Pensions.... that's me well tucked up then...

[mrdonuts]

check they havent gone out and bought you an annuity, without you even asking

this was in todays daily mail, similar sums involved

[IR35 Avoider]

National Mutual -> G.E. Pensions -> Swiss Re "Tomorrow" -> Windsor Life...

Last statement from G.E. dated Jan 2007... £55k.

Latest & first statement since then from Windsor Life £7.5k.

Where the flip has my £48k gone then?

Silly Question.

It's bought some **** a Porsche.

Reading between the lines, it doesn't sound like you take a close interest in your pension, so its unlikely you actively chose to invest in anything wierd. Actually, given that it's an insurance company scheme, wierd would not even have been an option. Given the money was in relatively normal assets, I can't see any way that that decrease can be right. It's got to be an admin error. Unless it was a with-profits fund and one of the companies more or less went bust?

[RichardCranium]

But I was a contractor once... until October 2002... ho hum... I only discovered this site during my loooooong spell on the bench from then to 2004 when I started fixing fruit machines...

I take it that you realise that I'm not a lecturer , but a technician?

Dropped-jaw smiley.

No, I did not realise. I thought all your laissez-faire comments about one or fewer students turning up were from a super-cynical lecturer's viewpoint.

So that I get to listen to all the lectures through one ear whilst posting nonsense here to while away the hours... and don't have to spend hours in the evening preparing for the next day's collection of misfits to generally ignore & sleep through ....

So you're not the numpty up the front? Dammit man, get back out here contracting. I didn't realise you had a real job - I thought you had given up on life and taken up teaching.

Follow the advice that's been dished out here time and time again: use the time you have available to think of a Plan B and then start working out how to make it happen.

Or as NF might put it, think of a Plan A that your current job is holding you back from.

Check out Venture Wales & ITWales. They were a huge help to me.

[NickFitz]

Or as NF might put it, think of a Plan A that your current job is holding you back from.

You are BI and I claim my five pounds

[RichardCranium]

You are BI and I claim my five pounds

Wavey wave.

Five pounds of warmed sherry trifle? All scoffed, I'm afraid.

I could do a half of a huge bag of unshelled peanuts; I assume your opposable thumbs are up to the job of shelling.

Anyway, wasn't he an AtW bot?

[BlasterBates]

55K - 7.5K My life insurance fund "only" lost 35%...but these losses seem to be the norm. Interestingly when the FTSE recovered my pension fund didn't.

hmm losses for the pension fund, profits for the boys.

My advice: subscribe to some research, eg S&P and buy your own stocks.

[oracleslave]

Good advice.

I think I'll start selling the Big Issue.

It's got more of a future.

You are bogeyman and I claim my 5 free issues.

Atw.

[Churchill]

Thank you sir... Have a nice day now, bless you...

Don't forget to "wring your cap"!

[Platypus]

... Windsor Life...

You're doomed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008....lifeinsurance

[DimPrawn]

Hence the big uptake in BTL.

Pensions are too risky. The companies involved are greedy, reckless, incompetent and sometimes downright criminal.

The only safe pension is for the public sector parasites.