What is a pension? We answer what they are and how much you need to save for retirement

Pensions can be confusing little beasts.

For one thing we give the word two meanings – both the thing we save into and the money we live on in retirement.  

So on this episode of the Big Money Questions, we’ve decided to go back to basics with pensions to look at what they are and how they work.

We look at the three main categories – workplace, private and state.

Guest Steven Cameron, pensions director at Aegon, also talks through how the state pension is funded, and how central it should be to your retirement money plans.

He also explains how much you might need for retirement, why some pensions are like free money, and whether there is ever a chance something could go wrong and you lose all your pension savings.