- This topic has 6 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 17 years, 5 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Has anyone else who has a pension received an update recently.
Just had mine from Scottish Widows and my fund has lost over £36,400 in the past 12 months. 😥 😥 😥 👿
Jim.
Re: Bloody credit crisis.
Yes, I have a few ISA’s PEPS Some Shares & 3 pension plans.
They all sent half year statements in the last 2 weeks, all of them advised the state of funds back in the Spring, then the second line shows what they are worth now. I wish they hadn’t told me; a case of “Look What You Could’ve won!
Having said that, I’m hanging on though, nothing is forever.
When I bought my 1st House interest was above 10{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} with Ted Heath, and climbed to 18{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} with Maggie. Now I have practically no mortgage & no little kids, it has come right down. Looks like I shall be working a lot longer than aticipated.
Good time to replace some vans though. My haggling skills are coming into being now.
Alex
Re: Bloody credit crisis.
My mortgage is up next year, daughter is 30 next week so I to don’t have massive outgoings, its still an awful shock to find one fund has lost nearly 30{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of its value in such a short time.
I might have to become a full time ISE consultant when or if I finally get to retire.
Jim.
Re: Bloody credit crisis.
It will eventuallly go back up, if you are young enough to wait that long. My Scottish Widows pension kept going down, so I switched it to Friends Provident. It still went down by £12,000 in 18 months. The only way I could see to stop it falling was to cash it in. Thats what I’ve just done. So I am now in control, and investig the lump sum, and monthly income myself. I feel a lot better for it.
Why not ask S W for some cash in figures
Re: Bloody credit crisis.
I switched mine from Prudential to Norwich Union 2 years ago into a low fee scheme similar to stakeholder and it went up by £12,000 in the first year even though I have stopped making contributions.
I converted to income drawdown in Nov 2007 and took the 25{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} lump and threw it at the mortgage.
I am not looking forward to this years statement as I too will probably have to put in a few more years 😥Re: Bloody credit crisis.
Pensions like Endowments are long term plans but as we all know they are only as good as the markets in which the funds are invested. The fac is the markets have been bad for a long period not just during this credit crunch and we have had long term low interest rates all of which are bad for pensions and endowments hence the depressing figures being quoted.
Most of the folks I know who have pensions are now saying that they wished they had never started them as they will be almost worthless ! and they wish they had invested the money in other things. Still Labours motto is Things can only get better ! so are we to believe them ?
Re: Bloody credit crisis.
spanner51 wrote:It will eventually go back up, if you are young enough to wait that long.
I wish, 😥
I am old and hopefully wise enough to understand the ups and downs of investments linked to equities.
I took out my first ever endowment policy when I was 17 years old. 😯
Over the years most of my similar investments have come good, I have one linked to my mortgage that is going to fall short by around £5000 but I have massive equity in the property and other savings to cover it so I am comfortable with that situation.
I only switched to Scottish Widows around 18 months ago, my many small pension plans, taken out at intervals over a 35 year period as and when I could afford them were all with Colonial Mutual/Winterthur. They had stagnated badly as the company went through various takeovers.
I am aware that interest rates and investment returns have not been brilliant for some time but the past three or four months has taken a lot of people, many of them supposed financial experts by surprise.
I am patient enough to give the markets time to recover, in fact I checked my fund online last night and it has risen by over £3000 since that last statement was sent out.
As I am at the fag end of my working life it will pay me to monitor the fund performance on a more regular basis and switch it to cash deposits near the end.
In some ways I’m lucky to have 3 or 4 years to go, I have a couple of friends whose pension pots fell through floor in 2001, just after 9/11, literally weeks before they intended to switch them to cash deposits. They lost a small fortune virtually overnight, something no one could have predicted. 😥
At least I still have a job which a lot of people will not have in the coming months. 😉
Jim.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.