Your guide to investing
When you put money into your pension, we invest it with the aim of helping your savings grow.
There’s a lot to think about when it comes to investing your money – and it can all seem a bit daunting if you’re new to it.
What happens to the money I pay in?
When you first joined the Tesco Retirement Savings Plan, the contributions you and Tesco made were automatically invested in the Tesco Lifestyle Cash Option.
Unless you chose to put your retirement savings in a different investment option, this is where your contributions will continue to go. Remember, you can watch a short video about how the Tesco Lifestyle Investment Options works.
Although the Tesco Lifestyle Cash Option is considered an appropriate choice for most members, it doesn’t take into account your personal circumstances or your future plans. You have other investment options available, but you should be aware of risk and reward before making your choice.
For more information please see the guide to the Investment OptionsOpens in new tab and your guide to the Tesco Retirement Savings PlanOpens in new tab, and the fund factsheets on page 2 of the document page. To learn more, please use the links below.
Find a fund to suit you
Before you decide if you want to choose a different investment fund to your default you should understand more about investment funds.
Asset classes
Investment funds invest in a range of different asset classes. Company shares, commercial property, bonds and cash.
Shares and property prices can be very volatile. This means they can go down or up in value sharply. Sometimes, by large amounts compared to other less volatile investments. Property prices may take a long time to recover. In return, they both offer the potential for growth over the long term
Bonds are sensitive to interest rate movements and inflation. The value of your investment is likely to fall if interest rates rise and could increase if interest rates fall. The have moderate to high volatility.
Cash is widely regarded as the least volatile investment asset. Although it is less likely to go up and down in value, investment returns are likely to be low. If interest earned fails to keep pace with the rate of inflation, the value of your money will fall in real terms, although any fall in value is likely to be limited.
Risk versus reward
Your preferred level of risk can have a big impact on your retirement savings. Be aware you may not get back as much as you put in.
Before making an investment selection, you should be comfortable with the amount of risk you wish to take. You should consider how long you will be investing for and how you feel about the value going down and up. As well as how much the value changes and how often.
Our guide to risk and rewardOpens in new tab will help you understand how you feel about investment risk and how you might identify with one of our five customer risk profiles.
Find out more about investing by using the links below:
Learn more about investing
Some of the things you should be thinking about when making your own choices.
Responsible investing
Find out how our investment management business incorporates a responsible investing approach, considering environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues in their investment process.
Planning tools
Our planning tools can help you manage your retirement savings.