Stop Putting it Off – #EmpowerYourFuture

There never seems to be a ‘right time’ to start thinking about your retirement does there?

In my teens, when I first started working part time, I absolutely loved having my own disposable income; some financial freedom from my parents where I no longer had to ask their permission to buy stuff. I could save, spend (and spend some more) as and when I wished. I was probably the wealthiest I’ve ever been!

When I got handed a pensions application form on my first day at my new job working as a Sales Assistant for a high street fashion retailer, I popped it to one side amongst the copies of my contract ready to be filed away. Retirement? Ha! – I was 18! Plenty of time for that.

In my twenties, my priorities shifted somewhat. I took out a student loan despite living at home with my parents, and felt quite proud of myself when I saved the entire amount to use as a deposit for my own flat.

My first ‘real’ jobs came along and again the pension forms arrived. This time, as a result of my Mum nagging me to complete them (wise woman!), I signed up and opted for the bare minimum, with a small amount of my take home salary being added to a pension pot.

In my early thirties, our daughters came along. Already paying for my share of the mortgage and household bills, my priorities turned towards funding nappies and paying for childcare, and despite knowing that I probably should be saving more towards my future, the immediate expenses of a family of four always understandably seemed to take a priority. As I have moved jobs and changed roles over the years, the pension forms have been completed when I signed my contract, never really to be looked at again.

Pensions and Me

Whilst I do have a pension, I pay in the bare minimum each month, and could definitely do a lot more to prepare for my retirement; which now at the age of 35, no longer feels an eternity away.

If you’d have asked me 6 months ago how much I had in my pension(s), of which I now have a few – my answer would have been extremely vague (it’s safe to say I didn’t have a clue).

I didn’t know where the paperwork was, I didn’t know how to check them and I had absolutely no idea how much money I could expect to receive when I reached retirement age. I am sure many of you will be the same – I am definitely not the only one who has put pensions on the back burner.

In a weird way, preparing for your retirement should be seen as a form of self care, sewing a little now to harvest in the future, but like many self care elements as a modern female, we seem to spend so long looking after other people that our own care comes at the bottom of the list.

Women and Pensions

It appears I am not alone. Recent research from Scottish Widows Women & Retirement report suggests that many women aren’t planning their pensions early enough, with a THIRD of women not saving adequately (compared to 46% of men their age). Given that statistically women live longer and generally earn less, this is more than a little worrying!

Their report found that on average, men hold nearly twice the amount of savings than women do (Men – 66,604 and Women 33,779).

Whilst auto enrolment has helped (with employers automatically taking pension deductions from salaries for those aged 22 and above who are earning over £10,000 per year), the amounts are very small at just 5% of salary, so despite this, just 33% of 22-29 year olds are saving adequately compared to 46% of men.

Most concerning, 25% of women aged 22-29 aren’t saving for retirement at all, potentially choosing to opt out of their pension arrangements all together.

Scottish Widows are pushing to help improve this, identifying the issues that women are facing and trying to remove potential barriers that may be preventing women from saving adequately.

They are calling for women to #empoweryourfuture, taking a few moments out of your day to learn more about their current financial situation, and take some improvement steps to better prepare ourselves for retirement. Whilst for some, the mere mention of the word pensions is enough to bring you out in a cold sweat, it’s actually far less complicated than it sounds…

Pension Wellbeing Hub

Last month I headed down to the Scottish Widows Pensions Awareness Day tour, and spoke to the team of experts at Scottish Widows to try and understand more about the issues affecting women and pensions, as well as posing some of your questions you asked me over on Facebook about planning for retirement.

Thanks to the Scottish Widows Pensions Wellbeing Hub, you can now demystify many of your pension queries all in one easy to access place.

Over at the Pension Wellbeing Hub you will find:

• The Pension Wellbeing Guide – helping you discover how much you’ve already paid, whether your savings are on track, and learn what you might want to do next. The majority of questions you asked me on Facebook were about how maternity leave, working part time and having time out looking after children could affect your pensions – you can find all the answers to these here.
• The Scottish Widows handy pension calculator tools are also great to help you figure out exactly what difference you could make to your pension. With the Pay More Calculator, you can do a quick calculation to figure out just how much more you could find in your pension pot at retirement by increasing your monthly allocation, even by a % or two – a small increase now really can make a big difference to the money you receive at retirement.
• For those who aren’t really sure where to start, you can also take a Pension Personality Quiz – a quick questionnaire which analyses your current approach to saving for retirement, in order to provide some quick hints and tips on what you can do to improve. When I took this quiz down in London with Katykicker (a money blogger no less), she understandably got ‘Savvy Saver’ – she had clearly taken time to research her options fully and as a self-employed individual, she was actively taking the steps she needed to in order to plan for her retirement.
  I, on the other hand, got ‘Creature of Habit’ – as a matter of routine I have been paying in the bare minimum throughout my employment, without taking time to fully understand what that means for my future. When I realised that on my current projections I wouldn’t be able to retire comfortably till the age of 90(!!!), their guidance to consider increasing my contributions suddenly seemed like quite a good idea!
• The missing pieces – Like me, you can also learn how to track down your old pensions (I’ve moved jobs and moved house, and paperwork isn’t my strong point), identify whether to combine them into one pension pot, and how you might wish to review your pension as you get closer to retirement age.

I am feeling a lot more in control of my pension now, and know what I need to do to get it to the level I’d like it to be in order to live comfortably in my later years.

So let’s stop saying “I’ll think about it later”, because before we know it, the 6 year old we are in our heads becomes a 60 year old, and I for one don’t want to be worrying about whether I will be able to afford my food shop by the end of each week.

Click here to read the full Scottish Widows Women & Retirement report and visit the Scottish Widows Pension Wellbeing Hub to learn more.

*This is a sponsored post in conjunction with Scottish Widows and Mumsnet Influencers.