Don't put off preparing for your financial future

A pension expert provides his top tips for keeping on top of your money matters

- By ELLA WALKER

The day you finally get to put your feet up and draw your pension may seem like a very long way off, so it's no wonder so many of us aren't entirely sure what pension pots we have, and with who, especially if we've moved jobs a lot. We grilled senior policy and propositions manager at the Money and Pensions Service, Adam Gifford, on how to be pension-savvy when you leave a job or start a new one...

FIRST THINGS FIRST

There are two main types of pension (more on this later) but whatever kind of pension you have, Adam says when you change jobs, "the first thing you should do is check and make sure your contact details with your pension provider are up to date". This will make "losing" your pension much more difficult.

"Your pension is often set up based on your employment details, so your work email address, but obviously when you leave, that's no longer necessarily where you want your emails going," notes Adam. "So go in and make sure your address, contact number and email are up to date with the pension provider. It's also useful to update your nomination - this is where or who you want your benefits to be paid to if something were to happen to you."

And if you have absolutely no idea where your pensions are, and no clue what contact details are on them, you can use the government's pension tracing service: www.gov.uk/ find-pension-contact-details.