Do you have a pension

You are never too young!! I am a Pensions Manager (and I am only 24) and wish that we could promote pensions (and savings to people) from a younger age. People think that putting £50 a month away from 30 years old will see them through retirement... These people are going to have a serious problem in retirement.

I voted No, and I'm not getting one. I'm on a decent enough wage now, trying to save a deposit for a house while renting and paying increasing bills etc. I'm single and living alone, it doesn't leave much left to contribute towards a pension. Further to the above I've read enough pension horror stories not to trust that the pension I'll have paid into for 40 years will still exist when I retire. I think a shoebox under the bed is my best option.

I voted no, and I'm not getting one. My parents have faithfully paid into pension schemes their whole lives and now that my Dad is 60, he has been told his pension is worth less than half what he has paid in for over 30 years - its a disgrace. I put money into ISA's each month which are tax free and will at least be in my control rather than trusting the government or another greedy institution with my hard earned cash!

I started my pension when I was 23 , so I can testify it was a smart move as it has now built into a sizeable amount & has been transferred into a SIPP so I can manage it myself , I also bought my property at the same age & its now fully paid ( I'm 35 now ) .. Could I do the same starting out in todays climate ? , I think the only way would be through working excessive hours & constantly being aware of how to cut costs & expenditure's , The initial pain is always worse at the begining , Paying off a mortage or saving into a pension or through other investment vehicles are all important & neglecting either is a serious danger , the best investment advice is LEARN more as the more you teach yourself - the better choices you'll be able to make , a very simple low cost method for most ppl to invest would be into an All Share Tracker , that way you get a broad spread of the market & into a variety of sectors , most of these low cost tracker funds outperform high cost fund managers over time , historically the All Share has given a return ( including dividends ) of 10.8 % per annum , which beats property or other investments consistently , always remember the effect INFLATION has on the value of your money

I'm with Dan & Katie on this one. I have never in my life seen the horrors and mismanagement of pensions as what happened in this country recently. The fact that companies can take a payment holiday and destroy a fund without any repercusions at all is appaling! Why this govt does not encourage investment in personal savings, pensions and private medical funds is a mystery to me. So many countries offer a tax break to individuals who pay into these funds, because in the long run it helps the govt by taking these people out of the NI pool, leaving that for those who really need it. I pay into an ISA, and besides being single and struggling to build a deposit to buy my own place, hope that the ISA system remains as i wil use that as my pension when I oneday can.

I started my pension at 19, and it's now worth a sensible amount, at the time my parents made me start my fund i was less than impressed now at 36 i'm so glad i did. However i do feel for those who do not pay into a pension. After divorcing a few years ago and i'm finding it ever more tempting to stop paying in to my fund to keep up with the general bills that keep increasing at a much higher rate than i could ever expect my employer to give me in a raise. The government see my income as too high for any help with child care etc but with these figures not being set based on location, means with me living in south east my salary does not go anywhere near as far as those who live in other areas of the country, so for how much longer i will be able to sustain my pension payments i'm not sure but i know i will keep trying to make sure I don't have to work until i drop.

For those who said they would'nt have a pension I pity you. Our parents saved money, our Grandparents too. What sort of a retirement will you have trying to live off the State? And as for the alarmist stories so popular with the media, who do you think will be better off for saving nothing? You or the media Barons you've been so easily led by? Get real, start saving

I started contributing a modest monthly amount into an employer matching pension this January. I am nearly 24, saddled with student debt, earning only slightly above the national average wage in a graduate job and see myself stuck living at home with my parents for a long time to come (probably until I'm pushing 30). The economic climate for young people like myself these days is appalling, prices are going through the roof, youngsters need to get loaded with student debt in order to give themselves even a chance on the job market and then it's still not guaranteed that they will find a job job (it took me a year to find a decent graduate job whilst scraping by temping). My parents has forced economic prudence upon me, but I can now see how easy it is to get into debt with prices and bills out outgrowing national salary growth. It's surely unsustainable, and paints a very bleak outlook for the future.

Surely this poll misses out one obvious option? - stakeholder/personal pensions. Very many people have (as I do) personal pensions which are neither SIPPs nor arranged through an employer, but there is no option for them in this poll!

People, the only thing that history teaches us, is that history teaches us nothing. I am an experienced financial advisor. I have regular savings going into ISA's, instant access and a pension. If by chance I have some money left at the end of the month, I pop it in my pension. Why? For every £100 I put in my pension, the government tops the payment up with a further 20%. At the end of the tax year, I can claim back a further 20% because I am a higher rate tax payer. When I retire I can take a 25% tax free cash lump sum. I have chosen funds within my pension that are in line with the way I feel about risk. I do not know any financial advisor (and I know a few), without a pension. You've got to ask the question. If the future of pensions are as bad as you describe above, why do financial advisors make sure that their own pensions are sorted before anything else (bar ISA's)? Just to dispel a few myths... Trish - you do get tax breaks if you pay in to a pension. Dan - that shoebox under your bed have a massive 2.5% inflation hole in it as for every £100 in there, you loose £2.50 every year (more like 3% at the moment). This means that if you have £100 in your shoebox, it would be worth £50 after 20 years and £0 after 40. At the very least in a pension fund, your money starts with a massive 20% boost complements of Gordon Brown. Grab what you can, when you can. Katie - ISA's are a good start but you are heavily restricted in regards to how much you can contribute - and you dont benefit from government top-up contributions. Pensions have come a long way since the whole with-profits fiasco. You now have a greater level of control in regards to who you deal with, your underlying funds, charges, etc... You can now even have 24 hour online access to your funds with the ability of free online fund switching should you want to. Annual or bianual reviews will keep you up to date with whats happening. Your future security and standard of living is to important to be dismissed as easily as above.

I know that pensions have received a lot of negative press recently, but I agree with Marc above that the benefits of paying into a pension far outweigh any perceived negatives. I have put off paying into a pension because I was in a job where they would not contribute until after two years (when I qualified and stayed with the firm). The firm I work for now match my contribution up to 5% which comes out of my salary before it is taxed, and as a higher rate taxpayer I will get an additional 40% back on it. So the amount that I save into my pension fund will be doubled by my employer with an extra 40% back on top my contribution as well. There is no way that saving into an ISA or a shoebox can match that.** ** I may have some of my figures wrong as not investigated yet exactly how it all works but it is still a good deal!