How much time do you spend thinking about retirement? If you’re in your twenties, probably not much—it’s all distant-future stuff. But if you’re like me, mid-fifties and suddenly very aware of the ticking clock, it’s right up there with wondering where your back pain came from.

I’m 53 and I check my pension regularly—mainly for laughs, to see how little I’d have to live on if I retired now. Spoiler: I’d still be working, just in a warmer cardigan.

A Career of Three Jobs (and a Lifetime of Watching Pensions Evolve)

In the past 25 years, I’ve had just three jobs. One lasted a decade, another a year, and I’ve been in my current role for 14 years—likely my last one, at least in banking.

Over that time, pensions have changed massively. Back in the day, if you stuck with an employer long enough, you might retire with what’s called a final salary pension (or defined benefit). These were gold-plated: work for 30–40 years and retire on a good slice of your final salary. No risky investments, no sleepless nights watching FTSE charts.

But they became too expensive to sustain. Most employers scrapped them long ago. If you’re lucky enough to still have one, hold onto it like it’s the last chocolate biscuit in the tin.

Enter the Defined Contribution Pension

For everyone else, welcome to the world of defined contribution pensions. These are less generous, more volatile, and—let’s be honest—a bit rubbish unless you pay a lot into them.

Here’s how they work: your employer pays in a percentage of your salary, you can pay more if you want (and should), and that money gets invested. Hopefully it grows. Sometimes it doesn’t, as anyone who held investments during COVID or any other economic hiccup will tell you.

If your company doesn’t run its own scheme, you’ll be enrolled into a stakeholder pension, usually run by a provider like Aviva or Standard Life. Introduced by the government in 2001, they were meant to simplify saving for retirement. They’re not bad—but they rely entirely on you and your employer making regular contributions and not ignoring the whole thing for a couple of decades.

Why Tracking Your Pension Matters

If you’re in a defined contribution or stakeholder pension, the standard contributions just aren’t going to cut it. Hoping it’ll be enough is not a strategy—it’s a gamble.

I recently spoke to someone, 58 years old, who’d been contributing to a stakeholder pension for nearly 25 years. She had around £180,000 in her pot. Sounds reasonable? Not really. Stretch that over a retirement of 20–30 years and it starts to look painfully thin.

Her mistake? She did what a lot of people do: she assumed it would “just work out.”

Retiring at 55? Better Start Early—and Save Big

If you want to retire before the state pension kicks in—say at 55—you’ll need serious money. Estimates suggest you’ll need at least £1 million I your pension to live comfortably without fear of outliving your savings.

It’s not impossible, but it does require focus, planning, and probably upping those monthly pension contributions well beyond the minimum.

Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late

The worst thing you can do is bury your head in the sand. Even if you’re not in a position to throw extra money into your pension right now, at least start checking it regularly. Understand what your current contributions mean for your future lifestyle. Know when you might need to up those payments—because it’s a lot easier to adjust the plan in your 30s or 40s than to hit 58 and realise you’ll be working until your knees give out. Planning now won’t make you rich overnight, but it will stop you from being skint when you’d rather be on a beach with a crossword.

As someone once said to me:

I did some pension planning, turns out I can retire at 97 and live comfortably for 11 minutes.