Advise on Pension please.

[Arkwright]

Having read the thread on mortgages I thought I would seek some opinions on pensions.

I've got an OK pension pot at present which is doing well with the stock market on the up, over the last few months my pension has gone up by 12%. At what stage do you stop the gamble and transfer into something of lower risk?

A few years back my pot went down so I know it's swings and roundabouts but I don't want to blow what I already have, I'm early fifties and really don't want to work into my mid sixties.

Any advice or opinions would be much appreciated

 

[Garage_Doors]

You got me thinking now..............

I have no inclination to wanting to retire, nor any plans to but at the same time i want what due to me
I have 1/2 dozen or so pensions that are currently running or frozen from previous employments.
A couple are fixed sums but the other i not not got a clue about there values, i get yearly statements but they mean nothing to me.

I had a guy round a few years ago from the free pensions advice service ( this is how i know that some were fixed sums) he wanted 5% to managed them which was at the time around 3.5k up front so told where to go and done nothing since, should i have paid up to let him mange them?

 

[Steve Foster]

Having read the thread on mortgages I thought I would seek some opinions on pensions.

I've got an OK pension pot at present which is doing well with the stock market on the up, over the last few months my pension has gone up by 12%. At what stage do you stop the gamble and transfer into something of lower risk?

A few years back my pot went down so I know it's swings and roundabouts but I don't want to blow what I already have, I'm early fifties and really don't want to work into my mid sixties.

Any advice or opinions would be much appreciated

Depends on your level of risk & time between now & when you want to take retirement benefits. If you are less than 10 years away from when you wish to draw funds start to move funds out of the stock market. Need advice? Contact an IFA. PM me if you would welcome advice or check us out www.investmentsolutions.co.uk or logon to Vouchedfor.co.uk (the only place the public can rate their IFA). Hope this helps

 

[timbha]

Do what fozzie says and do it soon

 

[Beach Hut]

Luckily all my eggs are in a good basket pension wise so around 19 moths left to work the good byeeee, thank heavens

 

[dazzer6666]

Yep, definitely get some proper advice. I'm in the FS industry and should know better, but I'm going to get help.........it's hugely complicated.

Transfer values are an interesting thing at the moment due to exceptionally low annuity rates. I've got a modest final-salary pension from a former employer. All very nice and index-linked etc. I left the firm when I was 34, I'm now 50.....projected pension is about 45% of what my salary was when I left in 2000 if I leave it until 60 (not much). Transfer value (ie if I opt out of the fund and take a lump sum into a SIPP) is about 35 times the annual pension.

 

[Arthritic Toe]

Luckily all my eggs are in a good basket pension wise so around 19 moths left to work the good byeeee, thank heavens

Do you work on a butterfly farm?

 

[virtual22]

It's an interesting one as the old method used to be save up a big pot, de-risk it from about age 55 odd, take an annuity at 60/65 and that was it. However, with income drawdown and the new rules regarding passing your pension on to family, flexibility and other options, very few people go to annuity these days.

In view of this people can leave their pensions invested much longer and continue to ride the markets (for good or bad).

Working out how much to invest and how much to take is a tricky job, you don't want to run out of money, but you also don't want to be scrimping and scraping then dying with a huge pension pot.

Therefore I would definitely see an IFA. A good one will be well worth it. That said, 5%!!!! that's horrendous.

Most IFA's, like solicitors, will give you a free half hour or an hour to get some ideas and they should then go through costs. The fee should be mostly dependant on the hours involved, not the amount of your pension so I'd try to avoid ones that base their costs on a percentage of your pension pot.

Feel free to pm me, it is more complicated now than it's ever been.

 

[Beach Hut]

Do you work on a butterfly farm?

Are you here all week, actually working on a butterfly farm would no doubt be far less stressful than the current situation I have to deal with but when there is a light at the end of the tunnel it helps

 

[Arthritic Toe]

Are you here all week, actually working on a butterfly farm would no doubt be far less stressful than the current situation I have to deal with but when there is a light at the end of the tunnel it helps

Why - do they all fly towards it?

 

[Nibbler]

In my experience employing a financial advisor pays for itself. They will review the funds that your pot is invested in and suggest better performing ones offered by your pension provider (depending on your attitude to risk). They'll also look at your fund management fees to make sure they are competitive. You can easily make back any fees if your pot sees gains of just a small percentage.

They will also advise when to start switching to safer funds. I would say ten years prior to retirement might be too soon but I'm not an IFA.

A financial review every couple of years should keep your funds ticking over nicely though, and will keep your mind at rest.

 

[timbha]

Yep, definitely get some proper advice. I'm in the FS industry and should know better, but I'm going to get help.........it's hugely complicated.

Transfer values are an interesting thing at the moment due to exceptionally low annuity rates. I've got a modest final-salary pension from a former employer. All very nice and index-linked etc. I left the firm when I was 34, I'm now 50.....projected pension is about 45% of what my salary was when I left in 2000 if I leave it until 60 (not much). Transfer value (ie if I opt out of the fund and take a lump sum into a SIPP) is about 35 times the annual pension.

Transferring to another provider can be very attractive as firms are looking to get rid of their liabilities and are willing to enhance the transfer value just to get it off their books, however I strongly advise seeking independent advice before making any such move.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

You got me thinking now..............

I have no inclination to wanting to retire, nor any plans to but at the same time i want what due to me
I have 1/2 dozen or so pensions that are currently running or frozen from previous employments.
A couple are fixed sums but the other i not not got a clue about there values, i get yearly statements but they mean nothing to me.

Prompted by a newspaper article, and using the free government pension tracing service, I tracked down an old pension I wasn't even sure I had from a job I held for four years back in the eighties. Sure enough, there was a fairly modest pension running that had been racking up interest all that time. Made contact with the pension fund and the annual statements have started coming through. As an annuity the amount per year it is due to pay is pretty thin (though not bad for something I wasn't even sure I had!). However, just out of curiosity I recently wrote off and asked them what the transfer value was i.e. the lump sum that could be taken or rolled up into my main pension pot. The figure I got back back was over 20 times the annuity, which is suddenly a pretty decent amount. Maybe worth thinking about rolling some or all of your old pensions into your main pension pot? Oh, and like others have said, a good Independent Financial Adviser is well worth the money. In fact you probably won't be able to do much with your pensions without saying you've taken independent financial advice. Quite right too!



 

[dazzer6666]

Transferring to another provider can be very attractive as firms are looking to get rid of their liabilities and are willing to enhance the transfer value just to get it off their books, however I strongly advise seeking independent advice before making any such move.

100%

 

[Daddies_Sauce]

Do what fozzie says and do it soon

100% this, PM the man and take up his offer.