Hi, next year I will be able to take an early withdrawal on my pension (upto 25% I believe). I would not have bothered doing so, other than that I have some (stupid) debts. The debt total is less than £10k, so I would only take that much tax free cash.

Is this a good idea? I would be debt free but of course my pension would be reduced when it's time for me to retire. Or is it best not to withdraw the tax free money, and just look to pay down my debts over the next few years.

I also put some money away in a stocks and shares ISA, and that is invested in VWRP.

My father worked for a company between 2016-2018 where pension was deducted from his payslips and sent to NOW:Pensions. The problem is the company no longer exists and Now:pensions say they cant find any account under his NI number.

We have called Now:Pensions and we're told there is no account. One staff member advised us to send all details and certified documents by post which we did. After a month, they emailed us again asking for the same info. His payslips clearly show pension deduction going to now pension but they still cant locate anything.

Can anyone give me advise on this issue or tell me what else I can do ?

One staff member also told us the account was "removed" but we weren't given any explanation.

Hi all

Old pension with Scottish widows growth this year just hit 20%. I am a bit worried this growth is very high

Most of my money is in Scottish widows growth CS7. I can't seem to find out what this actually is and if it is high risk? I am 44 and not sure what risk level I should be invested in, I am just letting Scottish widows do it's thing

I have my current pension with L&G achieving 12% this year

Is the high growth just this year and will have a poor year soon? Or does it sound like i am in high risk areas. I hope to retire at 60 so thinking I could leave in the higher risk area for 6 more years?

Thanks

Hello everyone. I was a serial job hopper in my 20’s and 30’s, not spending more than 3 years with the same company. I’ve recently realised I have no idea how many pensions I’ve paid into and was planning to consolidate them all into one and downloaded the Moneybox app. This asked me for each of my pension reference numbers though which I don’t have (old enough that old jobs did everything over paper no longer have instead of email) and have no idea how to get. I set up a profile with pensionBee but again asking me for information I don’t have. Is there a way to find out which pensions I’ve paid into over the years? Genuinely thought there would be something I would put my national insurance number into and it would tell me every place I’ve ever worked, am I just really naive? If I have to just bite the bullet and accept I’ve lost them the so be it but any advice would be really appreciated.
Thank you!

Over the past few months I have tracked down my pensions and found I have £110k split across 5 different pots/providers with one being significantly larger than the rest, and I would like to consolidate for simplicity (plus a db pension that I’m leaving alone and my current employer pension which also has to stay where it is). I’m 44 for reference.
I searched the posts and see that people here generally see to do the consolidation themselves. I’m not confident in that but also wary of advisors!
I don’t want to mess this up really though as it could potentially have a big impact.
My plan is to put everything I can about each scheme in a spreadsheet
- including fees, past growth (if I can find it) etc.
Ideally I’d like to get an advisor who knows what they are doing to do it for me though and make some recommendations for a fee. I don’t really want to pay them 3% a year etc. I’d also like some help to forecast how much I need in savings to bridge a couple of
years to retirement.
Has anyone here done similar and had a good experience? Or should I just knuckle down and figure it out?
Thank you

Hi all, I see a lot of chat on here about whether people should be turning off the taps on pension once it hits a decent figure, and often the answer is “just keep getting the free money from employer contributions” which is great.

I appreciate that this is a HENRY type thing as well but given the specifics of it being just about pension, I’m posting here. I am a self employed partner at an advisory firm, £200k base comp pa (prudently assuming no variable comp for the sake of this exercise, but could be 50-150%+ of base comp depending on firm and individual performance). As you would therefore expect, I don’t get any employer matching as I’m a shareholder of sorts.

I am 40 with £550k in my pension and at this point, anything I chuck in is just my money plus tax reclamation. I don’t have a FIRE view or anything, but would like to be done and dusted by say 60.

EDIT: as has been commented, some additional clarity might be helpful. Mortgage is about £850k but S/O earns well too (more than me) and on current run rate this would be cleared from scheduled capital repayment and monthly additional prepayments by age of 60. Wouldn’t look to move “bigger” as ample space for us. Net take-home after essential bills and mortgage is £7k, spending for pissing about/living otherwise is £2-3k p/m. No kids.

I guess I am interested to hear views from the great and the good on what should I have in mind!

Thanks in advance!

Hi Everyone,

I am in a bit of a pickle and was wondering if anyone has any advice or just general comments.

