Pension Pot

[maccieblue]

Trying to cash one of my pensions in .
A lump sum of £6500 , that's all ...
Christ it's bloody difficult, so many forms backwards and forwards, compulsory tick box questions I have no idea of their meaning .. .
Oh yeah, two phone calls as well!!!
Got a great chance of buying a Turbosound Lightning rig so I can blast the nearest neighbours with some quality House tunes :)..
So obviously want it done soon, not looking like it tho ..

The Mrs found an old pension that has a total of £190 in but she can't cash out until she can get proof of professional pension advice

 

[hampshireblue]

The Mrs found an old pension that has a total of £190 in but she can't cash out until she can get proof of professional pension advice

I thought anything under £30k didn't require advice: EDIT:

When Advice Is Required

• If your pension has safeguarded benefits (like a guaranteed annuity rate) and the pot is worth over £30,000, you must get regulated financial advice before accessing it.
• This is to ensure you understand what you might be giving up—some of these benefits can be extremely valuable.

When Advice Is Highly Recommended


Even if it’s not legally required, advice can help you:

• Minimise tax: Only 25% of your pot is tax-free. The rest is taxed as income, which could push you into a higher tax bracket.
• Avoid scams: Pension scams are sadly common. A regulated adviser can help you steer clear.
• Choose the best option: You could take a lump sum, buy an annuity, use income drawdown, or mix these. Each has pros and cons depending on your goals.
• Protect your benefits: Taking money from your pension could affect means-tested benefits like Pension Credit or Housing Benefit.

️ Free Guidance Services

• Pension Wise (via MoneyHelper) offers free, impartial guidance if you're over 50 and have a defined contribution pension.
• You can also speak to Citizens Advice or use a benefits calculator like Turn2us to check how withdrawals might affect your entitlements.

Would you like help finding a regulated adviser or exploring which option suits your situation best?

 

[maccieblue]

I thought anything under £30k didn't require advice: EDIT:

When Advice Is Required

• If your pension has safeguarded benefits (like a guaranteed annuity rate) and the pot is worth over £30,000, you must get regulated financial advice before accessing it.
• This is to ensure you understand what you might be giving up—some of these benefits can be extremely valuable.

When Advice Is Highly Recommended


Even if it’s not legally required, advice can help you:

• Minimise tax: Only 25% of your pot is tax-free. The rest is taxed as income, which could push you into a higher tax bracket.
• Avoid scams: Pension scams are sadly common. A regulated adviser can help you steer clear.
• Choose the best option: You could take a lump sum, buy an annuity, use income drawdown, or mix these. Each has pros and cons depending on your goals.
• Protect your benefits: Taking money from your pension could affect means-tested benefits like Pension Credit or Housing Benefit.

️ Free Guidance Services

• Pension Wise (via MoneyHelper) offers free, impartial guidance if you're over 50 and have a defined contribution pension.
• You can also speak to Citizens Advice or use a benefits calculator like Turn2us to check how withdrawals might affect your entitlements.

Would you like help finding a regulated adviser or exploring which option suits your situation best

Thank you
Not sure she's still got the paperwork due to a hiss fit but if we do find it we will donate the money to charity

 

[GH64]

Not 80 but there’s been many reports in the media about 74 yrs of age. It’s all hearsay at the moment but worrying for the young ones ….
It comes as a recent report by the Institute for Fiscal studies (IFS) warned that without reform of the pension triple lock, state retirement age could rise to 69 by 2049 and to 74 by 2069.1 day

It’s daft though because years and years of projected triple lock has to make the state pension massive.

If you have high inflation one year, then wages catch up the next - double bubble

If everything’s flat, you get 2.5%

You could keep it but do based on rolling averages, or say it goes once you reach a certain % of average earnings, but hard to get done when the country is run by f***wits (and that’s all of them)

The other thing is you need 35 years to get full pension. There’s a big gap between age where you are fully vested and age you can draw, and that’s now with pension at 67. I’m years off the pension, have paid all my years required so can’t increase it, and even missed a few years working in the States

So it would be easy to say give credit for full time education past 16, and put up years required to 50, which would sort out issues with “late arrivals”, lazy bastards, people with enough money w/o full state pension who choose to retire early (me) etc. Could give credit to mums at home (used to be fine before the child benefit cap)

67+ is bollox for those in physical jobs

 

[Gareth Barry Conlon]

Anyone able to advise how well I'm doing in terms of my pension currently?

39 years old.

Got a teacher pension thay currently shows as £7665 pa OR £4927pa with a one off £32851.
No longer paying into this

Then got 2 other workplace pensions thay have a current combined total pot of £41500.

