[doganjo]

Re pensions (sorry hope this is ok to say)  I retired last year, having worked part time from age 15 to put myself through 5th year (an option in those days) and then to put myself through college.  I had some years off for child raising but have worked full time since youngest was 5.

I paid full stamp for most of those years.  My pension when it finally came was £32.00 per year.  Apparently they have no record of most of my working life.  So far one year of fighting with little response from pensions or tax office, and counting.  If I was French I would have retired at 60 regardless of sex, on a damn good liveable pension and lots of aid from the community - free wood, reduced rates, various help with bills when needed.

God it was good to get that off my chest.  Thanks.

If you paid the reduced stamp those years don't count.  If you were at home looking after your children they DO count.  You should at least get the very basic minimum pension. The Basic State Retirement Pension for a single person is £95.25 a week for a single person and £152.30 for a couple in 2009/10. Whether you get this can depend on how many national insurance contribution years you have completed.

The basic pension is lower than the income support threshold, so if they have no other income, state pensioners can top up with income support. This comes in the form of a means-tested Pension Credit which brings the weekly amount up to £130 for a single person and £198.45 for a couple. HTH

[Hilarysmum]

Thanks d&J and yet, still battling with the pension people who can not find a record of most of my working years ...

[mab]

We certainly don't want another Oliver Cromwell, but the country (in fact the world) does needs a major shake up.

The trouble is we don't live in a society any more; we live in an economy. So things are only valued in terms of how much money they can make - hence forests are valued only for the potential timber sales; the wildlife has no value unless it can be exploited in some way. The same applies to people: Bankers are highly valued 'cos they make a lot of money; rich people are valuable 'cos they 'invest'; nurses merely care for sick & injured people - little money to be made there. And as for little people who just make enough money to keep themselves and their animal fed - well we are just numbers on a computer.

Rant number one over.

I keep paying my NI contributions & Tax, although it's anyones guess as to wether I'll see anything in return when I need it.

Sorry to hear about your pension hillarysmum - that's why I keep all my paper records so I'll be able to prove I've paid when the time comes (I've got bank statements dating back to when I opened my first account in 1978 - failing all else I'll have plenty of firelighter when I 'retire'  ).

I do have a (stakeholder type) pension from when I was PAYE, but I don't expect much from that - and I don't trust the company that holds it to work in my interest. They produce massive annual statements that are very hard to understand with several pages of small print, but I always looked through them 'cos one year I noticed that one of my monthly contributions was missing. I chased them up on it and my employers HR dept sent them proof that the contribution had been deducted from my pay & sent to them. They reluctantly admitted that something had gone wrong and credited my pension, though they never offered any explanation as to how it could have gotten lost.

Then a couple of years ago when the stocks went down I asked about advice on moving my funds to other more stable options. I couldn't get any advice from them except to set up an online login where I could choose where I could put my funds. I did this only to be presented with a list of options that mean absolutely nothing to me. Apparently I have to pay an independent advisor to tell me what my options are.

OK 2nd rant off my chest.  Feel better now.

mab

[doganjo]

Thanks d&J and yet, still battling with the pension people who can not find a record of most of my working years ...

It's all on here - http://www.pensionsorter.co.uk/statepension.cfm#howm  Quote anything I have said and this website too.  Go get 'em, gal!

[dyedinthewool]

Reading these posts I agree with them all...

My OH worked all his life first as an employee and then as a self-employed builder, while he was very successful and worked Dammed hard he was never going to make a million - enough to feed and look after his family - no holidays because if you didn't work you didn't get payed.

  I worked full time from 16 until 21 when i had two children and spent my time looking after them and the home and the animals (so didn't 'work!!!! for many years).  That was at a  time when you cooked meals with fresh vegetables and meat (no fridge/freezer in those early days) it didn't come in a cardboard box ready made from a supermarket - children ate 'proper' food, sat at the table and not adlib or running around with it in their hand or dumped infront of the TV.

During his SE time (we thought being SE was a good idea at the time - own boss etc!!!!) money was short - but we managed to put some into a pension plan - at that time we were assured it would 'keep' us in our 'old age' plus the state pension (which lets face it - we have also paid into all our working lives, so is NOT a 'freebie' given to us by the gov) we thought we should be reasonable 'well off'.

