How To Never Run Out Of Money

The benefits of early pension planning

HOW TO NEVER RUN OUT OF MONEY

 

NOT saving for a pension ain’t a very glamorous

prospect. So start saving young.

 

“I’d rather spend my money having fun now than on baked beans and cats when I’m an old hag.” This was a genuine thing my 25-yearold housemate recently said. She was explaining why she, like many others her age, can’t be bothered with saving for a pension. If you’re in your 20s you’ve probably thought similar kinds of things, and I have too, but a look at the reality of what life will be like if you do run out of money when you’re old might just change your mind, especially compared with how much better the future could be if you take action to change it now. Saving into a pension doesn’t sound very glamorous. But not saving into one is a far less glamorous prospect that bodes pretty well for a ‘baked beans and cats’ kind of existence, but not much else. Currently, retired people who have run out of money (because they haven’t got any of their own pension savings) have to rely on the Pension which is around Rs 10,000 to Rs 30,000 in best case scenario depending on your job in India or State Pension of around £5,720 a year (£110 a week) in USA or depend on their relatives and kids. And because they no longer work, they will have to survive on this for the rest of their lives. And by the time we’re older, this small cushion of money the government gives us could have worn dangerously thin. This is because over time, the government is planning to reduce the amount it spends on income for retired people – and some sceptics believe by the time we’re old, the State Pension may even have been scrapped altogether. And that is scary. Especially since a large number of us are expected to reach the ages of 90 or 100.

 

What is a pension?

The point of a pension is to provide yourself with regular income to live on when you are retired. Most of us can expect to be retired for over 20 years of our lives. The idea is you build your future retirement income by saving into a pension scheme over the course of your working life. The money you stash away is invested in the stock market so it has a good chance of growing significantly in value over the long term, so by the time you need it, those little bits of money you stashed away over

the years will have become a big lump sum.

 

 

A 25-year-old starting on a Rs 20,000 annual income, receiving salary increases in line with inflation and a 10 per cent contribution  (employer and employee) would build up a pension pot of £160,500 by the time they hit 65. Based on today’s prices this would buy them a level income of £9,300 or an inflation-linked income of £5,600 a year. If they delayed starting a pension by 10 years, their pension pot would be £77,300, which would generate a level income of £4,500 a year or an inflation linked income of £2,700. All assuming 6 per cent net growth after charges and 2.5 per cent inflation.

 

Starts pension at 25 years old builds £160,000 at age 65

Starts pension at 35 years old (delayed 10 years) builds £77,300 at age 65

 

But don’t panic because you are in the best possible stage of your life to make sure you don’t run out of money when you’re old. Let’s look at how much difference you could make if you start saving into a pension aged 25. Let’s imagine a 25-year-old starting on a £20,000 a year salary. They will receive salary increases in line with inflation throughout their working life and will contribute 10 percent of their salary (their employee will pay half of this so they only actually put away 5 per cent) towards their pension. So you can see that by starting young, you can make yourself much better off when you’re older. And the longer you put it off, the more you’ll have to save later on, to get a decent level of income in retirement.

 

Why are pens ions the best way to ensure you never run out of money?

 

You get free money

There are a number of perks you get by saving into a pension you don’t get with other kinds of saving. The long and short of it is you are given free money. This is because stashing chunks of your salary away for long periods feels counter-intuitive, so to tempt you to do it,

both the government and your employer reward you with incentives. When you choose to pay into a workplace pension you decide a percentage of your salary you want to save and your employer deducts it from your wages so you don’t have to pay tax on it. And on top of this, they will usually top up this amount – good schemes will match or double your contribution. And workplace pensions operating under the new auto-enrolment rules also mean the government pops an extra 1 per cent of your salary into your pension.

 

It’s under lock and key

Locking money away for 30 years might feel weird, but if you were allowed to spend your pension money before you retire it could be dangerous. If you frittered it away over the years you’d have nothing left for when you were older so you’d be back to the State Pension

(and the cats and the baked beans).

 

Your money has exciting growth potential

Pension money is invested for the long-term, which means it has the potential to grow much faster than cash in the bank. And the longer you invest the bigger it can get – which is why starting young helps you build a big pension pot.

 

Pensions stop you getting taxed

Pensions are the most tax-efficient savings vehicle in existence and there is no better way to protect your hard-earned money from the taxman.

 

How can you get a pension ?

Aside from the State Pension, the only way you can get retirement income is by saving up a pot of money throughout your working life. The easiest way to get access to a pension you can save into is through your employer. These are called workplace pensions.

 

Workplace pensions

By being a member of a workplace pension you are agreeing to have a percentage of your monthly salary deducted from your wages and transferred into your pension pot. This makes things really easy as you don’t have to do anything apart from decide how much you want to put in. Your employer will also decide how your pension money gets invested, although if you work in the private sector, you can choose how your money is invested if you want to have a say. If not, you can relax because you don’t have to get involved in this.

