What that means for your pension
Retirement might seem a way off, but you’d be surprised how fast that time will go. What you do now, could make a big impact on what you’ll get in the future.
How recent do these things feel?
1990: The first Home Alone film comes out
1991: The world wide web became a thing and the first ever website went live
1992: A referendum to end apartheid took place in South Africa
1995: Everton win the FA Cup
1996: The Spice Girls become a phenomenon
1997: Tamagotchis took over the world
2000: The Harry Potter books blew up, with people queuing overnight for The Goblet of Fire
2001: Apple launches the iPod, marking the end for the poor, old Walkman
2002: The Euro goes into circulation
2004: We get to share on Facebook for the first time
2006: We get to overshare on Twitter for the first time
2007: Apple launches the iPhone
2008: Obama wins the US election
2010: The Tories and Liberals form a coalition government, following the first Hung Parliament since the seventies
2012: The London Olympics takes place
2014: The Ice Bucket Challenge sweeps the world
2017: Trump’s first inauguration
2019: Greggs launch vegan sausage rolls
2022: Elon Musk buys Twitter
Some of them probably still feel pretty fresh, right? Recent ones might even feel like yesterday. That’s because time flies, the older we get, so all those things, that you think you can put off for a bit, like your pension, well maybe, you should look to do them sooner because time’s ticking faster than you might think.
Here's our top four tips on where to start:
- Think about when you want to retire.
- Check how much you’ll need, using the Pension UK retirement living standards.
- Use the Benefit Calculator in My USS to see what you’ll get and have a think about how saving more could impact your pension. You can model the impact of saving more on the Benefit Calculator.
- Give yourself a Midlife MOT — look at the bigger financial picture, so you can set your saving priorities. Check out Moneyhelper’s Midlife MOT tool.
Published: 13 January 2026