After a few years, I went back to journalism and around the age of 25, I set up a small personal pension<\/a> and I made one single contribution to it of \u00a36,746.85. Then I never contributed to it again. I just didn\u2019t find pensions very exciting. Who does apart from actuaries and accountants?<\/p>\n What made you make that one pension contribution?<\/p>\n At that time, I was working as a freelance journalist and I had this sudden rush of blood to the head and thought to myself: \u201cI have an unstable career, I don\u2019t have a proper job. I better start thinking about a pension.\u201d<\/p>\n Back then, people of my generation were starting to talk about how poor state pensions<\/a> were going to be and how they might disappear entirely because the country couldn\u2019t afford them. These are all the same conversations we are still having today \u2013 and let\u2019s face it things have got a lot worse.<\/p>\n At this time, I had a bit of money in the bank and nothing else to do with it really, so I thought I better start thinking about the future and I stuck it all into a pension. It is the one bit of forward planning I\u2019ve ever done.<\/p>\n The following year, I presumably had a bad year and didn\u2019t have any spare cash so I never made another contribution again.<\/p>\n How many pension pots do you have and what is their combined value?<\/p>\n Apart from making that single contribution to a personal pension, I didn\u2019t give pensions another thought. But for 20 years, I worked part-time for The Observer newspaper writing a column and I was auto-enrolled into their workplace pension<\/a> on the minimum contribution.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t even look at this pot and had no idea what was in it until I left The Observer last year. I found that over the years, my employer had contributed \u00a320,000 to it.<\/p>\n I moved The Observer pension over to my SIPP and with the almost \u00a37,000 I had in of my own contribution, and capital growth, it all comes to \u00a350,100. So I just have this one pension pot.<\/p>\n Looking at the predictions, it says it will be worth about \u00a34,800 a year if I take out an annuity. Which isn\u2019t bad, but it\u2019s not going to pay for my lifestyle.<\/p>\n What is your plan for a pension?<\/p>\n I bought a two-bedroom flat in London 20 years ago thanks to substantial help from my mother who I will be eternally grateful to.<\/p>\n With it having two bedrooms, I let the other room out the whole time I was living there. I was living there until seven years ago when I got engaged and moved in with my now-wife into a house.<\/p>\n I continued to let out that flat in the interim and it is let to my then-flatmate, now lodger, who lives there with his fianc\u00e9e.<\/p>\n That flat is the closest thing I have to a proper pension. I am an accidental landlord and I provide a decent home to my former flatmate who is a good friend of mine at a frankly substantially reduced market rate because he is an actor and cannot afford a huge amount of money.<\/p>\n![\"PENSION](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/SEI_274765805-e1765357822521.jpg\")
Gareth made a one-off contribution into a private pension when he was 25 <\/p>\n![\"PENSION](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/SEI_274765801-e1764850978409.jpg\")
Being a novelist meant a highly unpredictable income for Gareth<\/p>\n
![\"PENSION](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/SEI_274765863-e1765358941460.jpg\")
Gareth says locking money away in a pension would work out as high risk for him<\/p>\n