r/PensionsUK

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 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

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.

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!

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?

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.

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’m 43, have £27k in my Nest pension, 1 year of nhs pension contributions at approx £60k salary. My pension plus stocks USA and other bits totals about £60k. I own my £300k house but still have £180k on the mortgage. Have two kids, single (co parenting) mum. I’m under no illusions that this isn’t a great position. I left my husband who earned three times me and my 9 year mortgage and big house a few years ago but I’m happy. I save about £250 pcm but much of it gets eaten up by life (car servicing, house repairs, minor holidays with kids etc). I do intend to earn more but the market is hard right now and my kids are young. I will earn more in the future though. I have no proposed retirement date. I’d just like to go part time when I’m older. How’s it looking, what could I do to swing things in my favour?

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.

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!

I’m thinking of retiring next year at 57 with according to my benefit statement around £19k per year. Is it generally better to leave the pension without claiming it for 3 years until I reach NPA at 60 and so avoid the 5% pa reduction (is that even correct?) but then miss out on 3 years of pension?
I realise there are all kinds of variables about how long I might live and the effect of the career average scheme etc, but is it generally better to wait if possible?

Alternatively, can anyone tell me how to get the TPS to give me an accurate estimate? The online calculator seems to suggest my pension wouldn’t be reduced by taking it early, which doesn’t seem right.