find a new Provider for my S&S ISA.

Well spoke to them. Seams like the woman on the phone was getting confused with her zeros? Either that or I've not had enough coffee yet.

She said I was paying 0.049% admin fee + a 0.01% fund fee so 0.05% in total? Which doesn't even add up

I've checked the fund fact sheet and its 0.1% not 0.01% and I assume its a 0.49% admin fee not 0.049% so I'm guessing I'm paying 0.49% + 0.1% = 0.59%?

I think I'll just call up on a different day and hope I speak to someone else tbh lol.

I asked if that included any discount my employer negotiated and she said that's the standard admin fee that everyone pays and as far as she knows there are no discounts on it.

I dunno why they cant just lay the information out in the app or whatever.

I'm fully willing to accept that its probably me being an idiot here but I cant figure out how if so.

 

[slinxy]

Well spoke to them. Seams like the woman on the phone was getting confused with her zeros? Either that or I've not had enough coffee yet.

She said I was paying 0.049% admin fee + a 0.01% fund fee so 0.05% in total? Which doesn't even add up

I've checked the fund fact sheet and its 0.1% not 0.01% and I assume its a 0.49% admin fee not 0.049% so I'm guessing I'm paying 0.49% + 0.1% = 0.59%?

I think I'll just call up on a different day and hope I speak to someone else tbh lol.

I asked if that included any discount my employer negotiated and she said that's the standard admin fee that everyone pays and as far as she knows there are no discounts on it.

I dunno why they cant just lay the information out in the app or whatever.

I'm fully willing to accept that its probably me being an idiot here but I cant figure out how if so.

do you not have a web portal? just login to it and check the fees for yourself.

the admin fee is pretty much standard for your whole company, and the fund fee is dependant on the fund itself... it's sometimes cheaper to break up the fund to smaller ones than paying for the whole thing in one go. i.e. all world is normally changed at the same cost as emerging markets, so breaking it up to separate emerging markets and dev world is cheaper. Down side is that you don't get auto balancing of the fund.

some platforms will charge you the platform fee separate from the fund fee, I think my platform fee comes out once a year but my asset fees are every month.

 

[413x]

Well spoke to them. Seams like the woman on the phone was getting confused with her zeros? Either that or I've not had enough coffee yet.

She said I was paying 0.049% admin fee + a 0.01% fund fee so 0.05% in total? Which doesn't even add up

I've checked the fund fact sheet and its 0.1% not 0.01% and I assume its a 0.49% admin fee not 0.049% so I'm guessing I'm paying 0.49% + 0.1% = 0.59%?

I think I'll just call up on a different day and hope I speak to someone else tbh lol.

I asked if that included any discount my employer negotiated and she said that's the standard admin fee that everyone pays and as far as she knows there are no discounts on it.

I dunno why they cant just lay the information out in the app or whatever.

I'm fully willing to accept that its probably me being an idiot here but I cant figure out how if so.

The aviva app is terrible for it.

I assume they make it difficult on purpose? Because it should be really easy to lay out in pounds per year and percent by fund and platform

 

[new boy]

do you not have a web portal? just login to it and check the fees for yourself.

the admin fee is pretty much standard for your whole company, and the fund fee is dependant on the fund itself... it's sometimes cheaper to break up the fund to smaller ones than paying for the whole thing in one go. i.e. all world is normally changed at the same cost as emerging markets, so breaking it up to separate emerging markets and dev world is cheaper. Down side is that you don't get auto balancing of the fund.

some platforms will charge you the platform fee separate from the fund fee, I think my platform fee comes out once a year but my asset fees are every month.

The fees are absolutely not detailed anywhere in the app or the website. Even my hard copy yearly statement on the performance page has a collum for fees and it just says call us on this number

 

[jaybee]

I have a DB pension from the start of my career when I was in civil service. It says the status is "deferred". I only worked there for about 4 years and my final salary before I left would have been about 20K. I have a letter from when I left back in the early noughties and it says Main plan = "<pension name> Pension per year £1467.00" payable 6th of each month on my normal retirement date of <retirement date>.
Can I assume this to mean I will literally be paid £1467 per year when I retire? Or is it some fraction of that? I take it that won't have ever grown since it's a DB one? I've never touched it or worked in public sector or civil service since.

