‘I’m 36, with less than £10,000 in my pension – can I rescue my retirement?’

With the short-term sorted, it’s also worth thinking about the future. If her business continues to grow – she may want to consider speaking with a financial adviser about opening a small self-administered scheme (SSAS).

For business owners such, a SSAS is a great way to expand your business and grow your pension in a tax-efficient way, but you’ll need a decent pot before it makes sense to open one. While there are higher fees and regulations you need to consider, there are numerous benefits it can provide you as a business director.

At the moment, Ms Awa is drawing a healthy salary out of the business. If she can make any contributions to her pension as an employer, this can be treated as a deductible business expense giving her further tax efficiency.

A SSAS can allow her to withdraw a loan from the fund to invest in her business – for example, if she needs to purchase new equipment, hire new staff, or needs funds for other growth projects.

Additionally, if she doesn’t currently own the premises her business operates from, she can purchase the property and keep it as a commercial investment within her pension – this means your commercial rent would go to your personal pension.

If she really wants to better understand these nuances, the gov.uk website is littered with advice for small business owners and I highly recommend speaking with an adviser who can give some further clarity.

Paul Derrien, investment director, Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management

The Plum savings account is good, however the income Ms Awa is receiving will be taxed if it is not in an Isa. Plum offers one of the highest rates at the moment for cash Isas, so she should be able to switch across to this instantly.

In terms of investing, there are a number of potential solutions. It looks like the funds will be surplus and can be invested for the long term and added to, so it would make sense to try to seek returns greater than those available from cash deposits.

This should be done in a way that she is comfortable with. All the investing can take place within an Isa and avoid tax and, therefore, finding an Isa that will take modest regular payments and invest them in a cost-effective way is paramount.

Providers such as AJ Bell and Hargreaves Lansdown can provide this service and AJ Bell also offers a range of risk-controlled portfolios that she could invest into depending on her overall attitude to risk – for both her savings and pension.

If she used the same provider for the pension and Isa, she could have oversight of both in one place and be able to switch the risk profiles as and when required. She could also move some of the Plum cash into her Stock and Shares Isa to make it less accessible – albeit it will still be easy to access these Isa funds if your circumstances changed.

There are many alternative companies that offer a similar investment solution to AJ Bell, in fact most of the large asset managers such as Abrdn, Vanguard etc do, some of which provide a risk profiling questionnaire to help guide potential investors to a specific risk profile and investment.

They are far from perfect, however, it would be sensible for Ms Awa to look at these as well, as a sense check to see if their questionnaire outcomes align with her risk level or suggest that she is taking too much, or too little, risk with any investment choices.

Even if she doesn’t wish to invest into one of the AJ Bell Funds, the platform could be used to make investments elsewhere – though this could work out a little more costly and this needs to be considered when making any choice.