 

Top tip

If you want your pension to grow to its maximum potential you need to be invested in high-risk funds. However, around 90 per cent of

workplace pension savers have their money automatically placed in a ‘default fund’, which tend to be cautiously invested and often have

poor returns that could cut your pension pot in half. If you’re in your 20s you have a long time horizon for investing, and can afford to

be invested in something more risky that can give you higher returns (which means more money in the long run), so contact your HR

department and have a look at the other investment options available to you.

 

“Young Money rapper Lil Wayne plans to retire aged 30, but does he know the tax benefits of a pension?”

INUTSHELL

Not having pension savings means you could run out of money.

Consider all the options so you can maximise your returns’

Both the government and your employer reward you with top-ups.

 

New government rules mean that by April 2017, all UK businesses will be offering their employees a workplace pension that you will automatically be opted into if you’re aged 22 and above. If you’re working for a medium or large company they probably already have

a pension plan available for you, which you can find out about by asking your HR department, or whoever deals with the financial side of things, although you may have already been automatically enrolled. (You’ll know about this if you have.) If you work for a small start-up company there might not be a pension scheme available to you yet, but you could always ask about how long it will be before you will be enrolled into one.

 

 

Do you wo rk in the public secto r?

If so, the pension scheme offered by your employer is one of the best in the country. We call them ‘defined benefit’ schemes because unlike other pensions where you have to hope your investments do well, your pension guarantees you a fixed amount at the end (depending on how long you have worked and how much you have earned). Not only are they the country’s most generous pensions, but they also mean you don’t have to worry about your investments going down the drain. The general consensus on public sector pensions is you’d be mad not to sign up and you should do so as fast as humanly possible.

 

 

What if I can’t get a workplace pension or I don ’t like the look of it?

If your employer isn’t currently offering you access to a pension, you’re self-employed, or you want another pension on top of your workplace pension, you can set up a self-invested personal pension (Sipp). A Sipp is just another type of pension that isn’t connected to a workplace. Once you’ve done this (it will cost no more than a few hundred pounds) you choose a set of assets to invest your money in over the long term. You can hold all sorts of investments in a Sipp – but the easiest and best investments to buy are funds. See ‘How to get rich by the time you’re 50’ to learn about investing in funds for the long term. For every 80p you invest in your Sipp, £1 goes into your pot (and you get more if you’re a higher-rate taxpayer earning over £41,451 and when you finally retire, 25 per cent of that pot can be taken tax-free. Unlike workplace pensions you don’t get an employer contribution, or a 1 per cent bonus from the government, but you will get a much wider range of investments to choose from that could potentially lead to a bigger pension pot through higher investment returns. If you already have a workplace pension but want access to some more exciting funds – this could be a good reason to get a Sipp.

 

Here are the names of some reputable providers of basic level Sipps:

1. Sippdeal

2. Hargreaves Lansdown

3. Alliance Trust

4. TD Waterhouse

5. Bestinvest

 

 

How much do you need to save so you never run out of mon ey?

Pensions experts say you should be saving at least 10 per cent of your salary into a pension. This sounds like a lot, but if you’re saving into a workplace scheme – a portion of this will come from your employer (in addition to your salary) and if you’ve been auto-enrolled

1 per cent will come from the government – meaning less has to come out of your own pocket. However, you may think this sounds like a lot – and you might find starting with a smaller amount – say 2.5 per cent of your take home pay easier to start with. This might only be around £50 a month, but it will build up over the years into a good chunk of money for the future. And when you get pay rises you could ramp up the pension saving, say, 1 per cent, so you won’t even notice the difference as you weren’t used to having the money in the first place. Employers normally place a minimum and maximum limit on how much you are allowed to save into your workplace pension. It’s typical for them to draw these lines at around 2.5 per cent to 15 per cent of your salary.

 

 

Are you worried about locking your money away until you’re old?

Locking your money away is a scary prospect for a number of reasons. A common worry among skeptical twenty somethings is what if the economy crashes and we all lose everything we’ve saved so hard for? Technically, this is possible. But given that stock markets have historically risen most of the time, it is extremely unlikely. (There has never been a 30- year period in the history of the US stock market in which investors would have lost money if they had reinvested their profits). For your pension money to be wiped to zero, virtually every company it was invested in would have to go bust – and if this happens, it would spell a financial apocalypse. But this really isn’t a serious reason not to save for the future. And if the company that provides your pension either goes bust or gets in serious trouble so it can’t repay what it owes you, you won’t lose everything. This is because the Financial Services Compensation Scheme will compensate the first £50,000 you lose in a company if it goes bust.

 

If you want your pension to grow to its maximum potential you need to be invested in high-risk funds