Your State Pension

[welsh dragon]

£203 a week.
One day I will find out what happened to the years and years worth of SERPS I paid. It stopped without me realising when I changed jobs 15 years ago. Perhaps it is in that £203.

Then my wife who was a mother and housekeeper primarily for many years so didn't really contribute, her pension despite that will be £153 a week, not bad considering how little she's contributed compared to mine.

Mr WD gets extra to take into account all of his serps contributions.

 

[ufkacbln]

Either that or hollowed out so much that it won't be enough to live on. Today's pensioners are the one group of benefit claimants who have been mollycoddled by successive governments. The trouble is - that's unaffordable. As a country we have enormous unfunded public sector pension liabilities - state pension and various public sector schemes - hanging around our necks, and no government has been brave (or foolish) enough to stand up and say so.

Lots of Politics involved though.

Gordon Brown and NuLabours raids on Pension funds has left a massive hole in the industry, with many schemes forced to close or reduce the paymants to their members

 

[shouldbeinbed]

Either that or hollowed out so much that it won't be enough to live on. Today's pensioners are the one group of benefit claimants who have been mollycoddled by successive governments. The trouble is - that's unaffordable. As a country we have enormous unfunded public sector pension liabilities - state pension and various public sector schemes - hanging around our necks, and no government has been brave (or foolish) enough to stand up and say so.

Just be a bit careful in lumping public sector pension pots together as if it is one big pit that all eligible people go to with a shovel. There are innumerable different schemes for innumerable different services and some; such as the one I am in; are healthy and profitable in their own right, final salary is a thing of the distant past and it has always been a contributory scheme.
Like most of everyone else, public or private sector employees. I'm effectively paying it forward now on the same ever more distant and diminishing promises of being looked after by that generation of employees when my time comes.
There are some *gold plated* and problematic to all us taxpayers ones for sure, but for the majority of the average staffers just doing rank and file jobs that keep society ticking over in the background (for want of a less trite description of the public sector) we may get our reward in heaven but we won't do nearly as nicely in retirement as the media would like to portray.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Surely, if you take equity on your house, your kids will pay for it when you die as your inheritance to them will go instead to some big organisation on interests on your equity. No thanks, not for me. I did consider it once but I do not wish to cheat my children of what should be theirs when I go.

If one sells one's family home, ours is vastly oversized for a couple or single person to live in, downsize, and live off the equity thus released, as said equity has always been a part of one's retirement planning, is that cheating one's children?

 

[PK99]

I will be of state pension age next year, I have worked from the age of 17 paying NI contributions since then, I don't feel I am a benefit claimant, I paid the NI knowing it was contributing to my state pension, there was not an option not to pay.

...but.... that is not quite correct. there is no investment pot you have contributed to out of which your pension will be paid. Your contributions have paid for current pension benefits paid to others, and you get a similar entitlement to be paid for by future contributions from others.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

I will be of state pension age next year, I have worked from the age of 17 paying NI contributions since then, I don't feel I am a benefit claimant, I paid the NI knowing it was contributing to my state pension, there was not an option not to pay.

It has to be claimed.
It is a benefit.
The contributions you've made have, in reality, paid for the pensions of those drawing state pension benefits whilst you were working.

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

20 farking years!

 

[GrumpyGregry]

There is an intersting juxtaposition between this post and your AA Gill post, do we live for today and let tomorrow worry about itself, or do we save for our retirement.
As much as i like "live each day as it is your last" i cant help thinking it is somewhat foolish to do this.
I have some a private pension, money in the bank and some equity in my house, if i wanted to take the kids to Florida every year i probably could, but saving seems sensible to me.
I reserve the right to change my mind on this.

I'm trying to do both. I'm saving, and paying into a pension*, like a bandit, and I'm trying to make sure I do some of the stuff on the bucket list whilst I am still young and fit and relatively wealthy enough to do it.

EDIT: *because for 15 years of my working life I effectively have no pension arrangements having foolishly cashed out twice ( 2 x five years) public sector schemes and one time of five years not being able to afford contributions - the joy of working in the not-for-profit sector.

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

20 farking years what? Still to pay in? That you did pay in? Till to start to collect? You have to live in order to break even?

This one, but it probably applies to others

 

[GrumpyGregry]

It does have to be claimed at the beginning. But unlike other benefits it cannot then be stopped.

How it terminates does not affect its nature as a benefit.

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

Goodness, I hadn't realised you were so young.

Neither did I

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

My retirement plans.

1) Finish work on Friday
2) Saturday morning, a cycle ride around the local countryside.
3) Visit the bank and draw out any money I have and/or max any credit cards I may have.
4) Buy lots of cocaine and hire as many hookers as possible
5) Heart attack with a smile.

A happy and fulfilling retirement.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

The fact that it is run as a Ponzi doesn't mean that we didn't contribute on the basis that we were paying for it.

But we weren't paying for ourselves and many, maybe even most, of us knew that, surely?

 

[GrumpyGregry]

When did people start talking about state pension as a benefit?

My socialist parents called it a benefit. It was routinely referred to as a benefit when I worked in the then DHSS in the 80's. I think in common parlance the usage is much more recent. But a pig with lipstick on is still a pig.

 

[mr_cellophane]

[QUOTE 4564333, member: 9609"]Why does it quote
You will need to pay National Insurance contributions until 2027
I thought I had paid my 30 years worth and didn't need to contribute any more. I stopped paying in 3 years ago.[/QUOTE]
You won't get any JSA if you haven't paid NI recently.

£141.36 a week when I get to 65 and 3 months.