Pension

[Edelman]

I took up two private ones after going self employed and putting my pension pot from a previous job in the hands of a financial adviser and following his advice. Ten years later I received a call from him saying I had to live until I was 99 to get back the cash i had already paid in and his advice was to stop paying in because the policies were 'not performing'. So I did and read the small print on the policies for the first time, and it was small, the very last line on a document three inches thick. It said commission of 99% will be paid to the agent for the first ten years of contributions.
The income from these two private pensions combined wouldn't buy me a season ticket for City.
If you have some spare cash put it into bricks and mortar.
.

Buy to Let now has Tax on it at purchase so the benefits arent has big .
I believe also that you used to pay tax on your profits but now it's on all of the income payment .
Do you also pay tax when you sell it ?
Not sure .
I recently increased my pension payments to 10% but think I'm gonna take it back down to 5%

 

[Trumpton Tiger.]

Buy to Let now has Tax on it at purchase so the benefits arent has big .
I believe also that you used to pay tax on your profits but now it's on all of the income payment .
Do you also pay tax when you sell it ?
Not sure .
I recently increased my pension payments to 10% but think I'm gonna take it back down to 5%

Everything is taxed now matey but speaking from past experience the safest place to put your cash is in property. I wish I'd have followed my own advice, or indeed had the surplus cash or the balls to borrow more when I was younger because money was there to be had in the late 80's. But hindsight is a wonderful thing. Having said that I also remember the mortgage rate rising to 15% and that was a real struggle to pay at the time. I had to take two jobs on.

 

[Edelman]

Everything is taxed now matey but speaking from past experience the safest place to put your cash is in property. I wish I'd have followed my own advice, or indeed had the surplus cash or the balls to borrow more when I was younger because money was there to be had in the late 80's. But hindsight is a wonderful thing. Having said that I also remember the mortgage rate rising to 15% and that was a real struggle to pay at the time. I had to take two jobs on.

Yeah I remember contemplating it for years .
I even at one point had bought a lot of K com and Dot Com shares that was the equivalent of selling them and buying a bungalow cash and sat pondering
Held off then it all crashed and weeks later it was worth virtually nothing

 

[Ernie Shackleton]

I had ISAs here, PEPs there, a savings account somewhere else; an endowment policy that was meant to pay off the interest on my mortgage but came nowhere close to that; an underperforming free standing pension; a few shares and various other ****e 1990s financial products that snake oil salesmen told me that would look after me and mine in old age.


Get to **** you commission driven charlatans. You took your cut and left me completely unsupported when conditions and the market changed.

And change things certainly have over the last 20 years.


Eventually I found that I didn't have a clue whether my financial products were performing well or badly, whether they should be performing better or not, or what I should do with them.

I took the plunge and consulted a reputable independent financial advisor.

Who consolidated everything.

Placed all my different products within a single portfolio sitting on a varied investment platform. (Whatever that means).


I pay quite high fees for this but I can see the investments growing and have a fairly clear idea of what money we will have in retirement.


And perhaps equally importantly, I don't worry about it any more.

 

[FLG]

I'm hopeless with these things, I've got three that I've paid a significant amount of cash into, but the income at retirement still seems fairly pitiful and I find it hard to motivate myself to sort it out, despite knowing I should.

Chances are that the illustrations for income use some assumptions like you'll take an annuity, leave 50% pension to a spouse, some health assumptions also.

Reality is that hardly any annuities are taken these days and generally spouses tend to have a pension of their own and health issues provide enhanced payments.

So if you went drawdown and self manage it, you're probably better off than they would have you think and possibly even allow you to pass pensions down to younger family members.

 

[What? A full dog?]

My advice is that - having worked closely with the financial conduct authority on fraud cases - don’t blindly trust the advice of a financial advisor. But even more importantly, don’t trust the advice of a load of half drunk football forum keyboard warriors.

 

[DMD]

My advice is that - having worked closely with the financial conduct authority on fraud cases - don’t blindly trust the advice of a financial advisor. But even more importantly, don’t trust the advice of a load of half drunk football forum keyboard warriors.

Good advice right there. If they can only afford to be half drunk, they've clearly no idea how to manage their money properly.

 

[Ernie Shackleton]

My advice is that - having worked closely with the financial conduct authority on fraud cases - don’t blindly trust the advice of a financial advisor. But even more importantly, don’t trust the advice of a load of half drunk football forum keyboard warriors.

Two key words to always put in front of 'financial advisor: independent and reputable.

 

[Gone For A Walk]

My advice is that - having worked closely with the financial conduct authority on fraud cases - don’t blindly trust the advice of a financial advisor. But even more importantly, don’t trust the advice of a load of half drunk football forum keyboard warriors.

Just to clarify, I can't remember the last time I was even 'half drunk'. Many years ago.

Good advice WAFD.

Best approach is to educate yourself first. It's a too important subject to be lazy and careless about. As well as the book I've mentioned. Tony Robbins 'Unshakeable' is also a decent starting point. Unfortunately most of these books have an American slant, but the simple concepts are of course transferrable. This book covers both the 'mind set' side of things as well as practical steps. There's plenty of free stuff on the internet to explain about pensions.

It's too important to leave to fate, and it's also too important to leave with blind faith to someone else. For the sake of a few quid on some good books (or audios) and
a few hours of time every now and then. And don't fall for the adverts you will see in investment magazines, newspapers and so on; they are marketing adverts, that cost (investors) a lot of money, to temp you into products that almost certainly aren't right for you. Learn for yourself, and if you still end up paying for advice, make sure it's truly independent (an IFA).

One incorrect belief of some is that 'investing' is for people with plenty of money. Not true and dangerous thinking. It's best to start young, if not then start today, and it's definitely not something to leave until you have plenty of money ... it's one key reason why people typically end up with plenty of money (not the other way round). Start small if you have to. And by the way, 'saving' is NOT 'investing'; saving won't get you where you want to be.

Sorry for preaching / stating the obvious to some, but it's such an important topic (started off as a quick clarification about not drinking and turned into a soap box moment )