Pension losses

That’s so awful. When you go into pensions and endowment policies at the start you always expect them to go up. My endowment went down so much in the double recessions and now I guess it’s going to drop again with the now damaged economy. Will it not be O.K. when adding in the Government pension which is from age 66 ? And do you have a pension due ? Wishing you luck as I am nearly 62 and feeling I can never retire but won’t be able to keep up with my demanding job.

My neighbour told me the other day that he’s been advised that his pension has lost a quarter of it’s value. He’s devastated.

I have a financial update once a year in my house with an Adviser, it was due in May but obviously he cannot come and visit me. He offered to send me the written report of my funds ( investment plus a drawdown pension fund) ahead of a possible meeting in three months.

I declined the offer as I really do not want to see how much my investments and pension have gone down, I would rather wait until they have had chance to pick up again! My funds are in very low risk areas and are spread widely ( or so I understand from the fund manager) but they will have been affected by the fall in share values but that's a risk I took rather than buy an annuity.

I’m a “head in the sand” person and Paw’s investments do not as yet form part of my income - they are my rainy day fund and so thank goodness it is ?.?
We had the same or worse in 2008/9 when he had used just about everything he earned on lucrative contract work for a short 8 year period (because redundancy in 1997 followed by ill health and long periods out of work meant he would get no pension) to build up a healthy pension pot but then the banks crashed and he was also forced to stop work permanently aged 61 because of a bowel tumour, Lymphoma then heart surgery and all the rest.
LSS between having to stop work and (eventually) being able to draw a pension, it reduced by a half.
Better than nothing - one of those things I suppose, but we were never lucky with investments anyway.

morethan2 That’s a letter your DH didn’t want to receive right now on top of all else. Can you afford to ‘park’ it and wait for an upturn?

MawB so sorry for you. The saying goes Plan for the Best ..... and you tried, but you can’t know when illness is going to strike. My sister had bowel cancer aged 58 and went back to work briefly afterwards but it was a struggle.

I chose annuity as I’m not a financial risk-taker, and it’s a comfort to know the monthly payment won’t go down or disappear. But I may not live long enough to enjoy what I saved.

My husband has been regularly checking his pension for ages and seen how far it has devalued but says it seems to have stabilised the last couple of weeks. As he's no longer working he's had to start drawing it down so it's now not going to last as long as we'd hoped. He's spreadsheeted us up to 75 - if we get that far

Oh Maw what’s that saying about ‘you can’t be lucky in love and money’? That what came to mind anyway when I read your post.

We lost shed loads of money in the recession. I used to be cavalier about money - it was always there. I was impulsive. I’m less so these days. Lessons were learnt, albeit too late to change what had happened.

At the time it was beyond awful. I have come to know one can’t buy peace of mind. Life’s good again, we have less than we anticipated but appreciate what we do have.

I’ve been keeping an eye on my private pension since being told I’d have to go another year to 66 before getting the state pension which is due in 18 months time.

In the last ten years it has built up slowly from 2008-9 crash but I haven’t checked it since February as it would probably break my heart!

I always intended to leave it as late as possible (age 75) before I have to do anything with it, so it has another 10 years to recover and I don’t doubt that it will do so. I appreciate that I’m fortunate to be in a position to do that.

Like many others we lost out with pensions ,our plan was to retire at the end of this year but we've lost half a years income now and it doesn't look as if the work will come back as a lot of our contracts will be struggling meaning photography will be done in house .Since March we've been rejigging things and we do have a decent income but not what we had planned for .Over 40 years in business ...never thought it would come to an end like this .

This is entirely to be expected with Brexit and Coronavirus uncertainty, as pension and life insurance investors we give our cash long term. This scenario was exactly what banks and others were warning against in the last 3 yrs - the Brexit run up, in addition we have the current recession.

The lucky ones will have already bought an annuity where a fixed plan has already been agreed, they won’t change. The really unlucky ones will have invested in ISAs or pensions in the last 2 yrs and will have lost a lot, thank the Tory government for that.

Hedge funds will have done well, in a volatile market they make money when a stock or currency falls, at long term investors expense. It’s a difficult time, do you accept the losses and budget accordingly, or wait for values to recover in a few years time, bearing in mind that a bad Brexit deal will see values fall further.

It’s particularly concerning to see the value of sterling struggling against the Euro and the Dollar, compared to other economies the UK is not doing well.

It’s the Pandemic that has decimated our private pension, nothing to do with the Government, it was fine in February, but 2 weeks ago we had lost nearly as much as the OP.

Brexiteers can be in denial if they wish but the truth is that the uncertainty of the past 3 yrs has depressed growth and the value of sterling. It has been 100% Tory government policy all the way since Cameron called a voluntary referendum, all the way they were warned not to, now we have the result.

The gullible voters believed the £350m for the NHS lies, now we will reap the folly of that vote, unless by some miracle we get a good Brexit deal. Don’t bet on that, much more damage can be done yet!.

Definitely the pandemic, the market was doing quite well up till then.
We received out summaries yesterday by email. We need to have a glass of wine in our hands to read them. Yesterday was our fasting day so we were too weak!

There is a piece in the Times today that says hold on, don’t panic.
We take the attitude that the ups and downs don’t matter unless you need the money right now. In which case life doesn’t look rosy.

I think if you are of a nervous disposition steer clear of risk.

Dont panic things will pick up again they really will.
Where there is life there is hope .

I’ve just checked back on my fund figures over the last five years David and apart from a blip in 2016-17 due to Brexit vote, it soared, with the year to Feb 2020 being particularly good.

It’s an illusion sterling lost 20% in 3 yrs, it will bounce back of course, think 5 yrs plus and it could be 10, no reason for optimism, just survival.

When I began watching the fund in 2010-11 the pound was only worth €1.11 so that was my starting point and trust me when I tell you the fund had quadrupled by February it was €1.17!

Yes, the pandemic has caused devastation in our economy and thus to pensions and endowments. Mine started going up when the Brexit decision was settled. I am very fed up with being told I decided to leave because of all the lies. There have been equal lies and scaremongering on the remain side. I made my mind up from my own impressions since I was very young. It was supposed to be just a sensible Common Market and grew into an expensive monster. Oh dear, I have tried so hard to ignore Brexit in all the threads totally unrelated but there are limits.

To be honest losing 18k at this point in your pension is not a great problem. Our SIPP has dropped by 30K since February but over the next 20 years it does not have a great impact. As long as the growth comes back over the next few years it will have minimal impact eventually. We will leave our pension take as it is for the next 3 years without increasing for inflation and it should come around. I trust our fund managers will be investing outside UK to avoid the damage Brexit will do to pensions and savings.