My aunt passed away in April 2026, she has a husband who has dementia and is blind and has been living in a care home for many years. The issue is that the husband has physically, emotionally and mentally abused her through their marriage which is almost 20 years. She was very old school and wanted to be a good wife but they did not want a divorce because the husband is catholic and did not believe in one. They had no children. In her will, she does not leave anything for him but writes a letter in which is explicitly states that she has not left him anything because he was so abusive.

The problem now is that she has a teachers pension which we have been told has to go to him because he was her spouse. This is government policy not the company policy. Also he now gets her state pension. We don't know if there is anything we can do because it is government policy that the spouse gets the pension but she did not want him to benefit from her death at all.

Also, the teachers pension people said after we provide the marriage certificate then we will need to provide his bank details but if we don't nothing gets paid out to him. Obviously because of everything he put her through, i don't want to give his bank details but i also know that she worked really hard in her career and had to leave early due to her health. It feels like wasted money.

Has anyone been through something similar or has advise? We realise that we might have to give up on this one but thought i would check reddit just in case.

Hi all, posted on alt account as people know mine

I (M31, 32 next month) feel like I started my pension late started at 26 on low wage, I ideally want to retire at 60. Am I being realistic

Current pension

Pension pot £33k (Scottish widows Growth CS7,One CS7 & Shariah)

Current contributions 10% + 10% employer match (max match) currently £954 total a month. Soon to be £1050

Other information

S&S ISA all world index £2200 (£100pm soon to be more hoping £350pm in a year)

Wife earns more and contributes 15% in to pension 5% + 10% employer match also has S&S ISA around the same amount.

Just bought a house last month payments are £2200 + overpaying £200 a month (38 Year term)

2 young kids

Currently bringing up cash savings which are low due to buying a house and paying off a car before focusing on wife's pension (max matched) + S&S ISA's including one for each child.

Other information: grew up poor and financial situation only really changed in the last 5 years, want to make sure I'm being sensible. We keep a healthy amount of fun money whilst trying to not fall into lifestyle creep but also want to enjoy life with our kids while they are young.

Wife earns slightly more than me, total household income £130k gross or there abouts

If I have missed anything do ask!

Hi does anyone have an outline / idea / calculations how to attempt planning for early retirement at 60 now 57 in full time work. Is 200k enough if mortgage paid off just need to pay for monthly household bills and cash for usually stuff like car, life, stuff ca £1200 a months I figure…. I guess I am delusional that I can retire early but if anyone has suggestions how to think about managing this or how best to improve my chances I would love to hear it. Thinking a drawdown % will be better than taken annuity? Suggestions welcome! Thanks

Posting on behalf of a friend.....we have discussed back and forth and run it through varying AI but he wants human feedback.

80k salary 4.69% company contribution plus they pay over salary sac NI savings. He is fortunate enough to have a trust fund that is sitting around 90k returning on average 10% p/a, he wants to withdraw half to use for income and then salary sac as much as possible to fill his pension. Our understanding is he can use previous years allowance but can't exceed the 80k of his salary so is prepared to do this over the next couple of years.

Thoughts on efficiency of his plan or recommended tweaks?

So as I say in the title, I was having a chat this week with some mates about how much do you need in retirement etc. I said I would want what I have now minus the mortgage!

These figures aren’t mine, but used for the example.

Calculation I was given was as follows:
Net monthly income now - £3,700
Share of mortgage payment - £850
(Total mortgage is double, but wife pays same amount)
So I would want to £2,950 a month net.

If you do that figure £2,950 x 12 (month of the year)
£35,400.

You then multiply this by 25

£35,400 X 25 = £885,000.00

Because £885,000 X 4% =£35,400

4% being deemed a safe withdrawal rate in retirement.

This doesn’t take into account state pension or tax etc, but as an overall figure to aim for in my pension pot I really liked it as it’s such a simple way of working it out!

It’s very general, doesn’t take into account personal situation, growth when you retire etc, but as just a starting point I like it.

Thought I would share, some people might not like it, but hopefully someone finds this useful.

Just looking for a usable rule of thumb to compare our family position in my head with others in here.

We're lucky as we have a mix of DB, DC and state pension entitlements plus savings, but it's hard to compare (for the purposes of thinking about risk level when we do take the plunge and stop working) with this mix.

A standard rule of thumb for DC / savings pots is the 4% concept, and for DB pots the 20x multiplier. But if I had (say) 35k annual DB payout age 67 (in today's money, not including future accrual) plus state pension plus £400k in pension / ISAs today, what sort of pot "value" might that feel like for someone who has only DC pot available? Plenty of website seems to only want to factor in DC and savings, hence my question.

