Pension stuff

I pay 16% as salary sacrifice into a SIPP.

The workplace pension scheme my employer uses is both underperforming and expensive, so even if they were to contribute the 1% they offered, I'd be worse off in the long run.
 
Irish_Tom said:
I pay 16% as salary sacrifice into a SIPP.

The workplace pension scheme my employer uses is both underperforming and expensive, so even if they were to contribute the 1% they offered, I'd be worse off in the long run.
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A lot of scheme's allow you to move your money around into different funds, so if one fund is under performing then maybe look others?
 
Freddie1980 said:
A lot of schemes allow you to move your money around into different funds, so if one fund is underperforming then maybe look others?
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Nah it's really limited — they only have a choice of three or five of their own funds I believe and even their highest risk fund is underperforming compared to the sector average. Along with the high cost, it's just not worth it, especially as the employer contribution is so pitiful.

Unless something changes dramatically (or my employer changes scheme), I'm much better off foregoing the employer contribution and having the flexibility of my own SIPP.
 
No flexibility here either, company's stance was basically "if you want us to contribute, this is the pension you're having".
Pretty annoying, but won't be working there much longer anyway.
 
Irish_Tom said:
Nah it's really limited — they only have a choice of three or five of their own funds I believe and even their highest risk fund is underperforming compared to the sector average. Along with the high cost, it's just not worth it, especially as the employer contribution is so pitiful.

Unless something changes dramatically (or my employer changes scheme), I'm much better off foregoing the employer contribution and having the flexibility of my own SIPP.
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I'm in a similar position, albeit with a fairly good company pension, in that the fund choice is limited.

I still choose to take the employer contribution, admittedly higher than your 1%, and regularly (annually in my case) partial transfer the fund out to my own SIPP. Best of both worlds.
 
My company uses Hargreaves Landsdown, quite a few options to move and spread your money within their platform, performs ok from what I can tell.
 
The_Abyss said:
I'm in a similar position, albeit with a fairly good company pension, in that the fund choice is limited.

I still choose to take the employer contribution, admittedly higher than your 1%, and regularly (annually in my case) partial transfer the fund out to my own SIPP. Best of both worlds.
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I looked into that but the scheme’s position on transfers is “all or nothing” which is rather annoying.

billysielu said:
No flexibility here either, company's stance was basically "if you want us to contribute, this is the pension you're having".
Pretty annoying, but won't be working there much longer anyway.
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Will you transfer out once you’ve left or leave that pension sat there?
 
Irish_Tom said:
Will you transfer out once you’ve left or leave that pension sat there?
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Undecided tbh.

I know enough to manage a SIPP myself, so I might do that.

But I'm also lazy, so I might just end up doing nothing.

I heard UKGov is working on some sort of pensions portal to bring all your separate pensions together (so people can't forget them mainly) and advise on what best to do with them (to stop people making bad choices / getting scammed). Doesn't really change what I'd do, but it takes away some of the worry about forgetting about pensions if I end up doing nothing.
 
billysielu said:
I heard UKGov is working on some sort of pensions portal to bring all your separate pensions together (so people can't forget them mainly) and advise on what best to do with them (to stop people making bad choices / getting scammed). Doesn't really change what I'd do, but it takes away some of the worry about forgetting about pensions if I end up doing nothing.
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Don't hold your breath.

The dashboard, once delivered, is intended to be a visual display only. There's no scope to offer advice, just basic supplementary guidance on what you're seeing. In fact, IFAs won't even be able to look at your dashboard on your behalf in order to offer advice - that's out of scope.

At present, legislation is required in order to get all pension providers to participate and share the required data. That includes the DWP making State Pension data available. The 'dashboard' is more of a set of standardised formats for sharing data, and this (your data) will be available to other pension providers if they wish to use it, creating an enormous prospective pension marketing database.

There are a number of other complications to be resolved before this sees the light of day. I certainly wouldn't bank on the dashboard filling a pension need anytime soon. Some people on this forum will have retired by the time it arrives.

I still find it incredible that someone can forget about a few thousand pounds in a pension, but presumably would remember the £20 their mate owes them from their last night out when they skipped a round of drinks. Financial education and awareness is non-existent in the UK.
 
Anyone ever withdrawn their pension early due to terminal illness, or know someone who has?
 
We process a fair few every year - as you'd expect they normally come with a fairly tragic back story and the client and / or associated family are normally vulnerable. The standard for medical evidence is pretty clear, but despite that unfortunately we do still find ourselves needing to go back to the practitioner involved and ask for clarity.

Surprisingly few attempts at fraud in this area, for us at least.
 
Final salary pension, pay 4% of salary company makes up the rest for core pension.

2% of salary paid into a retirement account to be taken as a lump sum or to increase core pension value.

Will be increasing my voluntary contributions into my retirement account.
 
SPG said:
So our free financial guy from work, says do this.


  • Meet the min reqs for company to match on pension contributions.

  • Overpay mortgage (if you have one) as much as possible.

  • Increase pension contribution once mortgage is paid off.

The amount you save in interest by over-payments is money saved for your tax free pension, Of course this is 15-30 year plan depending on your age.
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this is silly, you should meet the max requirements your employer will match not the minimum, it is a free money - a complete no brainer...

paying off a (likely very low interest) mortgage ought to be a pretty low priority in the grand scheme of things... in fact further contributions to your pension above employer matching and/or other investments would probably be better than overpaying
 
I just found this thread after a search. I'm not seeing much advice for higher rate tax payers (apologies if I've missed it).

I currently pay 5% and my employer matches it, but I'm wondering if I should be paying more as I'm a higher rate tax payer (40% with no basic rate allowance). Is the tax relief worth paying the extra contributions even if my employer doesn't match it over 5%?

I've just had notification of a share option where I buy 3 and my employer gifts 1 free and I'm wondering what would be the best option between that and ploughing more cash into the pension?
 
Pay what you can afford and drop it down if things are tight. If you’re older and join a company with a good pension you may as well slam in the contributions and make up for any past shortfalls.

The way I look at it is I’ve setup my pension contributions and unless something drastic happens my “new” net wage is what I’ve got left over.
 
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