It's never too late to save

You can still be financially secure at retirement even if you start saving with a workplace pension later in life.

Every time you pay into a workplace pension, you’ll get contributions from your employer and extra money from government tax relief if you’re eligible. So, even if you start contributing regularly when you’re fast approaching retirement, it’s a better way to save for your future.

With a traditional savings account, you miss out on these extra contributions and it’s unlikely your money would keep up with inflation when interest rates are low. 

Understand all the benefits of a workplace pension.

Is there still time to grow my money?

Let’s say you start making monthly contributions into your Nest pension when you’re 55 and your State Pension age is 66. Making a personal contribution each month of £100 means you’d get an employer contribution of £75 and a further £25 in tax relief on your personal contribution. By the time you reach 66 you’ll have saved £26,400 for your retirement.

You can choose to leave your money with Nest and carry on contributing. If you did that for a further two years, you could build up an extra £4,800 and have saved £31,200 in total. As Nest invests your money to try to grow it, you could end up with even more than that.

So, it’s worth remembering two things. Firstly, you don’t need to take your money out of Nest when you reach State Pension age. By waiting an extra two or three years you could have a bigger pot when you retire. Secondly, if you’d just paid your money into a traditional savings account then without employer contributions and tax relief, it wouldn’t have grown as much. This is why saving with a workplace pension is a smarter way to use your money. 

You can change your expected retirement date at any time by logging in to your Nest account.