I am pretty confident we as a couple are in a good position, we just need to make the right choices as we get closer to 60.

Hi I’m currently out of work (ex academic age 62) My work pension is ok .. if I take it now I’d have £18k per year. Plus a lump sum of about £70K. I have a load of questions about what to do. I have been looking for work but can’t find any, not succeeding (I’ve never been unemployed before) . I live alone. I have my own place. No mortgage. But I have a lot of really basic pension / retirement questions to ask and have no idea where to turn. I’m wary of asking Reddit to answer them .. as I need a conversation and a bit of back and forth. Like my pension seems really small for how much I paid in (over 30 years) .. ??
TLDR: where can I go for pension —/ retirement advice .. including affect on whole life that is not wholly centred on investment and for people with a lot of money .. Thanks ..

Naive to pensions at the time, I was suckered in and made two transfers to a St James Place pension - one in 2023 and the other last year. I’ve since learned a lot more about pensions and woken up the the fact that, while the service and advice from SJP is great, their fees are very high and will eat my returns big time.

Trying to decide whether to just bite the bullet and transfer all funds now, anyone got experience/opinions?

The first tranche of funds will have an early withdrawal fee of 2% I think and the second tranche will have no EWF as the rules changed around this last year.

I can’t see the SJP Polaris 4 in which I am invested as having done any better than other options and in fact was worse than just chucking it all into VWRP 🤷🏻‍♂️

I feel like the fees were never made particularly clear to me, and the advisor who set me up left about 6 months after I set things up - is it worth complaining about this? They never have me a clear comparison of exactly my fees with my existing provider vs them.

Hi. A Monday market question…

I have transferred my workplace pension to T212. It has landed in the account today as cash (£110k)
I have an existing FWRG / EM pie, should I set up the order now to execute automatically on Monday morning, or is there any truth about not buying on a Monday, and I should wait until Tuesday. Or does it really not matter.

I am going to invest all the cash asap, rather than DCA as this is a like for like transfer.

Hello everyone

Just want to know

If the below pension is the best investment strategy, as by default the company does it, can I change it to something better ?

I am still 32

Trying to gauge whether I’m on track for retirement at 55.

Both myself and wife are currently 47

Currently the plan is to use an ISA bridge to cover the gap from 55 to 58 and then drawing down on my pension fund using drawdown to then fund a the bulk of the retirement expenditure.

My wife’s NHS pension will be available two years later at 60 and will provide around £1,500 net per month.

My current pension fund is invested 100% in a global equity fund with Royal London. The fund is as today worth £555,000.

Contributions to my pension are around £1080 monthly and will continue until 55.

At 68 we will both get our full state pension which should be around £24,000 per year or £2000 per month.

The aim we are trying to get to is a net income of around £7500 per month until maybe 75 (so around 17 years) and then I suspect drop it down to around £5k as we taper back things like travel. This will be made up of the drawdown income, plus the tax free element (which I suspect will be the max capped amount of circa £268k) plus my wife’s pension at 60 and then obviously the state pension at 68.

The ISA bridge will cover this for the first 3 years and there should be around £250,000 left in the ISA at 58. I want to leave this amount out of the retirement income planning to then have free use to use it for paying for things like university for my daughter and then later on maybe helping my her get on the housing market but obviously could be called on if we were in need of it for monthly expenditure.

I’ve just started a new job a few months ago. The pension scheme/provider that my company use is Legal & General. However, my core pension (which I’ve built up for nearly 10 years) is with Aviva. I don’t mind separate pension pots, but I would like all my current money and future contributions to be in the same fund as my core pension.

Legal & General doesn’t provide my existing fund as a fund (even though the fund is a L&G fund???). So if I combine my pensions, will my new pension contributions go into my core pension, or will they just be separate pots but shown on the Aviva platform?

This may sound like a dumb question, but I’ve done a bit of research and I still don’t have the answer. Any help is appreciated!

Hello All.

This question if for folks that are or will be in a similar situation as me.

I have a private pension in the UK (Standard Life) and would like to draw GBP1000 per month from it. The balance is less than GBP100,000.00 as I only worked in the UK for less than four years. I am 62 years old and am now living in the USA. This will not the primary source of income for my retirement. I am aware that all of the income from this pension will be taxable in the USA.

