Learning From Scratch!

A question about : Learning From Scratch!

Hi,can anyone out there suggest websites that can help educate myself with regard to pensions before I take the plunge and end up with a one that may be totally innappropriate.I am reluctant to go see a financial advisor while totally uneducated in case I get taken advantage of,oo-er missus!
There seems to be such a plethora of advice that I dont know whether I am coming or going!

Best answers:

• This would be better asked on the pensions board, so that's where I'm moving it to.
• Thanks for that-my first post so I"ll learn!
• Heres a good comprehensive guide to pensions
  https://money.msn.co.uk/Planning/pens...ng/default.asp
• Well, i did Personal Pension for years and when I retired, got peanuts. In hindsight, wish i had done ISA equivalents and bought some houses for buy to let. Hassle maybe but so long as income covers mortgage and loan repaid at maturity, who cares. Then get good pension rest of life and equity if you need it - and the pension company doesnt keep it all when you die like it will do with my pension fund; my next of kin will get nothing as a result.
  I say forget pensions but i am a bitter old man who apparently retired at the wrong time (parents fault!).
• buy to let is not risk free and doesnt have the tax advantages of pensions.
  A correctly set up pension, taken out at a young age will be beneficial. Leaving your retirement planning to later in life will leave you with little hope.
  Pensions are just a savings plan with certain tax advantages and a particular way how the proceeds are paid. The ultimate long term savings plan. If you feel you dont get much from pensions, you wouldnt have got much from ISAs either. Either is only as good as what you pay in.
• Edwin's pension produced peanuts either, as dunstonh says, because he put little in or because he selected the wrong funds for the investment of his pension. Had he chosen those same funds for the investment of his ISA, they would have performed equally badly.
  A pension is not the same as an investment. A pension is just a tax wrapper for investments. An ISA is another, different, tax wrapper for investments.
  Investments perform badly ... not pensions
• When Ј1000+ billion pension's black hole starts sucking the blood out of your pension funds..... Then don't come crying to me for advice about cash ISA's ...............
• You could make the same claim if your pension was invested in cash, Deemy. It's not the pension ... it's where's it's invested. And cash is an option. As are bonds & property. You are comparing the equities apple with the fixed interest/cash pear.
  But I don't think you want to hear .... ;-)
• Yes I am ..... But it is the pensions problem that is like Count Dracula going to suck the value of these assets dry.... So does not matter what wrapper it is in the real value is going to suffer
• This is probably a simplistic view but it seems to me that whatever you invest in ISAs or Pensions they all just put your money into the stock market anyway and charge you for the privelege of going through them. Surely we'd all be better to just put the money straight into stocks and shares ourselves - when it's over the long term.
  I know there are some tax advantages, but the cynical side of me thinks if the government are giving something it's for a reason and they just want you to invest in a particular way because it's advantageous to them in some way.
• What about the levy funded by pension funds that is due to come on stream after April 05, that will protect the pensions of workers whose employer goes bust.
  Is that open ended and unquantifiable charge not going to impact on pension wrappers more so than non pension wrappers ?
• I think it is very unfair to be looking at Standard Life in the same way as Equitable Life. They may not be the strongest insurance company but there are hundreds of insurance companies in a weaker situation.