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I am finding it a challenge whether it makes more financial sense to contribute more to my pension or more to my mortgage. Which will provide the greater return. I also several smaller pension pots as a result of job moves and also unsure whether to consolidate them. To be honest it’s a minefield.

I have little in the way of savings, but have invested heavily in bringing up my children. The threat prospect of having me to live with them will, I hope, prompt them to divvy up a few quid each month to keep me living at home if I can't afford to fund my retirement any other way.

Like many here, I am living at the margins. I raised my children alone and have never been able to save much. I wish now I had put even a few pounds away each month. Retirement creeps up on you then, boom, it's there !

my DH and I both pay into a works pension scheme, as we get nearer retirement we will reassess what we are paying in. Encourage our DCs to pay into a pension but with pay cuts, pay freezes and trying to get together house deposits it is very hard.

If you can afford it then do it. Get into the habit of saving for a rainy day and then it becomes natural to save for retirement. I have become aware of people who have found it difficult because their final pensions do not match their expectations.

Im not there yet I will have a teacher pension I do try and save since my husband died its not so easy. I dont think there is enough support or help with advice.

I wish I had been able to put money away in previous years for my retirement but my priorities were working full time whilst trying to bring up two children on my own with no financial support from my ex-husband so as money was tight, trying to survive was far more important!

pension what pension? i have worked and paid my stamps and sent money off when asked by pension people. hopefully i will get state pension when i get to 66 thats if they dont put the age requirement up again . for the last 15 years have been unable to work due to disabilty/health reasons. i'm lucky if i got £5 over each month. dratted bedroom tax is reallyb a drain but this is my home of 31 years andyes the spare bedroom is used for the gc. but i still have to pay it, plus other bills etc oh yes and food musn't forget that. . heating is a no. but i have a convector heater and the water is on for 2 hours every sunday and before anyone says they can live on £2 a day. you cant ,i have have a very bad stomach that causes a lot of upset stomachs. and i need special food/ to even go out, i dont go out till afternoons due to this ,and upset stomach tablets when i have a morning hosp appointment.i wish there was a day that i fely 100 percent well and a nice tummy that didnt misbehave.

...and could sky rocket down as well, There are expenses in renting out, maintaining the houses, dead periods with no tenants. You will have at least one nightmare tenant.

I owned a buy to let for about 6 years, by accident rather than design. I sold because of all the hassle. I started with the same tenant for two years, who were perfect tenants and it rather went down hill after that. A year of two new graduate first jobbers. Two lovely Irish boys who lived at home during their university years and had been waited on hand and foot since birth. The amount of damage they did to the flat, quite inadvertently, in a year was phenomenal. I even had to have the Consumer Unit for the electricity supply replaced (£500).

Then the very good managing agents I used, centralised their property management operations and the managment quality went off the top of a cliff. At which point, I decided I had had enough and sold it. The gross return was good, the net return, no better than investing in equities.

I'm quite sceptical about what's going to happen to my pension after Brexit, I've kept mine in a company pension but I know many of friends who took theirs out and invested in houses and they have skyrocketed in value.

I agree with Comperbee, MOnica and others here, but even if we DID save in the past, there are pitfalls now.

I have two such pots, from 40 and 30 years ago, both now held by the same large pension firm, but in different departments which don't talk to each other. Some - company and independent - advisors put obstacles in the way of us getting cash which might just help with training or work-access costs which we Waspis find increasingly hard to obtain.

The two issues here are finding your money and taking control of it. Or at least knowing where it is, what it's worth now and what's being done with it by whom.

Go back to every employment you had and check whether you paid into a retirement scheme. What happened to that money? If it was transferred, have you any proof (it took me decades of being told no to find they - pension company - had it all along)? Even if you are told by one of the big firms it does not exist, see if you can find any paperwork from the past (I know it's not easy but mine turned up in a bundle of old letters). Once you establish there is a so-called pot, be very careful about advisors and paperwork. Have a witness to every meeting, even if it is with a rep or independent you really like, and clarify everything you can. Don't let them bamboozle you with percentages and meaningless financial gobbledegook and NEVER sign anything you don't understand, even if you have been with the pension provider for decades.