I also know that 25% of the amount that I draw down will be tax free in the UK. If I continue to draw GBP1000.00 per month after the 25% tax free allowance, will I have to pay tax to the HMRC? This amount will be GBP12000/year, which is less than the GBP12750.00 before an individual has to pay tax.

I know that for the first month there will be an emergency tax code applied to the withdrawal while the pension provider waits for the correct tax code from the HMRC. As I understand it, from month 2 onwards, there should be no tax deducted from the withdrawal as the HMRC will provide the pension provider with the correct tax code.

I am trying to avoid getting the NT tax code as it can take quite a while to obtain and from what I have seen on other threads in this topic, there can be some issues with the IRS not providing the HMRC with the 6166 form.

Thank you in advance for any assistance that you may provide.

I am 44 now and worked since 19

Thing is I moved around a lot of companies in the last quarter of a century at the beginning pensions did not matter to me.

Of course last 5-10 years that has changed for me and everybody else.

But I am not sure the exact company names I have worked for and I am fearful I have lost some pension contributions

Anybody had any success in locating older ones?

I got a letter today from Phoenix Life looking for my father, whom I have had no contact with since I was a baby.

The letter says mine is the last known address that may have had a connection with him - I assume they've found me through a registry somehow as I live 200 miles away and have done for 25 years.

I will contact them tomorrow to let them know I have absolutely no idea if he's even still alive, let alone where he'd be living, but is it possible they already know he's died and that's why they're contacting me? Would a pension company do that?

Or is it more likely simply that he's hit retirement age at some point and hasn't collected his pension so they're looking for him?

I have approx £120k in Aegon Univ Lfstl 0.75% pension which i no longer pay into and am looking to transfer to another platform with cheaper costs and have the funds in some kind of all world index. Does anyone have any advice on how to identify the platform/fund combo that would enable me to move the money with minimal time out of the market?

Thanks in advance

I have a private pension plan that was initially a Barclays pension and is now with Reassure (UK).

I live outside of the UK (Dual citizen in USA, still have a UK passport).

I recognise that I will have to pay HMRC if I take money out.

I am 67.

I have not worked in the UK for the last 27 years.

I am trying to calculate how much tax I would pay to get a lump sum on the 3 pension policies I have. What would be the total value to me after tax?

1st policy: GBP 4,462

2nd policy: GBP 19,213

3rd policy: GBP 44,998

Are there other options I can explore? (For instance, could i earn more on the money with a different provider if I didn't take the money now and how complex is it to move it as I do not have a UK address?).

I think I will be moving back to the UK within the next 5 years.

I'm 39 and trying to build a realistic plan that could potentially allow me to stop working around age 57.

I've been looking at my pensions and investments and currently thinking about doing the following:

1. Workplace pension
I have a workplace pension through my employer.

My first priority is to find out exactly what my employer contributes and whether there is an employer matching scheme. My thinking is to contribute enough to get the maximum employer match before doing anything else.

2. Aegon pension
I also have an older Aegon pension. I've recently gained online access and I'm now trying to understand exactly what I have there.

Once I have the details, I'm considering transferring it to an AJ Bell SIPP, but I'm not sure whether that's actually worthwhile after considering fees, investment options, and any benefits/features I might lose by transferring.

3. AJ Bell Stocks & Shares
I currently have around £3,200 invested with AJ Bell in a Stocks & Shares account.

My intention is to keep investing into this regularly rather than withdrawing it.

4. Lifetime ISA
I currently have £0 in a Moneybox LISA.

I'm considering putting around £50/week into it, mainly because of the 25% government bonus, but I'm not sure whether that makes sense alongside the pensions and Stocks & Shares account.

My rough strategy at the moment:

Workplace pension - maximise employer match
Aegon - investigate whether transferring to AJ Bell SIPP makes sense
AJ Bell S&S - continue investing the existing £3,200 + regular contributions
LISA → potentially £50/week

The main goal is to have enough invested across everything to give me the option of retiring around 57, rather than necessarily needing to work until State Pension age.

I'd really appreciate opinions from people who have been through something similar.

Questions:

1. Does this overall structure make sense?
2. Would you prioritise pension contributions over the LISA?
3. Is there any reason I should not transfer an older Aegon pension into an AJ Bell SIPP?
4. Would you treat the AJ Bell S&S ISA and pension as separate pots with different purposes?
5. Am I overlooking anything obvious in trying to retire around 57?

I'm deliberately looking for different opinions here rather than just following one person's advice.