holidays<\/a>.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n Experts say creating a realistic picture of retirement can help people feel more motivated to save consistently.\n<\/p>\n
Millions urged to do a \u2018pension health check\u2019<\/p>\n
\n Scottish Widows is encouraging people to carry out regular pension \u201chealth checks\u201d to understand whether they are on track.\n<\/p>\n
\n The report found:\n<\/p>\n
A third of people may not have enough to meet basic retirement living standards<\/p>\n
\n Hope said reviewing pensions regularly can help people:\n<\/p>\n
Spot savings gaps early<\/p>\n
Adjust retirement plans<\/p>\n
Increase contributions gradually<\/p>\n
Avoid major shocks later in life<\/p>\n
\n She added that even people in their 40s, 50s and 60s can still significantly improve retirement outcomes.\n<\/p>\n
Why tax relief gives pensions a major advantage<\/p>\n
\n Experts also highlighted the tax benefits of pensions compared with other savings products.\n<\/p>\n
\n When paying into a pension:\n<\/p>\n
Most workers receive tax relief from the Government<\/p>\n
Investment growth is protected from Capital Gains Tax<\/p>\n
\n Hope said this means pensions can sometimes be more tax-efficient than ISAs for retirement saving.\n<\/p>\n
\n She added: \u201cThe more time your money is invested, the more time it has to grow.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The emergency savings warning many overlook<\/p>\n
\n Alongside pensions, experts say households should also focus on building separate \u201cside savings\u201d for emergencies.\n<\/p>\n
\n Hope warned unexpected costs can derail long-term financial plans if people do not have accessible cash savings.\n<\/p>\n
\n She said: \u201cAn emergency fund is something we should all have.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt helps with those unexpected costs without disrupting wider financial wellbeing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Pension poverty may improve – but experts warn risks remain<\/p>\n
\n The Scottish Widows report found retirement prospects improved partly because:\n<\/p>\n
More people expect to own homes in retirement<\/p>\n
Some households increased non-pension savings<\/p>\n
Energy costs eased temporarily<\/p>\n
\n But experts warned rising bills and global economic uncertainty could quickly reverse that progress.\n<\/p>\n
\n Pete Glancy said: \u201cThe factors we can control, like how much we save, can easily be thrown off course by shifting external factors like increases to energy and general cost of living.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Recommended reading:\n<\/p>\n
Huge pension changes could be coming<\/p>\n
\n The Government\u2019s new Pensions Commission is now reviewing how to improve retirement outcomes across Britain.\n<\/p>\n
\n Scottish Widows says one of the most important changes would be increasing auto-enrolment pension contributions from:\n<\/p>\n
\n The company estimates this could:\n<\/p>\n
Add around \u00a340,000 to retirement pots on average<\/p>\n
Increase savings for some younger workers by more than \u00a3114,000<\/p>\n
\n Experts say younger workers would benefit most because their money would have longer to grow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pension experts are now urging workers to carry out a \u201cpension health check\u201d and rethink how much they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,4176,4174,4175,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-585265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}