@ebikeerwidnes by chance I saw your post in the Increasing Pension Contributions thread. I wanted to offer advice but there's one poster I never go near and two others I'm at least wary of. I'm not sure your IFA is correct or possibly you haven't fully grasped the position. Obviously age and other factors come in to this but this is our experience. Based on your post I guess you're 62 with a state pension age of 67? It's likely you will have to pay up the contributions for the years between actual retirement and pension age. If you retired at 60 this would be seven years.
I hope I'm not teaching you how to suck eggs. Don't take this as gospel but I checked it with my IFA who advises it is a no brainer!
I have been contracted in and out during my working life, have a full contribution record and my state pension, which I actually receive now, is above the basic. Mrs P will receive her state pension in September 2022 and also has a small NHS pension. Mrs P's forecast is below the current state pension because she is missing a number of years contributions and was contracted out to the NHS scheme. Mrs P is able to purchase additional years contributions and the returns are very good. I'm unclear of the exact timing of purchasing the contributions and will check this with my IFA in March 2022. Mrs P retired at 60 and reaches state pension age at 66 and is therefore missing 6 years contributions despite being "fully paid up." She hasn't worked for those six years so hasn't been contributing, you may be the same. Mrs P is "fully paid up" for the years she worked. Stop working before state pension age and you may not be fully paid up
If you go to this site you can check the details yourself
https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension it is the legitimate HMRC site.
In Mrs P's case purchasing these additional years will increase her state pension by £25 per week. Provided she survives 28 months the capital investment of buying the additional years is fully repaid. From that point on the additional £25 per week is the financial return. It's a
very good deal. From memory do this:
- Enter your details and get the forecast
- Follow the link on increasing your pension
- You will be able to view the years which are missing
- The cost of purchasing each year
- The date by which you must purchase each year - this is specific detail I will be checking with my IFA as I don't follow it
- The additional pension you will receive up to your maximum
- You can then total the cost of the contributions
- Divide this by the weekly/monthly increase to understand how long the pay back period is. That is how long before your weekly increase pays back the cost of purchasing the contributions
- From the end of the pay back period you get a weekly return of £????
Do check this with someone who is qualified rather than an old fart you've never met!
