Do you have a financial anxiety, dilemma or quandary? Ask Jessie Hewitson, veteran money journalist and editor, and financial agony aunt for The i Paper. Jessie is answering readers’ questions while consulting with the top experts in the field (many of whom charge high fees) to get readers the very best advice. She will combine this with her own life experiences – which includes not always making the most sensible financial decisions in her personal life. Here, a reader worried about their small pension pot is wondering how they will ever find enough money for retirement.

'I don't think my pension will help'

Grahame, a reader, writes: “I have £15,000 in a workplace pension and have regularly contributed to it in over 14 years of employment. However, I’m 50 now and looking at it, and I don’t think this will help in retirement. It seems so low. I’m low-paid and getting more concerned as time goes on any ideas how to make this go further.” (Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA)

'It will potentially be quite a bit more'

Jessie responds: “You are right that £15,000 won’t get you very far when you are retired, but luckily (or not if you hate your work) you aren’t going to retire for some time yet. You have at least 17 years to go before you get to state pension age. And if you don’t add a single penny to your pension, given the amount you have now, you are likely to end up with a pot of around £60,000 by the time you are 70. And assuming you do continue to contribute to your pension it will potentially be quite a bit more than this. Also don’t forget when you retire, you will be receiving your state pension on top of this, which is currently £221 per week for someone with a full state pension.” (Photo: Getty)

'Don't despair and give up saving'

Jessie continues: “I say all this as I don’t want you to despair and give up saving into a pension. This would just mean you get less free money from the Government and your employer to spend in your retirement. Clearly having more money is the goal, so if it’s impossible to increase your contributions now, could you do this if you get a pay rise, or an inflation-linked increase? I’m also wondering if you’re taking enough risk. I know this is a very counterintuitive thing to explore when you don’t have enough money as it is, but sensible risk is potentially your friend here. Risk sounds inherently bad – when it comes to plane travel and going for an operation, we want to minimise it – but when it comes to your finances, sometimes the sensible thing to do is increase it. Because while your safest play would be to stick your pension in a savings account for the next 17-plus years, this would mean losing money compared with the riskier option, which is putting your money in the stock market.” (Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA)

The US stock market

“On average, had you invested in the US stock market for the past 15 years, you would be seeing a return of around 12 per cent a year. Savings rates weren’t anywhere near this high, and at one point were around 1 per cent last year. To be clear, I’m not suggesting you put all your pension money in the US stock market or suggesting you can’t lose. But you need to double-check your money is in the right places (and enough in equities, given you don’t need it for some time). Ideally you need advice – someone to check you are taking enough sensible risk and your money is in the right places. The difficulty here is there aren’t many financial advisers who work with smaller pensions (which exposes a gap that the Financial Conduct Authority says it is looking to address), and their fees may be hard to afford.” (Photo: KonaRa/Getty)

Financial advice

“Somewhere in your company there may be a financial adviser lurking – they usually are advising on the company’s pension scheme. So speak to HR and throw yourself on their mercy, to see if there is a way an adviser can help you fee-free. Sometimes they are brought in to companies to give their employees free financial advice and the emails from HR offering this are usually ignored, so have a search in your emails. Or you might get very lucky and have a good pensions department where someone will have a chat with you to give you pointers. The other possibility is to email financial advisers and see if they will help you – some do pro bono (free) work for people, so I would lay out your situation and email them to ask for help.” (Photo: sturti/Getty)

Help even if you're not in debt

“Some debt charities also work with financial advisers, so even if you’re technically not in debt, perhaps they will help. Also consider when you are planning to retire. If you have a smaller pension pot it will make sense to retire later. I can’t be precise about how much this would help you, given I don’t know your salary, but for someone on the average wage it could add £7,000 a year to your pension pot for every year you delay it. Or you could work part-time for a while if that option is available (which is becoming a much more common arrangement for people who can’t afford to retire as soon as they would like). If you can defer your state pension if you are working beyond the usual state pension age, this will help. Do this for a year at the current full state pension and you will get an extra £12.82 a week (just under 5.8 per cent of £221.20). I spoke to Adam Johnson, who set up New Forest Wealth Management, about whether there is any danger in missing out on benefits if you keep saving into a pension. Currently, a person is eligible for pension credit if their weekly income (including state pension) is £218.15 or less if they are single; or if their joint income of £332.95 or less if they have a partner.” (Photo: Andrew Matthews/PA)

'You've still got time'

“However, Johnson points out that making plans based on what the pension credit rules might be in 18 years doesn’t make sense. Also, if you are set for a full state pension, you’re unlikely to get the credits. He points out that were you to stop saving into a pension, hoping that this would make you eligible for benefits, you would be “throwing yourself on the mercy of the state, which is an unreliable place to be.” If you don’t have any luck, come back to me and I can email a few advisers I have contacts with and see if they will help you. Best of luck. And remember: you’ve still got time. Keep on with it, and engage more not less with your pension.” (Photo: Peter Dazeley/Getty)