When i was young i didnt even think about pensions. I left the RAF at about 24 and joined the Police and was asked if i wanted to sign over my military pension. Didnt have a clue and asked the copper in training dept what he thought and was told "Do it, you can retire earlier" so i did.
I paid a shitload every month into the pension to the extent at the beginning i almost opted out to cover the mortgage etc but stuck with it thankfully.
The pension has been changed and fucked about with by assorted governments with each promising "this will be the last time" but i think there are now 3 versions of the pension with each one offering a lower return for more being put in. I was in the very fortunate position of being one of the last eligible to leave on the 1987 scheme which meant mine wasnt messed with at all from what i signed up with at the start. The transferring of my military pension meant i was able to leave on a full pension 2 and a 1/4 years before my full 30 years required service.
Because of this i walked out the door aged 51 in June 2019 rather than aged 54 in sept this year. The lump sum made sure i cleared my extensive debts i had been managing for many years and allowed me to put some towards the mortgage as well but thats now my only large outgoing aside usual bills as no loans, CC or finance anymore. I also bought a small holiday rental property which brought in some limited income last summer and hopefully will in future
I spent the first 6 months really busy as we had just moved into a country cottage that needed doing up top to bottom. After that i looked around for a part time job to keep busy and bring in more income to allow us not to have to think too much about future finance. When i was in service we all spoke about retirement and figured we needed about 700 quid a month on top of the pension to bring us to our previous take home wage. I had an option of going back full time on shifts doing something similar for a lot of money but would have put me into 40% tax bracket so fuck that and i wanted less stress and no shifts.
A local bike school was looking for instructors so i thought i would have a look and one thing led to another i am now (or was before the govt locked us down) doing CBT training for kids and novices and renewals to keep them legal. The pay is fairly crap (below minimum wage) but i am doing something i enjoy and want to do so that offsets it entirely. I made enough from it each month to more thn hit my required number and hope to do so again. At the moment i am living off my monthly pension payment so the account is slowly decreasing but not enough to panic about. Lockdown means no income from either training or holiday rental but many others are in a far worse position than i am.
TL;DR ..... pay into a pension as much as you can, its worth it in the end and makes life easier