In our Pension Diaries series, we speak to people of all ages in the UK to find out how much or how little they have saved for retirement and the realities of putting money aside for your future.
This week, we speak to Brian Byrne, 38, director of personal finance at Moneybox and an ex-financial adviser. He admits that despite advising high-net-worth clients on their finances, during his 20s, he largely ignored his own pension and at the age of 28, he had £15,000 saved in it.
However, Brian, who lives in Brighton and is married to Olivia, turned things around and just a decade later, he now has a pension pot of £270,000.
He wants people to know it is never too late to start saving into a pension and that the important thing is for people to focus on the things they can control.
What is your occupation and how did you end up doing it?
Growing up, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do, but I was reasonably good with numbers. I studied Business Studies with French at University College in Dublin.
After I graduated, I moved from Dublin to London and joined the Royal Bank of Scotland graduate programme specialising in private banking, financial advice and wealth management.
During the last six months of the graduate scheme, I did a rotation at Coutts and ended up working there for around six years. Initially, I was assistant to an experienced financial adviser. I spent a couple of years learning from them and meeting clients, while doing my technical exams to become a qualified financial adviser myself.
After becoming a fully fledged financial adviser at Coutts, I was looking after around 50 or 60 clients and their families and looking after multi-million pound portfolios. I met lots of interesting people and my role was to protect their wealth from inflation and invest and grow it for the future.
I then worked for a retail financial company called Wealthsimple, which was a huge Canadian company and as they set up a UK and US offering I ran the advice team there. It was a lot of fun, but four years ago, the Canadian business decided to sell off their UK outfit.
I then joined Moneybox to lead their financial education and policy work.
When did you first start thinking about a pension?
I was absolutely rubbish with my own pension for most of my 20s. When I started at Royal Bank of Scotland, thankfully, I was auto enrolled into their pension scheme, but I did not think about it at all and would have just been contributing the minimum amount.
There were so many other things going on in my life. I had just moved to London from Dublin and was trying to establish my career and a friendship group. I was on a relatively entry level salary, living and renting in London and enjoying myself in my 20s.
A pension was pretty low down on my priorities the entire time I was at Coutts. It was only when I left there and had to decide what to do with the pension I had accrued so far that I had the wake-up call to take my pension more seriously.
At the age of 28, I had £15,000 saved in my pension and that was only because of auto enrolment as I hadn’t made any additional contributions.
Having spent time doing my exams and advising other people what to do with their money, I hadn’t paid much attention to my own pension.
How did you drastically change your pension situation?
Knowing what I know now, there are no barometers that you absolutely have to have this amount saved by this age in your pension. However, it is helpful to know whether you are ahead or behind.
It is more about the percentages you are putting into your pension. We try not to tell people what amounts they should have as sometimes, they can be big numbers and feel intimidating and demoralising.
Following the half your age as a pension contribution rule is helpful. At 23 or 24, I should have been paying in around 12 per cent if I followed this. But I was actually paying the minimum of eight per cent into my pension, including the employer contribution.
Brian Byrnes with his wife OliviaGiven all my other priorities in my early 20s, I think 12 per cent would have been unrealistic. But I probably could have paid nine or 10 per cent, which would have given me more in my pot and that would have compounded for the next 30 or 40 years.
After moving to the retail financial company, I had a bit of a pay rise, so was able to put more into my pension. It also had a slightly more generous pension matching scheme. I started contributing “half my age” in pension contributions and actually did more than that and got up to 19 per cent including the employer contribution.
The other thing I do is that with every pay rise I get, I increase my pension contributions by one or two per cent. I always do this before the first pay cheque lands from the rise as then you never notice that money or feel you are missing out.
How many pension pots do you have and what is their estimated value?
I have got three pension pots – my Moneybox self-invested personal pension (SIPP), where I have consolidated most of my old pensions, my current workplace pension, which is Smart Pension and my employer contributes into, and a very small legacy SIPP which has some bits I wasn’t able to transfer.
The vast majority of my pension holdings are split between my current workplace pension and my Moneybox SIPP. They are all defined contribution pensions [pensions which are invested] and the total across them is currently £270,000.
Going from £15,000 to £270,000 in 10 years has been through a combination of things. One of the most powerful things is that I have increased my salary. This sounds flippant and easy to say, but I went and got my financial advice qualifications and went a couple of levels above what I needed because I knew it would make me more employable.
The other thing I did was upping my pension contributions whenever possible. Then it was a case of investment returns doing the rest. Thankfully, investment returns over the last 10 years have been strong, particularly over the last two or three years.
It is about getting your pension percentages right, making sure you are suitably invested and ensuring you are not paying too much in fees. Once you get those three things right, you can’t go too far wrong.
What else do you spend your money on?
Brian and his wife would love to rescue more dogs in the futureMy wife and I don’t have children, but we have chosen to rescue a couple of street dogs from Bulgaria called Jim and Cindy and a cat from the streets of Kings Cross called Stanley.
After our mortgage, our animals are among our biggest expenditure. They are what we choose to spend our money on with food, vet bills, insurance and pet minders.
Every time I look at my income and expenditure sheet, around eight to 10 per cent of our monthly outgoings are animal-related. They are not cheap, but they bring us a lot of joy.
What is your idea of a dream retirement?
I have absolutely no idea what my retirement will look like and I don’t worry about it too much. I don’t think it will be the postcard retirement of completely packing in work at 65.
I very much enjoy what I do so I can imagine myself working hopefully for as long as I am fit and healthy. But I would like us to have options in retirement which might be working fewer days a week, and potentially looking internationally and moving somewhere else when we are a bit older.
I would certainly like to rescue a few more dogs when we have more time on our hands. It would also be nice to have the time and freedom to do more volunteering work with animals at some stage in the future.
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