Be prepared to be asked horrible mandatory questions to which there is no answer , and to have to deal with someone young and smart who tries to interpret on paper our Waspi-impoverished, very complicated and private lives and lifestyles so they can "assess" us on things we should not have to share in order to access what is - after all - our own money, however long ago we saved it.

You can probably tell, I've made a lot of mistakes.

As usual, we are the victims of unintended consequences. The Government decided to let us have early access to pension money, but put in safeguards to stop us spending it all now instead of keeping some for later years. That was fair enough.

Unfortunately, the system is used, instead, as a blunt and very expensive (to us) tool to discourage access, even when it would make a huge difference to those of us who did save, but did not know or have time to plan for these extra years when the country is saving £48,000 per Waspi head in state pension payouts while expecting us to find work in a market geared to zero hours contracts, robust health, IT competence and mobility.

I am more worried for my children and grandchildren's future retirements, as it seems to be becoming increasing difficult to save for the future

Feel like these days the government takes all your money from you if you've saved up anyway so people don't see the point in saving so hard anymore.

I am surprised by the number of people responding to this thread who do not realise that paying into an occupational pension, is saving for your retirement. That is why the government enables people, with very small company pensions to get the savings element of Pension Credit on incomes above the minimum level.

If you can save a lump sum as well, that is a nice extra, but you can always trade some of your company pension in for a lump sum when you retire.

I wish I had the money to save

I am honestly terrified to retire as I don't think i've saved enough to keep me in the lifestyle I am grown use to

Unfortunately I'm not in a position to save at all for my retirement; I am single in my late 50s, work hard full-time and do have a company pension, however it takes every penny I earn just to keep my home going and all the bills etc associated with it.

I have been adding to a personal pension since my early twenties and I have recently joined a company one but because I am not paying enough to either of these I don't stand to have a great deal to retire on.

We never ever had enough money to save up, but because we both worked in the public sector we have reasonably generous pensions. I also had a very very small Scottish Widows pension which gave me a lump sum of £5000, an annual amount of £130 paid in January and £45 per month!! I bought a car with the lump sum and I spend the January money on perfume for the year! My husband is a musician and still earns a bit but we are 69 and 72 and still paying a mortgage!! Mainly our own fault, we have a big old comfortable house and just don't want to downsize! Like a lot of people we had an interest only mortgage for years and an endowment policy which didn't pay out very much at all. My mother lived with us for a few years before she died and her generosity allowed us to pay off a large chunk of our mortgage. It's amazing how you adapt to retirement, you don't need the clothes, the shoes, the cosmetics, the body maintenance, the hairdressers etcetc. I paint, I garden, 1 read, I walk with friends, we eat with friends, we live near the sea, we visit free art exhibitions, galleries and events. Life is still very good.

if you still have working age kids at home use their contribution to pay off mortgage (best asset you can have)
then you will be able to leave them something that they have also contributed to.

I was fortunate to work in the public sector with a generous pension. I didn't really appreciate what a huge perk of the job this was, but I do now I see others relying on the state pension or small private pensions.

If I had my time over again I'd invest in property - buy and renovate houses and rent them out. Better than savings when the interest rates are so low and less risky than the stock market!

I have a personal pension and work pension but really need to up what I pay in at some point in the future.

Start pension planning early in life!
So I think this discussion would have more benefit if shared on a 'younger' website.

I am lucky to have worked in Local Government for 30 years and have a decent pension, however my most recent statement left me thinking - do I need to have another form of income, as the forecast was reasonable but would mean I would be counting the pennies all of my retirement. I have taken a second pension, and have equity in my home, so when the time comes, will seriously consider downsizing to a smaller home (I'd never use an equity release).