Page 1 of Pensions

Hi Guys,

Just wondering if any of you guys know anything much about pensions...I`ve just started a new job and have magaed to wangle a few extra hours per week, which means the hubby and I can afford to pay into the company pension scheme.

It`s a stake holder pension and you can contribute 4, 5 or 6% of your wages and the company matches your contributions all the time your with them.  There`s also a death benefit which pays out to your next of kin should you decide to drop dead while still working for the company.

We can only afford to go for the 4% option coz we`re on quite low wages, and I`m wondering if its worth it, and if anyone knows what, if any, risks there are with a stake holder pension.  I have a pension I paid into a few years ago which stopped when I left that company, which I can apparently transfer into this one.

Any thoughts, comments or suggestions.

Thanks x

Speaking as someone who doesn`t have a pension (!), I`m always hearing that, if you`ve got the chance to pay in to one, you really should. It`s kind of like free money with the company matching your contributions and the tax relief you get on the savings. Something is better than nothing.

There are (I believe) no real risks with pensions nowadays i.e. you won`t lose your money if the company goes under or the pension company goes under.

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There`s also a death benefit which pays out to your next of kin should you decide to drop dead while still working for the company.


Is that only if you die in the companies time

Anyway, one of the biggest problems in the UK is that you are better having a fantastic pension or next to no pension.

The person with a fantastic pension can afford to do everything and pay all bills and live a reasonable life.

The person with no pension can have most bills like council tax paid for him, and recieve benifits, and live the sort of low cost life they were used to anyway.

The inbetween person, the one who worlked and slaved to get some sort decent of pension, will find that all of the pension (after taxation) is eaten up by council tax, and other such bills, with no chance of any benifits, so willl struggle to survive and make ends meet.

Gives you something to look forward to, dos`nt it

Lol, awesome...thanks for your help guys!

Think I`ll probably go for it, only young so it should be a reasonable amount by the time I`m allowd to retire lol.


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Is that only if you die in the companies time Reckon so, our health and safety and the security induction was enough to put anyone off ;)

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Is that only if you die in the companies time Also includes travel to and from work. At least it did at my old job, they told us that was the reason we had signed whether we wanted to join pension scheme before first day, so if you did die on journey to work for day 1 that way your nominated person would get some cash!

Can`t believe the pension scheme covers only for incidents in work (or travel to/from).
On death, I get (well, the wife would) a lump sum of 3 times my salary plus all my pension contributions over the past 20+ years back.  Worth much more dead.. :(

Ste

Death in Service benefits `should` pay out whether you are at work or not, it is while you are in the employ of the company. Even if you were on holiday it would still pay out.

You certainly can lose money with a pension though, a stakeholder plan is just investing your money in stocks and shares. If the market crashes the day before you retire, your fund will reduce drastically. People retiring now will probably have less in their funds than they would have 3 or 4 years ago.

Final salary schemes were great, you got a percentage of your final salary, up to 2/3rds if you had enough years service. Trouble is the funds didn`t have enough cash in them to pay out to pensioners so they are now virtually non existent.



RIP Julie & Maisie

do NOT transfer past pensions into this stakeholder one if the previous ones are final salary.DONT listen to the story its better to have then all in one place thats just a sales pitch.frozen final salary pensions still grow even when you are not contributing to them and are protected by the company that run them

Fairly certain the old one was a stakeholder pension too.  Definitely wasn`t a final salary one :(


How do I go about tracking down my old pension, I`ve been looking but can`t find any of the paperwork for it?

try here
www.direct.gov.uk/pensions   hope this helps

This item was edited on Monday, 19th September 2011, 17:44