Here in the UK, the government wants you to save your own pension and not be reliant on the state pension. This is being enforced by them making the state pension access age later and later. What used to be awarded in your very early 60's has slowly delayed to 68, and realistically it is only going to keep climbing. So your pension has gone from being extra to necessity.
On the plus side though, when you do contribute to your own pension, the Government tops it up! If you are in the lower tax bands, then this means you get a 20% bonus on money added. So for Every £80 you put in, you really get £100. A 20% increase straight away, handy. Even better than that, if you are a higher tax payer, you get even more.
So how do you do this.
In my case I started using a product called a SIPP (Self Invested Personal Pension). There are many places that offer these products, in my personal situation I went with Hargreaves Lansdown as I already had ISA's with them. They are certainly not the cheapest, and recently proven not to be the best, but I get on with their web interface and it felt as good of a place to start as anywhere. Therefore, this is not advice, just my choices.
From there, what do you do.
Back when I started this, choice was limited. These days there are far more options out there. But I looked at two main options:
A Bitcoin Tracker
https://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-search-results/x/xbt-provider-bitcoin-tracker-euro
A Ethereum Tracker
https://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-search-results/x/xbt-provider-ether-tracker-euro
The complexity is removed, no wallets, no storage, to a degree - no understanding needed. You can simply buy shares on the traditional stock market and the price tracks the crypto price. Clearly experience and knowledge would help, I certainly did not buy at the lowest, nor was I brave enough to hold on for the highest. However, I was able to get easy 50% increases in my investment, before even considering the 20% bonus I got when adding money to my SIPP. Yes, buying low and selling high could have seen me get a better approx 425% increase, but for me a 50% increase in my pension inside one year was good enough. ** Note max potential return excludes fee's, and is based on: Year high: €38.77 and Year low: €7.40.
The bitcoin share did not do as well with a 190% increase, but again you would not turn your nose up at it. ** Based upon: Year high: €490.75 and Year low: €168.79
This is just a brief early experience of mine. You could also consider other options such as a Tax Free ISA holding these shares, avoiding capital gains tax for example.
Do you have any similar experiences in this area? Please fill me in below, i would love to learn more.
