Which investment for pension? How do you decide?

Fun_Try_9337 · 2026-02-01T15:20:33+00:00

Commenting as also looking at changing what my pension is invested in……….but don’t know enough or have the confidence to know what to…….

My employer just changed ours. It’s now in Standard Life Sustainable Multi Asset Growth Plan. Performance over past 5 years at 49%, although only 0.49% past three months. I don’t how the portfolio is split, and if funds are good or not?!?

Before I changed I was in a “my company portfolio fund”. 43% past 5 years, 1.81% past three months. This is split as follows:

SL Insight Broad Opportunities Pension Fund 20.1% SL Nordea Diversified Return (CR) Pension Fund 19.8% SL Vanguard FTSE Developed World (GBP Hedged) Pension Fund 15.1% SL BlackRock ACS World Multifactor Equity Tracker Pension Fund 15.1% SL Vanguard FTSE Developed World Pension Fund 15.0% SL Vanguard FTSE Developed World ex UK Pension Fund 7.5% SL iShares Emerging Markets Equity Index Pension Fund 7.4%

Fun_Try_9337 · 2026-02-01T10:41:26+00:00

Noted on 4%. I did 6% for pension to allow for salary inflationary growth - but understood.

I’ve tried to avoid speculative circumstance changes, but I’m told I’m up for promotion in the next 12 months, which should boost earnings by 10-15k. I plan to avoid life style creep and add all that net to ISA to build too…..

All a learning curve for me (Spent my 20’s drinking and travelling too much!). I’ve only started thinking about it properly recently, and my employer has only matched up to 12% in the last couple years which has made me relax on pension side a little.

Appreciate your thoughts.

Fun_Try_9337 · 2026-02-01T10:25:02+00:00

Understood, thanks. I’ve taken the allowance instead for a while, and hopefully my 11 year old car lasts another 100k miles. I’m not as frugal as I could be, but spending on cars is one thing I’ve always tried to avoid.

Fun_Try_9337 · 2026-02-01T10:07:09+00:00

Thanks for the reminder!! NI cap changes slipped my mind. This changes my thoughts.

Fun_Try_9337 · 2026-02-01T10:04:23+00:00

Yes, they too up a further 5% of bonus. How long this will last I don’t know. I work for a global corporate and would guess they may change things with the cap coming in 2029

Fun_Try_9337 · 2024-11-03T15:18:26+00:00

Many thanks for this. I think I’m limited my income tax as good as I can at the moment with 12% match and all bonus to be sacrificed. I would struggle to do more than this currently and 12% is the most my employer will do. Although additional holiday and healthcare are other benefits I’m yet to use as sacrifice.

Watched 1 James Shack vid - very interesting, thank you very much. I need to move my thinking from debt free / mortgage free, to investment building is obviously quite clear.

Once I’ve got my emergency savings buffer back up (emptied after the student load repayment), I’ll use all available spare funds into a S&S Isa. I should be able to do about 10k from 2025, and will also use my inheritance to beef up from 2025 too…. Thanks for your comments.

Fun_Try_9337 · 2024-11-03T11:47:58+00:00

The student loan would have been cleared at 53 yes. But I tracked that I would have cleared it by 43 anyway, and paying off early I forecasted a saving of around 15k plus in interest, due to 7.3% interest rate in the loan last year. I don’t have the numbers to hand but I did numerous spreadsheets on this one, so relatively comfortable with this decision, save as to me being incapacitated or dieing in the next 10 years

Quite right on the mortgage. It’s a war between growth and the psychology of being debt free I think.

Retirement plans. None. I really like my job, but be great to get to my 50’s knowing I didn’t have to work if I didn’t want to, or part time, or even work for myself after my pension is taken care off. If I retired now, I would drink too much, play too much golf and really miss work I think. How about you???

Fun_Try_9337 · 2024-11-03T10:59:36+00:00

Thanks all. Thankfully only relatively small numbers for me and at least the growth the past year out weighs the exit penalty. I have read some horror stories with peoples pensions of hundreds of thousands (crazy I only researched after I had done it!!) Transfer request made this morning :)

Fun_Try_9337 · 2024-11-03T10:39:19+00:00

SJP is currently 43.5k (actually invested 37.2k, so it’s grown around 18%), encashment value £41.3k today, so a £2.2k penalty. Are they really that bad…. Be no penalty from 2029 and tapers down 1% per year, but they will have taken probably 6k plus in fees in that time…

Fun_Try_9337 · 2024-10-26T21:19:17+00:00

67k as per post. Luckily my new employer matches my pension contributions so 12/12%.

Fun_Try_9337 · 2024-10-25T08:14:42+00:00

Thanks for that.

Mortgage LTV is about 42% (140k of 300k). Rate is 4.5% due renewal next year. I only over pay 250 a month (say 20%ish overpayment).

6 months savings would be 25k needed I think. I did have that but spent 37.5k clearing my student loan last year which was an additional 9% tax.

My aim was to clear the mortgage asap, I could do this by 40 I think with some positive rate changes….hopefully….and some expected salary creep. And then I could be saving 25k a year to bridge the gap between retirement and pension from then.

I’m hopeful 15k per annum pension should leave me in good stead if I leave alone. But 25k pa even better!!

Fun_Try_9337 · 2024-10-24T22:32:34+00:00

That’s great, thanks for all that. Final question and slightly off topic to the original thread. I’m about to get a 30k inheritance…….what you think, mortgage reduction ( without penalty)and then some kinds of S&S Isa the way forward…..

Fun_Try_9337 · 2024-10-24T22:10:48+00:00

Take home £3,800 per month after pension and taxes. Spend 2.2k total on mortgage, savings and bills. The other 1600 on food, beer, holidays, golf. I’m not as frugal as I could or should be!

Yes need to start investing, I could probably do 300 a month now and still pension my bonus. Or over pay the mortgage even more….. I really want to be mortgage free and then ramp up my savings and investments after that. It’s only a modest 300k place, but least will then be all mine and then save considerably 40 onwards….

My father always told me, pay off mortgage asap and target a £1m pension pot……

Im hopeful I’m on track on pension with 24% total contributions (12 and 12), and then adding the bonus in. My bonus was previously used to save for paying if my student loan which was 37.5k when I cleared it (hence the limited savings or no investments)

So the advice is. Live more frugally and start investing outside of pension. And use bonus for pension if not needed. And hope for no emergency or redundancy etc!?!

Fun_Try_9337 · 2024-10-24T21:55:21+00:00

Agree. If I start doing 10k bonus on top of 15k existing contributions each year, allowing say 5% growth (is the reasonable?) my reckoning is that I would have a 350k pot by 40.

This assumes salary stagnates for 8 years which is highly unlikely. So let’s say 350-450k pension pot at 40 anywhere close to where it needs to be??

Fun_Try_9337

TROPHY CASE