My EMPTY company pension

After hearing from the Pension Regulator that my old employer will be paying into the pension scheme they have setup, I thought I would log in and see if there is anything there.

No surprise! Its empty, no payments made yet. Now the plus point of this pension based on the intro session we had at work was that this pension was a personal pension, so we could take the pension account with us when we left the company and still operate it alongside any other pension we may sign up to.

Now that sounded like a good thing, the fees are supposed to be low too, lower than my current stakeholder pension so this could be a useful vehicle in which to invest my spare cash. I have read the blurb on the site and it appears that I can operate this like a SIPP and select the funds and shares I want to put into this account.

Maybe this will be a useful account for me after all. I was going to look at closing it but if I can invest in other funds with my pension money rather than their selected fixed funds… then this could offer me more options that my current ISA and personal pension can provide.

I can deposit money and get my tax relief and pick the funds I wish to invest in. I need to read some more on this and work out the costs but it looks like a good option and I will continue to research this. In the meantime, I need to contact the Pension Regulator again as I need to know if there has been a deadline set with my old company – as I really can’t see them ever paying any money into this account. If they do, then that will be a blessing and great news – but – at the moment I feel like its a promise they will not keep.

New job

Now 3 weeks into my new job and have just received my first pay!

Still waiting for my old employer to pay my final salary and redundancy payment and provide me with a P45. Not having a P45 means that my new employer has had to use the emergency tax code so I have been taxed on all my income.

I have found that I can’t join my new employer’s pension scheme for 3 months as they have a delayed auto-enrollment date. They don’t backdate either which seems to be permitted under the move to auto-enrollment. Ah well, at least they seem to be aware of what they need to do and will be offering a scheme although it will not be very generous it is better than nothing and I get some tax advantages from saving into a pension scheme.

Other than that, I am settling in and meeting loads of people. Will see how it goes as I am unsure if its a good move for me. After all the upheaval at my last place, I feel somewhat down on the whole business environment at the moment. I need to continue to work and concentrate on my FI plan to free me from this treadmill.

Off to see how my finances are for the end of November.

Net worth

After last month’s ouch, things are looking at bit better this month. Just goes to show the roller coaster ride you get from investing in the stock market.

My recent share purchases (unilever and glaxo) are now showing in the black – up 5% and 3% respectively. I haven’t bought any shares this month so need to look at the market and select some to buy to add to my portfolio.

I have been concentrating on my new job and getting my old employer to pay my pension and my redundancy money.

My dividends this month have been pretty poor – i.e. 35p! It just shows that I have shares which don’t pay out every month.  I did read an article once on Motley Fool about picking shares based on their dividend payment dates so that you can get a trickle of dividends every month. Not always the best policy for picking shares but possible if you want that kind of setup.

I get some dividends paid next month, December, then a good dividend payout in January – just in time to settle any Christmas spending on my credit cards.

My accountant has filled in my tax form, it is the first tax year for rental income so wanted to make sure that everything was declared correctly. So I need to just double check the numbers and get them to submit it to the HMRC.

My index trackers are just about in the black and showing a positive growth percentage, after two months of negative figures. My managed funds are still showing a better gain that the indexes but I will continue to invest in tracker funds and see what happens over the long term. My share NISA this year is showing a 16% gain at the moment. My ISAs/NISAs as a whole are showing over 7% gain so quite pleased with that as finisher for 2014.