Our wedding is over, we are back from our honeymoon and now it is time to really start thinking about our future. We’ve started our house deposit savings, our emergency fund is almost to target but we still need to look at our pensions.
At 27, I don’t have a pension. Tony is lucky enough to have a work pension, but I know that we need to make alternative arrangements. I will be the first to admit that I find pensions confusing, especially comparing them against normal savings accounts. Nutmeg offer a simple to use pension program.
Pension Key Points
- You will need to deposit a minimum of £5,000 to start with.
- You can start saving for your pension with Nutmeg when you are over 18 years old. The upper age limit is 75 years old.
- You must be a UK resident.
- You can only start drawing and income from your pension once you are 55 year old or older.
- You can get a 25% top up on all net personal monthly pension contributions, although this is subject to your tax status.
Pension vs savings
Unlike savings, the biggest reason for choosing a pension is the tax relief on contributions you make. For basic rate taxpayers this means you save 20p in tax for every £1 you pay into your pension, increasing to 40p per £1 for higher rate taxpayers. You can also get 25% top-up on all your net personal monthly pension contributions (subject to your tax status).
You must be 55 years old or over to draw from your pension, whereas savings can be accessed at any time.
Why Nutmeg
When choosing where to start your pension, Nutmeg is a great choice.
- Nutmeg will expertly manage your pension investments for a simple management fee (between 0.3 – 1% per year).
- 24/7 access to your pension investments to see how well they are performing,
- Fantastic customer care.
- Regular rebalancing of your investments.
Have you started your pension savings?
Blodwyninexile says
You are never too young to start a pension. Also take care that you take all the advice you need. Shop around and remember if an investment sounds too good to be true then it possibly is. It is good that you are looking at options.
We were lucky to have workplace pensions, not wonderful but regular income now in our dotage! Also just a point – not a criticism but just my twopennyworth. You say you have started saving for a house and then say that you have chosen a holiday? It came the other way around in our case. House deposit saved then holidays with any surplus later on.
Emma says
Hi Blodwyninexile,
Thanks for commenting. A pension is definitely something that we need to get sorted this year – I’m setting that as a goal to get mine started before Christmas.
As for the house deposit vs holiday savings, this is actually for my second house – I bought my first one at 18. As I’m sure you’ve seen in my July challenge, I’m on target to make an extra £2,000 this month on top of my regular wage. I work really hard to afford these holidays, especially before we have bigger responsibilities like a family.
Emma
Blodwyninexile says
Ah I did not realise that. Well done you! We also enjoy our holidays and travel now that we are retired.
Hayley @ Disease Called Debt says
Funnily enough, I have a meeting with a financial advisor tonight about pensions. My husband and I are in our 30s and we don’t have a pension, but we do have a rental property that could bring us an income in retirement. We know we need to do more but we really did have to clear our debts first because they were eating so much of our income every month. To be honest, pensions baffle me too!