The new year is less than a month old and already most of those hard-pledged resolutions to save more, lose weight and give up smoking are broken or forgotten.
But help is at hand as pension experts are looking at ways to make putting aside money easier for retirement savers.
The problem, says pension industry research, is only one in five pension savers are sure about where to look to check if their pension savings are on track.
This is often worse for older savers who may have several pension pots left with previous employers.
Help for millions of savers
Trade body the Pension and Lifetime Savings Association wants to help millions of would-be savers by giving them a clear set of retirement goals.
Research shows that a third of savers like to set a retirement fund figure, while a fifth like advice on how to achieve their goals and 13% want to have a plan to follow – but many just don’t know where to find the information.
PLSA deputy director Nigel Peaple said: “Automatic enrolment has seen over 9 million more people enrolled into a pension scheme over the last few years. While this welcome success has achieved a great deal in starting more people saving towards retirement, we hope that income targets will address one of the key challenges facing savers today – that there is currently no generally understood target for retirement income.
Retirement savers like targets
“Our research has shown that 77% of people do not know how much they need in later life. It is therefore great to see so many people find targets and budgets helpful with financial resolutions – it suggests there is a strong basis for income targets working in practice.
“With our research revealing that 40% of respondents are planning to make financial New Year resolutions, we hope that people are considering their pension options. This is a great opportunity to prepare not only for the year ahead, but for a better income in retirement.”
Savings goals are widely used in Australia to give a retirement fund target to savers on minimum, modest or comfortable salaries.
