Pay more, get more

Feed your pension

Finding extra money can be really tough. But paying in even just a little bit more now can have a big impact on your standard of living when you retire. When you take charge of your pension, you're taking control of your future.

1. Don't lose out on extra payments

Being a member of your company pension gives you access to extra money from your employer - on top of your salary. Getting this money from your employer is a hugely valuable benefit - and if you're not in your company pension, you won't get it.

On top of money from your employer, you also get tax benefits from HMRC.

Speak to your employer about the options available to you.

2. Increase your payments regularly

Another simple way of potentially boosting your pension is to increase the amount you pay in each year. So why not set an annual reminder in your diary to increase your payments? There may be restrictions on when and how you can increase your payments, so check with your employer for more details.

If you get a pay rise, this might be a good time to think about increasing your payments too. Regular increases can keep your payments manageable, in line with inflation and have a big impact on how much you could get back.

Increasing your pension payments by a small percentage each year could make a big difference. For example, if you start your payments at £250 a month and increase your payments by 5%, then the next year you pay £262.50 a month.

You can use our handy tool to try different payment amounts and see the effect of increasing your payments.

Use the retirement planner

3. Make a lump-sum payment

There are advantages to putting a one-off payment into your pension. For example, if you receive a bonus and pay it into your pension, you'll get tax benefits from HMRC.

4. Remember, pensions are flexible

Finding extra cash can be difficult. But you can pay more into your pension when you can afford it - and then drop back to a comfortable level when you can't.

 Important information and assumptions

It's important to remember that a pension is normally a long term commitment. As with any investment its value can go down as well as up and may be worth less than what was paid in. Laws and tax rules may change in the future. The information here is based on our understanding in April 2022. Your own circumstances, including where you live in the UK will also have an impact on tax treatment.

Change payments

 

Keep up to date with your payments and find out how you can change the amount that you're paying.