EDIT:
Found another letter I got earlier this year! Now says it's worth £2950 a year. This letter was about 20 years after the first. I read something somewhere that claims it goes up about 5% a year. So it may become about £7000+ by the time I retire. Hmm.

 

[jaybee]

Any advice on whether to combine any pots would be good:

Pot 1: DC Legal and General
£2000
Annual Fees = £7

Pot 2: DC Standard Life
£28000
Annual Fees = £120
I get some discount rate on the fees working out about 0.46% which more than halves the annual fee, assume due to the size of the pot being bigger

Pot 3: DC Standard Life
£1200
Annual fees = £4

Pot 4: DC Standard Life
£2300
Annual Fees = £8

Active Pot 5: DC Aon Bigblue
£84000
Annual fees = unknown. I can't see any mention of them. Not sure if this is because I am still actively contributing to this one or the employer pays it.



Pot 5 active seems to be doing ok. It is medium to medium/high risk, which is about right for my age. Employee/employer ratio is 5:15 which is very good.
The standard life ones.... 2 of them are invested in exactly the same profile, so was thinking to at least combine them.

 

[Selekt0r]

I have a DB pension from the start of my career when I was in civil service. It says the status is "deferred". I only worked there for about 4 years and my final salary before I left would have been about 20K. I have a letter from when I left back in the early noughties and it says Main plan = "<pension name> Pension per year £1467.00" payable 6th of each month on my normal retirement date of <retirement date>.
Can I assume this to mean I will literally be paid £1467 per year when I retire? Or is it some fraction of that? I take it that won't have ever grown since it's a DB one? I've never touched it or worked in public sector or civil service since.

Yes, that's probably correct - many DB schemes work on a <years of service> / 60 * salary basis, so £1467 roughly equates to this. However, if that is a figure provided years ago then it should have risen in line with inflation so could be considerably higher now (£1467 in Jan 2024 for example, would equate to over £3000 taking RPI over the period into account).
You are best to get in touch with the pension scheme administrator to get an up to date figure (they should send you one every year anyway though...)

 

[booyaka]

Any advice on whether to combine any pots would be good:

Pot 1: DC Legal and General
£2000
Annual Fees = £7

Pot 2: DC Standard Life
£28000
Annual Fees = £120
I get some discount rate on the fees working out about 0.46% which more than halves the annual fee, assume due to the size of the pot being bigger

Pot 3: DC Standard Life
£1200
Annual fees = £4

Pot 4: DC Standard Life
£2300
Annual Fees = £8

Active Pot 5: DC Aon Bigblue
£84000
Annual fees = unknown. I can't see any mention of them. Not sure if this is because I am still actively contributing to this one or the employer pays it.



Pot 5 active seems to be doing ok. It is medium to medium/high risk, which is about right for my age. Employee/employer ratio is 5:15 which is very good.
The standard life ones.... 2 of them are invested in exactly the same profile, so was thinking to at least combine them.

Find out and confirm your existing pot costs - should be on annual statements etc.

Normally the recommendation would be to consider moving all your pots into your existing workplace pension unless there is some reason not to do so.

Alternatively you could combine all the others into a single arrange outside of your current active scheme and just keep that a simple pension outwith existing work scheme, however like I say - normally the first options should be to consider your existing work scheme, but check costings - Either from annual statement or direct with provider.

- The above DOES NOT constitute advice under any circumstance, and is to be used for information only. It does NOT form any kind of recommendation.

