Pension Bee Review + £100 Refer-A-Friend Promo Code

Hello friends! Today I want to have a chat about pensions and more specifically starting a Pension Bee pension, especially if you are a self employed content creator. I have a pension with Pension Bee and I honestly wish I had started both of them years ago, because now I am having to play a game of catch up. That’s the thing about pensions, the sooner you start, the less you have to pay in! No joke!

So, today we are going to do a Pension Bee Review and I’m sharing my refer-a-friend code so that if you DO decide to start a pension, you can get a £100 (usually £50!) bonus in your pension pot! Trust me, in 20 years time, you will thank me SO hard if you are yet to start a Pension!!! TRUST ME ON THIS!!!

Why Do I Need To Start A Pension?

There are SO many reasons you need to start a pension, but here are the highlights:

• State pensions are not enough to live on
• It can double as a life insurance policy
• It’s the BEST savings account you will EVER get – the interest alone can work out to be around 10-20% per year
• For every £1 you put in, the government will give you an extra 20p tax relief so your money grows faster
• By paying into your pension, you will actually get lower your annual tax bill

Seriously, there are SO many reasons to start a pension and it might seem like you are too young to start one, but truly, you will thank me in a few years if you start now! The state pension is not enough to live off AND whilst you could start an ISA or invest in property, nothing grows in yield quite like a pension does! In just one year, my pension has grown from £3,000 to £17,000 and thanks to compound interest, it’s only going to snowball from here!!

How Do I Start A Pension If you Are Self Employed?

This is something I personally struggled with. Because I’m self employed, I don’t have a workplace pension AND I couldn’t restart an old workplace pension, because that’s not how it works. I phoned a few pension companies and NO-ONE would take my money unless I had an employer OR a financial advisor, which I don’t because I don’t make that much money. PLUS if I did hire a financial advisor, I would have to pay them more than I would be willing to pay into my pension.

Eventually I discovered I could open an Aviva Pension on my own, without an employer OR a financial advisor. HOWEVER, I would say, it was a long-winded process and fairly complicated and I did it wrong so I had to spend a long time on the helpline making sure I got it right from there on in.

My husband recommended Pension Bee to me, however, back then, Pension Bee were only taking on clients who had an old workplace pension which needed transferring, which I didn’t. However, they have now opened Pension Bee up to EVERYONE, including self employed people who don’t have an old workplace pension.

Sign up to Pension Bee and get a £100 Bonus!

Pension Bee Review

Before we get started, I just want to say that I am not working for Pension Bee or sponsored by them. They don’t even know I exist! however, I am a customer and I have a refer-a-friend code, so if you do sign up, we will both get a £50 bonus into our pension pot. Win win, right?!

The reason I LOVE Pension Bee is because it’s SO quick and easy to set up. You can do it via an app, it’s easy to follow, easy to sign up to and easy to set up a monthly payment into. They never over complicate it and you can edit your preferences really easily too. It literally just gives you the information you need and makes having a pension really user friendly and straight forward – A rarity!!

To sign up, you don’t need much information, basically little more than your name, date of birth, NI number and address. They will send you a letter in the post so you can verify your address, but that’s just a code you pop into a website and voila! You are signed up and ready to go!

IF you have an old workplace pension, then you can get it transferred in and you can ‘claim’ that money. IF you don’t have any of the paperwork or even an account number for your old workplace pensions, don’t worry, they will track them for you with no effort for you and the money will magically appear in your pension pot once it’s been tracked and transferred. You literally don’t need to do anything, just authorise them to track them and they will! Easy! PLUS there might be money in old workplace pensions you weren’t even aware of, it’s literally FREE money!

Generally, old workplace pensions become dormant once you leave so whilst the money in there and being held for you, it’s not growing with the market. So if nothing else, it’s worth opening a Pension Bee account to track your cash, transfer it in and let it grow with the market. It could grow 10-20% per year, so the sooner you do it, the better. I promise you, opening a Pension Bee account will take you around 5 minutes and giving them the information to transfer old workplace pensions will take about 1 minute. With no need to rummage around old paperwork or payslips. SIMPLE!

Once you have your Pension Bee pension, you can choose how much, or how little your transfer in every month. it could be as little as £10 or £20 a month, or you could do hundreds or even a thousand if you can afford it. Whatever you are most comfortable with. Just pay in what you can afford and if you find you can afford more then you can always up it. If you want to reduce it because you find these payments too much (perhaps due to a life change, like moving house or having a baby) then you can reduce the payment. Again, you can do this on the app and it’s really FAST and EASY to do.

You can also pay in lump sum payments, which is great for us freelancers who might go for weeks or months without getting paid and then have a bumper pay day for a big project. If this is you, then you can always do £10 a month and then do ad hoc lump sum payments. Whatever works best for you!

Finally, I LOVE the Analytics tab in the Pension Bee app. You can see your estimated pension pot at your retirement age. It’s completely bespoke to you, based on your age now, the age you want to retire and the amount you pay in per month. Plus if you want a larger pension pot or to retire earlier, you can just slide dials and see what changes you need to make to your pension to make that happen. It’s basically like a game and savings should be a game.

Sign up to Pension Bee and get a £100 Bonus!

What are the disadvantages to starting a pension?

Honestly, there are very few disadvantages to starting a pension, however, the biggest one is that once you put money in a pension, you can’t get it out until you are 55 OR you have an extenuating circumstance like you have had an accident and can no longer work so you need to access your pension earlier. So, it’s important to remember to only pay in what you can afford as it is ‘stuck’ in there. Personally I would say it’s good to pay in a little more than you can afford, even if it’s just for a little while, as those first few deposits will grow fast over time and then the market will do the hard work for you. As they say, the most important deposit you ever make, is the first one. This is the one which will snowball the longest and grow the most over time.

