If you are self employed, freelancing or running a small business it is vitally important that you save well and early for retirement. Ed Molyneux of accountants FreeAgent explains how freelancers need to get saving for their pension.

For many freelancers, especially those in the earlier stages of their career, pensions probably won’t be front of mind but how freelancers need to get saving for their pension needs addressing. Retirement often feels a long way away and putting aside money now that you won’t be able to touch for another thirty or forty years often doesn’t seem as big a priority as financial commitments in the here and now.

It can feel difficult to justify setting aside money for the future when paying for day to day expenses is a challenge in itself, and this can feel especially true for freelancers and small business owners who often face an unpredictable income stream. Some months, it simply doesn’t feel possible to put anything in the retirement pot.

The trouble is, failing to save for retirement now could spell disaster in the future. According to recent research from Which?, retired couples spend an average £18,000 per year on essentials like food and drink, housing, bills, insurance and clothing. This rises to £27,000 if you include leisure spending like short haul breaks and entertaining. Which? recommends a pot of £215,000, in addition to the state pension for a comfortable retirement.

We are living longer, which means that our retirement lasts longer and our pension needs to last longer, too. As a result, it’s never been more important to save for our later years. Despite this, recent research from FreeAgent and the FCSA found that a quarter of UK freelancers currently don’t have any plans or arrangements to fund their retirement. This is backed up by research from Fidelity, which revealed that almost two thirds of UK freelancers have never saved into a pension.

This wasn’t the only worrying finding from our research. Just over a quarter (27%) of self-employed workers surveyed said that they contributed toward the State Pension and knew how many more years of contributions they would have to make to reach full entitlement. A further 22% said that although they contributed towards the State Pension, they were unsure about how many more years of full contributions they had to make to reach full entitlement.

Read More: @What Investment