 

[jaybee]

Yes, that's probably correct - many DB schemes work on a <years of service> / 60 * salary basis, so £1467 roughly equates to this. However, if that is a figure provided years ago then it should have risen in line with inflation so could be considerably higher now (£1467 in Jan 2024 for example, would equate to over £3000 taking RPI over the period into account).
You are best to get in touch with the pension scheme administrator to get an up to date figure (they should send you one every year anyway though...)

Yeah cheers, edited post now. It has doubled in value.

 

[jaybee]

Find out and confirm your existing pot costs - should be on annual statements etc.

Normally the recommendation would be to consider moving all your pots into your existing workplace pension unless there is some reason not to do so.

Alternatively you could combine all the others into a single arrange outside of your current active scheme and just keep that a simple pension outwith existing work scheme, however like I say - normally the first options should be to consider your existing work scheme, but check costings - Either from annual statement or direct with provider.

- The above DOES NOT constitute advice under any circumstance, and is to be used for information only. It does NOT form any kind of recommendation.

Thanks. My boomer Dad used to say to me never to combine them. Then I speak to friends who say I should and why wouldn't I... The only thing I can think of is fees to do so, like whether I will lose out in some way. Also having all your eggs in one basket. Would it not be better to spread risk a little bit. I could split off my lower ones and invest them in higher risk stuff maybe.

 

[robj20]

Thanks. My boomer Dad used to say to me never to combine them. Then I speak to friends who say I should and why wouldn't I... The only thing I can think of is fees to do so, like whether I will lose out in some way. Also having all your eggs in one basket. Would it not be better to spread risk a little bit. I could split off my lower ones and invest them in higher risk stuff maybe.

It's something you going to have to figure out yourself. People should only tell you where to find the information not what to do.
It took me a while to figure it all out so don't expect it to be an overnight thing.

 

[SaBBz]

I'm 39 with £325k in my workplace pension, which is a global equity fund with a risk level of 5 out of 7. I'm looking to retire at around 58, so I'm currently putting 50% of my salary in monthly (34% myself, 16% employer).

Would it be worth me considering moving this into a different investment? Feels like a global equity fund is probably fairly decent (between 30th Sept 2023 and 30th September 2024 the fund unit price went up by 19.5%).

 

[throwaway4372]

I'm 39 with £325k in my workplace pension, which is a global equity fund with a risk level of 5 out of 7. I'm looking to retire at around 58, so I'm currently putting 50% of my salary in monthly (34% myself, 16% employer).

Would it be worth me considering moving this into a different investment? Feels like a global equity fund is probably fairly decent (between 30th Sept 2023 and 30th September 2024 the fund unit price went up by 19.5%).

global equity sounds fine for now, it's usually when you have about 10 years to retirement you start to make it safer.
my 2 cents is usually about 20% contribution lets you retire at 57, 50% is massive, might want to reduce it.
investing in isa / general investment account is how you get to retire before 57.
remember to use your money for fun too

 

[booyaka]

Thanks. My boomer Dad used to say to me never to combine them. Then I speak to friends who say I should and why wouldn't I... The only thing I can think of is fees to do so, like whether I will lose out in some way. Also having all your eggs in one basket. Would it not be better to spread risk a little bit. I could split off my lower ones and invest them in higher risk stuff maybe.

Risk is very small these days

Remember that you are covered by FSCS.

If you stick to a named brand for pensions - the big guns etc etc - then it's extremely unlikely for a full failure of that provider. Yes, things can do wrong but in reality it's extremely rare. In this day and age companies need to hold substantial amounts of capital in reserve (capital adequacy) in order to cover any issues that might occur.

Combining pensions simplfies things massive - one provider, one statement, one view on your pot, easier to see what you get at retirement etc. Also by combining, you potential reduce the costs as your pot builds up long term.

 

[Destination]

Changing my S&S ISA, as vanguard have written to say they are about to put in place new fees for such investments, meaning anyone with less than 32K invested in the ISA will get to pay the same fees as anyone with 32K invested, £48.
Seems excessive for a small investment, clearly they want to ditch minnows, or fleece anyone who wants to stay with them.
Be interesting to see if other providers start a similar move.