Recently increased my pension contributions to be adding in £8115 pa to the pot between mine and employer contributions.

That's a decent start. In 10 years time it will look a lot better. In 20 years you will be rolling in cash.

My pension looked miserable for a long time so I just ignored it. But I can see now it's been growing steadily and as my wages have gone up and the pot/returns have gone up the growth really starts to accelerate.

 

[city2]

Your all gonna get fucked over by your pension take it from a foc

 

[NPBlue]

Your all gonna get fucked over by your pension take it from a foc

Why do you say that?

 

[Kompany Car]

67+ is bollox for those in physical jobs

Its bollox for any jobs, unless its low paid simple office work (most of which is either being offshored to India, Indonesia etc or will be replaced by AI). By the time you are in your 60, no matter how bright you are, you're not as mentally sharp as people in their 30s.

The only options are to get into senior management or have a very niche speciality but thats no different to the ex chippie who ends up as a site foreman/manager or starts doing high end restoration work. Its only a small subset of people who can do that, or have the opportunity.

 

[hampshireblue]

My ex-employer went through a phase of "incentivising" people to leave the very good, but in deficit, DB scheme. the government could do something similar. On average we will draw on the state pension for 15 years so £187500 at today's rate. I'm not there yet but when I get to 67, my personal pension is more than enough to live on. I would be prepared to accept a similar "buy out" and would effectively be off the books as far as the government is concerned. Let's say the buy out was £80K. The government is £100K+ up on the deal. It doesn't even need to be a cash buy out. It could be in the form of £80K of additional tax relief to allow more drawdown and me actually putting money back into the economy rather than it being inactive within a SIPP.

All quite radical and probably full of holes but unfortunately much as the triple lock is a good idea, it is unsustainable.

 

[Blue Maverick]

My ex-employer went through a phase of "incentivising" people to leave the very good, but in deficit, DB scheme. the government could do something similar. On average we will draw on the state pension for 15 years so £187500 at today's rate. I'm not there yet but when I get to 67, my personal pension is more than enough to live on. I would be prepared to accept a similar "buy out" and would effectively be off the books as far as the government is concerned. Let's say the buy out was £80K. The government is £100K+ up on the deal. It doesn't even need to be a cash buy out. It could be in the form of £80K of additional tax relief to allow more drawdown and me actually putting money back into the economy rather than it being inactive within a SIPP.

All quite radical and probably full of holes but unfortunately much as the triple lock is a good idea, it is unsustainable.

I’d take that, give me the £80k tax free at 67, could invest part if it and spend some of it, if I get past 75 my private would be more than enough to sustain me. If I end up needing a care home that money plus what the government have saved on my pension should help look after me until I pop my clogs.

 

[Blue Maverick]

Not 80 but there’s been many reports in the media about 74 yrs of age. It’s all hearsay at the moment but worrying for the young ones ….
It comes as a recent report by the Institute for Fiscal studies (IFS) warned that without reform of the pension triple lock, state retirement age could rise to 69 by 2049 and to 74 by 2069.1 day

They can only increase 1 year every 10 years, unless of course they change the law.

 

[Eaststander1]

I'm aiming for a total of around £350K in the next 8-10 years.

Currently got about £200K.

I never put too much in because you've always got to have one eye on the here and now and balance this against the chance that you might not make it!

Absolutely ....

When I worked for Royal Mail back in the 90s l had FIVE good work mates die, and not one was over 55 ..... none lived to see their pension.

 

[Kompany Car]

My ex-employer went through a phase of "incentivising" people to leave the very good, but in deficit, DB scheme. the government could do something similar. On average we will draw on the state pension for 15 years so £187500 at today's rate. I'm not there yet but when I get to 67, my personal pension is more than enough to live on. I would be prepared to accept a similar "buy out" and would effectively be off the books as far as the government is concerned. Let's say the buy out was £80K. The government is £100K+ up on the deal. It doesn't even need to be a cash buy out. It could be in the form of £80K of additional tax relief to allow more drawdown and me actually putting money back into the economy rather than it being inactive within a SIPP.

All quite radical and probably full of holes but unfortunately much as the triple lock is a good idea, it is unsustainable.

Well its certainly more creative thinking than what most of the recent governments have managed to do. The other option is to let people take a reduced pension earlier, this does bring the government spending forwards but potentially reduces the overall outlay over a longer period of time.

So maybe say for every year over the 35yrs of NI contributions through employment (not benefits) you can take a reduced state pension from a year earlier and put a minimum cap of say 5yrs before the state pension age at that moment in time.

Therefore if you have got NI contributions through paid employment for 40yrs you could take your reduced pension at 62yrs old.