As doganjo say the 'state pension' is £198. odd per week for a couple - this wouldn't even pay our MPs drinks bill for the week. I would like to see them surviving on it.
Due to inflation our 'pension plan' is hardly worth having now.
So we are still working if only part-time to make ends meet - we have our hens and sheep (and hopefully a pig or two if I can persude OH) plus our veggie patch.  This helps keep our head above water and tastes better than shop bought stuff anyway.

What I don't understand is with all the 'billions' of people in the world - not enough food to feed them or work to for them 'people' are still having 3-4-5 children, can't they see that the future is going to be bleak for them...
 

[doganjo]

I know it's off topic but I just saw an advert for Save the childfren - wanting £2 a week to save children's lives. Surely they should be helping the parents by providing contraception instead?  They don't have to force it on them - just make it available.

[starcana]

Well, you can't blame me, I didn't vote for this lot and actually, like most people, was much better off under Labour. But then, I'm one of the 'baby boomer' generation and accept my share of the blame for what we unwittingly afflicted on our children's generation by being the ones to benefit from having free university education with maintenance grants, choice of jobs and also the beneficiaries of the housing market boom of the past 30 years. I won't be getting my state pension till 60 and 9 months (Dec 1950 born) but at least I have a good occupational pension and will get a state pension. I doubt our kids ever will.

[sabrina]

due to getting divorced after 25 years marriage to a gambler I was lucky enough to meet my now wonderful OH and we have been married 13 years, together 15. What I did not know at the time by remarrying I lost all the child rearing credits for raising my children, how can this be right. It was not my fault that my first husband was such a rotter, I work part time but only paid the then small stamp, money was always very tight and I did struggle to keep my kids in shoes and clothes. They are all men with their own families now so I know I did a good job but I do feel that the government has treated me very badly for something I had no control over.

[doganjo]

Hmm, not convinced that is correct.  I'd have a word with a pensions expert if I were you.  Your own lawyer will know of one.

[sausagesandcash]

My dad retired in 1980...and has been drawing his pension ever since! I always have a laugh about it, as most in his old job seem to curl up their toes the first year after retiring. He has done well after working hard all his life. Unfortunately, he is on his death bed as we speak.

[doganjo]

Well done, old chap, getting 30 years of pension!  Hope he passes in peace.

[waterhouse]

30 years ago the average baby boy could expect to live 71 years.  Now it's 78 years, and 82 for females. 

All the ideas of a few years ago for everyone to retire at 60 like my mum did has reversed cos no-one can pay for it.  And all the actuaries who worked out the sums that said it would be OK have retired on good pensions.

My father in law has nearly been retired for as long as he worked and has had a very comfortable retirement of the sort which many fewer are going to see in the future.  But we have my grandfather's inscribed clock for working for fifty years in the same firm.  Weird. 

[ambriel]

I was born the same year as ellied and feel pretty much the same about when I'll actually be allowed to retire.

I've got a couple of frozen company pensions that are worth buttons, and have pinned retirement security upon the increased equity in our houses, over the years, but the bottom seems to have dropped out of that plan in recent years, too.

Fortunately when we bought our present house I was able to arrange to buy the half an acre of land around it at the same time, but keep the bank's thieving hands off it, so at least we own that outright.

That's also the land where we keep our pigs and chickens, and at some point in the future we'll sell the house and self-build on the land instead (when all the kids have left home).

It's reassuring to know that if everything goes pear-shaped and we lose the house we'll still own the land (which currently also has a static caravan on it.) If nothing else we'll still have somewhere to live and should be able to manage a fair degree of self-sufficiency.

[waterhouse]

Is the access to the house across the land you own?

Farmer friend of mine was going to be busted by Barclays when they realised that the only access to the house they held as security was across the land they didn't have as security.  A reasonable discussion followed and they then decided to back him not sack him.

[Castle Farm]

Sorting out Britain should be easy enough, but the system is rotten to the core.
Stop paying to bring other peoples kids up.

Bring back national service and anyone that is not in full time gainfull employment goes in, aged between 16 and 30 Teach them what work is and how to repect other people.

To save the police force having to lose staff Treble all fines.

Drunk in a public place £500 fine.
Parking on double yellow lines £250.
No tax or insurance on your car. Crush the car and fine them £2000 or 6 months in jail.

Bring back the birch and hanging for 1st degree murder.

I just started getting my pension at 65. £119 per week.