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    At 55 with two pensions and an ISA, is my investment split too cautious?

    08 April 2026

    Question by Boring Money reader

    Balancing money across multiple pensions and a stocks and shares ISA. At 55, my investment split is two pensions at 36% each and an ISA at 28%. The pensions are on cautious, lifestyling profiles. The ISA is just set to grow. Is this wise?

    Answered by Holly Mackay

    55 is pretty young in terms of the average person's financial life. It sounds as though just 28p in every £1 you have is set to grow. The average cautious profile would probably have around 60% in bonds, a dollop in cash, and the rest in shares, which feels a bit light to me. If you live for another 45 years, hindsight would tell you that you de-risked too early.

    I don't know your circumstances, but I would suggest you read up on the different risk profiles available in your pension and ask yourself whether these map to your timeframes. I'm a smidge younger than you, and I'm nowhere near anything cautious with my pension savings. But of course, I don't know what you need to sleep at night — some people just don't want to stomach the volatility

    of riskier assets or shares.

    There is quite a lot of recklessly cautious behaviour in the UK, which the Government is about to work on with the industry, kicking off a big campaign to try and get more people to consider shares for longer-term savings pots.

    Answered by

    Holly Mackay

    Founder & CEO, Boring Money

    I’ve worked in investment markets for over 20 years. I started out at Merrill Lynch Investment Management and worked at a few big names before setting up my first business in 2008.

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