The level of reduction would need to be calculated to make it cost positive for government finances, but thats not beyond the wit of man.

 

[dickie davies]

Assuming you have a significant percentage in US equity, what we've seen since Trump appeared was a combined fall in equities and the value of the US dollar against the GBP. We have then had a rise in the US equities, but still a worsening exchange rate (you were effectively getting more for your money if you were still contributing). The dollar has strengthened slightly over the last 2 weeks causing pension pots to improve (up around 2.5% but still nowhere near where it was before trump took office).

Both of these factors have been playing off against one another. If the USD gets back up to where it was and the Dow and Nasdaq hold steady, just on currency movement you will see an increase of over 9%.

I'm really hoping this comes to fruition as I'd say around 60% of my portfolio is invested in US equities
Checking my current values, including what I've contributed vs my February valuations (when Trump started to fuck everything) I'm just about even, despite the markets reaching record highs

 

[antspider]

I thought anything under £30k didn't require advice: EDIT:

When Advice Is Required

• If your pension has safeguarded benefits (like a guaranteed annuity rate) and the pot is worth over £30,000, you must get regulated financial advice before accessing it.
• This is to ensure you understand what you might be giving up—some of these benefits can be extremely valuable.

When Advice Is Highly Recommended


Even if it’s not legally required, advice can help you:

• Minimise tax: Only 25% of your pot is tax-free. The rest is taxed as income, which could push you into a higher tax bracket.
• Avoid scams: Pension scams are sadly common. A regulated adviser can help you steer clear.
• Choose the best option: You could take a lump sum, buy an annuity, use income drawdown, or mix these. Each has pros and cons depending on your goals.
• Protect your benefits: Taking money from your pension could affect means-tested benefits like Pension Credit or Housing Benefit.

️ Free Guidance Services

• Pension Wise (via MoneyHelper) offers free, impartial guidance if you're over 50 and have a defined contribution pension.
• You can also speak to Citizens Advice or use a benefits calculator like Turn2us to check how withdrawals might affect your entitlements.

Would you like help finding a regulated adviser or exploring which option suits your situation best?

Great advice thanks ..
One set of forms I sent off I’d ticked the “I didn’t seek advice” from an official source , they told me this isn’t an option if I want my £6000 .. I will contact pension wise as I’m fed up with forms going backwards and forwards

 

[Corky]

Absolutely ....

When I worked for Royal Mail back in the 90s l had FIVE good work mates die, and not one was over 55 ..... none lived to see their pension.

Hopefully someone would get their Death-in-Service Benefit.

 

[hampshireblue]

Great advice thanks ..
One set of forms I sent off I’d ticked the “I didn’t seek advice” from an official source , they told me this isn’t an option if I want my £6000 .. I will contact pension wise as I’m fed up with forms going backwards and forwards

Good luck with it. Many IFAs no longer give the advice anyway as the cost of indemnity insurance is so high.

 

[Kompany Car]

I'm really hoping this comes to fruition as I'd say around 60% of my portfolio is invested in US equities
Checking my current values, including what I've contributed vs my February valuations (when Trump started to fuck everything) I'm just about even, despite the markets reaching record highs

It uncertainty thats causing people to reassess their exposure to the US dollar and treasury bonds.

One interesting thing that did happen was that the dollar strengthened when it looked like Israel and Iran were going to war. This shows that despite recent falls its still seen as a safe haven.

Considering the shock to the system that Trumponomics has caused, the impact on the USD hasn't actually been that bad. JP Morgan of late are suggesting that dollar should strengthen during 2026.

 

[sky tot]

It’s daft though because years and years of projected triple lock has to make the state pension massive.

If you have high inflation one year, then wages catch up the next - double bubble

If everything’s flat, you get 2.5%

You could keep it but do based on rolling averages, or say it goes once you reach a certain % of average earnings, but hard to get done when the country is run by f***wits (and that’s all of them)

The other thing is you need 35 years to get full pension. There’s a big gap between age where you are fully vested and age you can draw, and that’s now with pension at 67. I’m years off the pension, have paid all my years required so can’t increase it, and even missed a few years working in the States

So it would be easy to say give credit for full time education past 16, and put up years required to 50, which would sort out issues with “late arrivals”, lazy bastards, people with enough money w/o full state pension who choose to retire early (me) etc. Could give credit to mums at home (used to be fine before the child benefit cap)

67+ is bollox for those in physical jobs

I’m a joiner , 60 yrs old and my body is really feeling the strain now .

 

[Eaststander1]

Hopefully someone would get their Death-in-Service Benefit.

Yeah, I think they did ...... not likely to be the full amount though, more a percentage of it.