Time is catching up at last on high-spending "baby boomers" as they approach retirement. There is a £57bn hole in our savings pot, which threatens to cut pensioner income by 30 per cent over the next 30 years and leave many facing hardship in old age.

The warning in the Pensions Commission report published this week triggered shock and horror - yet told us little we didn't already know. A curious feature of the latest financial fiasco is that many people are insulated from it.

As many as 65,000 workers have lost their savings in collapsed company pension schemes, but there are few headaches for 4.6 million workers - about 16 per cent of the total workforce - sitting pretty in defined benefit schemes, which pay pensions based on final salary and length of service.

There are no worries either for 4.5 million members of public sector defined benefit schemes, including MPs, with generous final salary pensions guaranteed by the taxpayer.

Lap dancing club king Peter Stringfellow is sitting pretty too: he's tucked another £530,000 into his pension pot and dreams of retiring to Majorca and "a farm with some chickens".

Many others, however, are knee deep in droppings - with little hope of laying an egg.

Final salary pensions in the private sector for new employees are becoming a rarity. With many younger workers steering clear of pensions, as many as 13 million people - employees and self-employed - may be making no private pension provision at all.

Bob Bullivant, managing director of the Society of Financial Advisers (Sofa), said: "It is a disaster quietly bubbling away, but timed to explode in years to come as today's workforce realises it has collectively short-changed itself in making appropriate provision for a long retirement."

Few, of course, foresaw the collapse in the UK stock market of 2000 to 2003, which saw share prices halve. And Chancellor Gordon Brown's £5bn-a-year tax grab on pension funds in 1997 was only the latest in a series of botched decisions that weakened the ability of pension funds to withstand difficult times.

From here, says the Pensions Commission, one of four things will happen: pensioners get poorer relative to the rest of society; taxes and National Insurance contributions rise to meet the savings gap; personal savings rise; or average retirement age rises by a few years.

Mr Bullivant said: "There's a trade-off decision between living for today and building retirement funds for tomorrow. If you spend your money on seeing the world today, you must retire later. It's simple cause and effect."

Start a pension early enough, in your 20s, and you might need to save only ten to 15 per cent of salary. Start in your 30s and this rises to 15 to 20 per cent. Wait till your 40s, and 25 per cent of salary may be needed to build a decent lump sum.

But David Elms, at IFA Promotion (IFAP), representing more than 10,000 independent financial advisors, thinks a crisis will only be averted by changing personal attitudes. IFAP's Savings Revolution campaign aims to rediscover "the lost art of budgeting".

He said: "That old phrase: 'You can't spend what you haven't got' is suddenly relevant again.

"Two-thirds of us say we can't afford to save more, but our survey discovered we spend as much as £54bn a year on unnecessary luxuries, including new cars before old ones need to be replaced, home entertainment systems, furniture and white goods.

"We also found only eight per cent of people saved up for their biggest purchase in the previous year. On monthly subscriptions to Sky TV, Lottery tickets and gym club memberships, we might spend money which could be put to better long-term use."

Anyone offered the chance to join a final salary pension scheme should grab it. On money-purchase schemes, the decision is less clear-cut because all the risk (of falling share prices) is on the employee.

But even money purchase schemes enjoy tax relief upfront on contributions and usually an employer's contribution too. In its survey of pensions schemes in August 2004, Which? magazine calculated an employer's contribution to a final salary pension on a £25,000 salary is worth £3,250 a year - or £1,250 on a money purchase scheme.

Pensions are also an effective system of saving because money is locked away until your 50th birthday - when you can take 25 per cent of the fund as a tax-free lump sum and regular income from the rest. In 2010, this age limit rises to 55.

For older workers, in their mid-40s and above, the case for starting a private pension is weaker - because their retirement pot might earn little more than the State benefits. With London share prices stuck at 1997 levels, there is a risk shares could fall and shrink pension funds.

The lesson is that serious savers should spread their assets: pensions are a key part, along with tax-free ISAs and, possibly, investment properties earning rent. Managed funds, including unit trusts, grow steadily with regular contributions - and withdrawals can be limited to avoid Capital Gains Tax.

l The Join the Saving Revolution guidebook is available free on the IFAP hotline, (0800) 085 3250, or by visiting www.unbiased.co.uk/getsaving.

Planning Your Pension, from Which?, costs £11 99, including postage, from Freephone (0800) 252100, at www.which.net, or from bookshops.

For predictions on what your State Pension will be worth, get application form BR19 from Retirement Pension Forecasting Team, Room TB001, Tyneview Park, Whitley Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE98 1BA or visit www.thepensionservice.gov.uk