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Good Luck to all x

Salaries are not rising but living costs are. Women who leave the workplace to raise children are losing out when it comes to pensions, but I cannot see any reasonable solution

I thought I was retiring with a state pension at 60 ..then it was 65 and in a blink of an eye it was then changed to 66! Time flies and you should start saving as soon as you start earning. In fact you should have at least two pots of savings one that is not touched until you retire..and another for things you want to buy.
But no matter how we try to forewarn our offspring ..they always think time's on their side!

we've not really saved for retirement but invested in properties. So selling the family home and downsizing will be an option for us x

I have been saving since I started work. Hope I see the benefits in the future

I am one of the unfortunate women caught in the pension trap. When I first started work my retirement age was 60. It was then moved to 65 and moved again to 66.
I was lucky that my husband has a great pension and I retired early with a small company pension. I have paid enough into the state pension to be able to claim but still have to wait another 3 years. I can't even claim a bus pass until then !
When I was working I paid additional contributions but just went with what the company suggested. Opted in .. opted out.. I think we did both but nothing was ever explained very well.

When I have been employed, I have always contributed to a company pension scheme, but I suppose I am burying my head in the sand because I have no idea how much income these will pay out when I retire.

I have a civil service pension that I worry won't be enough on it's own. I've paid into a pension since I was 24, but it's still not going to be enough I fear. I worry I will be forced to work longer than is good for me, and will most likely need to work part time when I retire as my husbands pension will be tiny as he is in a job that has made no provisions until the recent government legislation came in. I feel the phrase enjoying ones retirement won't be around much longer.

I know I should save but find it near impossible. I am terrified of how we are going to survive at pension age. Not far off now. I think I can be accused of putting my head in the sand.

Mixed feelings really. A not insignificant amount is paid in each month and in retirement it hardly equates to anything and that is on the assumption you make it to retirement to see the benefit.

I always worry about retirement. Am I paying into a pension? Yes. Am I saving a little every month? Yes. But still I worry it isn't anywhere near enough. Like everybody on this thread, it's hard. My husband always says we will be fine, and he is paying into his company pension too, but I still lay awake at night!

i worry about retirement and the financial repercussions. i only have a pension when i wasnt married and now i am divorced i have been starved of my spouses pension and now at 50 i worry i have left it late to finance my retirement

my husband and i stareted saving for our retirement back in our thirties, we spoke to an advisor at the Nationwide who said we were projected to be able to retire at 50, with the financial crash in the 80s we had to hold out til 55 but weve been retired for 4 years now and its great. We dont have much spare money after paying bills etc but that was our choice, if wed both carried on working there would have been money but no time to enjoy it. My dad died at 65 one year after retiring and i didnt want that for us. we are still young and i consider myself so lucky to be able to spend so much time with my granddaughters while im fit and well

My husband and I have always had to be very independent financially as we had to be as we realising there would be no financial assistance available from any source especially the family, due to their own modest circumstances. Thinking of our future security as best we could my husband choose to stay in the Forces for most of his working life as it meant security in later life with a good pension. This meant we often had to up sticks and move home at short notice here and abroad, but we came to love the life for itself although our children aren't quite sure where they came from with all the upheaval. Luckily they are all settled now.

We started a stakeholder pension for our daughter on her eighteenth birthday. We might have left it late for ourselves but we could at least get her started.

I have spent most of the time when I could have worked raising children. I am fortunate that under the new rules I will get a full state pension when I reach retirement age but living in a drafty dilapidated house in the country so a car is essential I am not sure it will meet my needs so I will be dependent on my husband's money purchase pension. I did contribute as much as I could afford when I was working but it seems to have grown little in the intervening 25 years. I think the main problem as previous contributors have said are the breaks in women's employment due to children and then returning to work part time or in zero hours work. Things are better than when I worked but there is still a long way to go.

I retired at age 51. I contributed to a company pension scheme which was based on final salary and service for 27 years, and so did my husband.

I was given all the information I needed to make a decision whether to contribute or not. Good, well informed information, without being patronising.

Employers have passed the risk of investment to contributors with the demise of occupational pension schemes.

Now, people in the main have to make contributions to a 'pot' which will then buy a pension at some future point, but not knowing how much that would provide as a means of income.

In order to empower, you must first educate.

raising 3 children on my own has left little money to put aside, i supported one through to a PhD level of education. Although i have worked its not been full time and i fall into the age range of my pension age going to 65, then 66 when i would have been collecting my state pension now. As a NHS worker my pay has been stagnant for the last 8 years and due to a permanent health condition i am now stuck on part time hours.
I recently downsized, to free up some money and can now look at retiring in 2 years, i am also blissfully happy and look forward to the future

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We are in the lucky position that we could both retire at 50 with a full pension. We both paid 12% of our salary into a pension pot, it wasn’t always easy to stick to the plan, time like all 3 kids needing new school uni for , shoes, etc but we did are are now reaping the benefits...so my advice, put your spare pennies into a pension. Annually have a clear out of all the items and clothing you no longer use/wear and sell, open an account and pop that money into it...over 15 years we accumulated several thousand...Also annually review all utility bills, you certainly make savings that way. Start writing letters to magazines you get paid an average of £25/50 if they are published.

I haven't got a fancy 60 inch tv cheeky.
I have one that I bought secondhand about 12 years ago.
I have to put it on about 15 mins before I want to watch something and wait for it to warm up!
Its rather trite to think everyone has been spending all their wages on 'living it up'.

Sadly by the time I considered putting away any kind of a nest egg for retirement I was already registered disabled and just getting by month to month. So I have the Government pension to look forward to and that will be it. Looking back I'd have never had the chance to save instead raising my family and we never went without.
Hindsight is a great thing so anyone younger reading this,put a few quid away and enjoy being older.

I wouldn’t worry too much about AVCs, Cat, mine were a waste of time. I’m ok for now but heaven help me if I shoukd outlive the old boy!

I had to leave employment due to ill health aged 42, I know I won't live long enough to receive my full pension benefits, however the pension that I do receive I invest half of it in shares to ensure my family will have at least some of the benefits they would have had if I was still employed

I have worked most of my life and my work pensions are worth very little, and I don't have finances to add to it as I'm probably giving up my current job to become full time carer for my son. In hindsight when I was working in London when young I should have paid AVC's too late now