Originally Posted by
Mick P
It's alway been like that, even a civil servant on a fully indexed pension plus state pension will not be that well off, he won't go hungry but neither will he thrive.
The simple answer is to start young, anyone who ignored their pension until they were 40 and then panicked will rarely have a good pension.
You must contribute as much as your company pension will allow, but you also have to pile more into a private pension especially from your early twenties, this is the money that's going to multiply in the years ahead. Also don't decry BTL, even with minimal tax relief etc, BTL means someone else is buying a house for you, so when you retire you will have a nice juicy asset which you can rent out or sell off depending on your circumstances and prevailing tax conditions.
Drip feed every month without fail into a tracker or similar and just let it grow. You will get the ups and downs which although worrying at the time, are nothing in the long term.
Finally when you do finally retire, do what a few of us here have done, buy a second home in Spain or France or similar. If you buy and live rent or mortgage free in a house out there, you are living in a land with
a cheaper cost of living, better food and much better weather and lifestyle. Spending 365 days in the UK when retired is a nightmare at worse and dull existence at best. You need the variety of different food, different cultures, different weather and seasons plus the overall difference of lifestyle which only flitting around will give.
All it needs is a bit of planning and then JFDI mentality.
The ball is firmly in your court.