Aside from that, there are so few disadvantages to starting a pension. Even if you were to die before you hit pension age, then your money is STILL yours in a private pension pot and your money will be passed onto a beneficiary. But we will get into that in a moment. however, it’s nice to know the money won’t be ‘lost’ and you will be passing a little something on to your loved ones.

I hate to say it, but there really are very few disadvantages to starting a pension. I truly can’t say it enough times… it’s the biggest, best and fastest growing savings account you will EVER have!!

Is Pension Bee Safe?

Pension Bee is a safe company in terms of a legal standpoint and I and millions others have their money invested in them. However, it is worth remembering that with every investment your money is at risk, including ‘real’ investments like property, art and the likes. PensionBee has authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority to provide pension services in the UK

Is Pension Bee Free?

Pension Bee is free to sign up to and they will also track and transfer your old workplace pension for free too. The only fee you pay once your pension is invested is the annual management fee, ranging from 0.50% – 0.95%, depending on which plan you are in. However, you will not feel this charge and it will be off-set by the amount of tax relief and growth you feel on your money.

Pension Bee App Review

I LOVE the fact that Pension Bee is app based, It is easy to access from my phone. I can edit my contributions easily and see my pension growth too! The app is simple to use, easy to navigate and not fussy with technical pension jargon I don’t understand. You can also add your beneficiaries on the app, so if you are to die before your pension matures, you know that your loved ones will be ‘given’ your money. Also, you can refer your friends via the app too.

Is there a pension scheme for self-employed?

There is no governmnet pension scheme for self employed people so you will have to start your own. Not all pension companies will let you set up a pension without an employer or a financial advisor, but Aviva and Pension Bee both allow self employed people to start their own self employed pension easily.

Can I pay into a pension if I’m self employed?

Yes you can and you should strongly consider it. It is a little more effort than if you have a workplace pension as you need to set it up yourself, however, it can be done quickly and easily with Pension Bee or via Aviva. For both pension providers you can be self-employed and no employ a financial advisor.

Do I need a financial advisor for my pension?

No, whilst some pension providers will tell you that you need a financial advisor to open a self employed pension, this is not the case. Both Pension Bee and Aviva allow self employed people without Financial advisors to open pensions with them.

How much should I put in my pension If I’m self-employed?

How much you should pay into your pension really depends on your earnings and also your plans. For example, if you are wanting to buy a home, you might want to put less in your pension whilst you save for a deposit, but then you might want to pay more in once you are settled on the property ladder. Personally, I pay in £400 per month, however, I would like it to be higher. Also, the younger you start your pension, the less you need to pay in for your money to grow by the time you are retirement age. A good rule of thumb is that you pay in around 5-10% of your earnings, but again, it’s what you can afford and what stage of life and business you are at. It’s also worth looking at the Pension Bee Self employed pension calculator to help you work out how much you need to pay in.

Before we started renovating, I was paying in more per month and then when we started the build, I scaled it way back and now I’m trying to build up it again. You can always knock the payments down when you have less cash and you can put up your contributions when you earn more.

Pension Bee Self Employed Pension Calculator

On the Pension Bee app, you will find a Pension Bee Self Employed Pension Calculator under the analytics tab. Type in your age and contribution amount and you will have a personalised calculator which you will find really helpful.

Do you get a state pension if you are self employed?

Yes, but you need to make sure you file a tax return each year and you are paying national insurance or earning so little than you are exempt. Also, it is worth noting that even though you are entitled to a state pension, it is impossible to know what the state pension level will be by the time you are retiring and if it does stay at the current rate – rather than decline – then it’s still only just above the poverty level, so you will need to top it up with further savings or a pension. And since pensions have a higher rate of growth than any other savings, it may as well be a pension rather than an ISA.

Pension Interest Growth Compared to Other Investment Growth

Just to give you an idea on what your pension growth couple be, not only do you get 20% for every £1 you pay in as tax relief, making every pound worth £1.20, but also you get around a 10-20% growth from the investments the pension company makes on your behalf. This could mean your money is growing around 30-40% per year!!!!! That is unheard of!!!

By comparison, your ISA will grow an approximate of  around 0.2% per year at the current interest rate. And if you have enough money to invest in property – which most of us don’t, the market growth could be around 10% per year – HOWEVER, it’s worth remembering that the barrier to entry is much higher and out of most peoples’ reach PLUS there are a lot of hidden costs like repairs, maintenance insurance costs and of course stamp duty and solicitors bills which come along with buying and maintaining property. Where as a pension is honestly EFFORT FREE and you can start with just £10 a month or whatever you have spare! You just need to sign up!

Sign up to Pension Bee and get a £100 Bonus!

Want To Start A Pension Bee Account? Here’s My refer-a-friend code!

If you want to start a Pension Bee Pension, I REALLY recommend you do! I promise, this might be the blog post which changes your life!! I’m not even kidding! To open a Pension Bee pension, transfer your old workplace pension and to start making deposits then just follow THIS LINK and you can sigh up and get a £100 start up bonus. I get one too!

Sign up to Pension Bee and get a £100 Bonus!

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And there we have it! My Pension Bee review! I hope this post is of help, it’s completely unsponsored, i just really want all my blogger and content creator friends to start a pension! This post contains a refer-a-friend link.