To ensure that I have a decent standard of living when I retire. I think the Government will be raising the retirement age to 66 or 67 by the time I can retire. I'm almost 29 years old.

Hi Matt, you don't say how you intend to contribute to a pension plan, whether it's a personel scheme or an employer scheme,these days employer plans are some what portable so as you move employment you can move your plan with you, what ever you choose pension contributions are an income tax effiecient way of saving, how ever let me warn you that all that glisterns is not gold. You are a long way from pension age and a lot could happen over the next 40 years or so, if you have your funds profesionaly managed then they will be invested for you, investment means your funds end up in a market place, market places move up and down so there's still an element of risk related to timing i invested in a plan for 40 years man and boy built up a nice fund but when i thought i might retire (2000) there was the dot com incident and the equities market plumetted i lost 40% of my fund value these funds were in a profesionaly managed scheme. So what's my advice it's to only contribute what you can genuinly afford alter the contribution to match your circumstances as they change over the years and remember that when your monies is in a pension plan it's locked away till you buy an anuity (pension)at the moment you can take 25% of the fund value in cash but the remainder must buy an anuity, the last time i checked if i bought an anuity now and took the cash lump sum i would have to live till i'm 97 to get my own money back, so spread your options don't put all in a pension plan find other open ended investment plans and just use the phlosophy of Save a bit, Invest a bit, spend a bit

It's a very difficult one MattW. Many say as much as you can afford, you'll get a different answer from a financial adviser as from an ordinary joe on the street (my FA is obsessed with me providing for my future - savings I've been making for 10 years which were earmarked for house improvements he's wanting me to syphon away for retirement).

As a example my pension scheme gives possible examples:

Male aged 30 now retiring at aged 65 if you contribute £28 per month you will receive £144 per month gross on retirement (£5K per year). £55 per month brings you up to £10K per year. Bear in mind that if you are in a company pension (as this is) that your company will also contribute so if they contribute equal to you if you pay in £55 per month they will do the same - usually done as a percentage of your pay.

These things vary greatly so do see an adviser or the pensions coordinator at work. Bear in mind like my FA they will urge you to save, save, save so be firm on how much you need to have a comfortable life right now (who knows if you might die before retirement?).

Also bear in mind liklihood of inheritance, although these things cannot be relied upon you will know for one thing whether you will have nothing at all or whether you'll be retirement age yourself before your parents or relatives possibly pass away.

Yes, and what tigerwuds says above, keep pots in different places.

Try this:

http://money.guardian.co.uk/calculator/form/0,,603163,00.html

I'd say at least 30% if you haven't a pension now.

Thanks for the replies! Much appreciated.

Forgot to say, I have a stakeholder pension which was arranged in a previous job by a firm of Financial Advisors located close by. Its basically my contibutions, plus the Govt puts in 22% of my contributions in the pot. Pension was started in Jan 2002. I'm putting in £34 a month but this is lower than the 30% figure suggested by daveyjp.

If I put 30 % of my net salary (let alone gross salary) I couldn't afford to live! My mortgage is about 35-40 % as it is!

I don't have an ongoing pension with an employer as I haven't really settled with any employer with any amount of time to have one with them. Besides, the recent bad press about black holes in company pensions rattles me.

Just done some basic maths on the Guardian's calculator and they say I should be putting in £84 a month, should I retire at age 66. Food for thought!

I know it makes depressing reading doesn't it Matt? If you do get chance to get into a company scheme it is worth doing, although I can understand if you are not staying somewhere for very long it doesn't seem worth it. Bear in mind that if you contribute for less than 2 years you can have what you put in back in cash (not the employer's bit obviously).

We had the equitable life situation explained to us here (this company was with them and some long serving employees did lose a pot) and they did try to make us feel better about this being an unlikely future scenario with other companies by explaining that equitable life had no backing from a bank, so when things started to go wrong they'd got nobody to help them out of the hole.

It's all questions you can ask.

What a lot of people are doing is on top of pensions investing in other areas. Nothing is completely safe bar a bog standard savings plan or premium bonds, but if you can keep your mitts off money it will grow.

You can't worry about it too much - it is something that needs thought but not to the extent that our younger years pass us by.