Is living on the state pension really that bad?

My DF dropped dead a few days ago, and my mum's big worry now is how she is going to cope financially. She has a pet and a car, likes to meet friends for lunch etc. She is a pensioner and still works... was wanting to finish working but now has to carry on and fuck her body up in the process.

My DF dropped dead a few days ago, and my mum's big worry now is how she is going to cope financially. She has a pet and a car, likes to meet friends for lunch etc. She is a pensioner and still works... was wanting to finish working but now has to carry on and fuck her body up in the process.

Look into the history of an old age pension. It was first paid as subsistence - that’s managing to exist, no more - but has been used by politicians, the increases over the years to gain favour with elderly voters.
Save money, make your children be realistic about further education, not think you’re owed anything.
AND you’ve not paid in all your life into a pot marked ‘Donttellempike’. What you pay today pays today’s total social costs.

But only for local buses. It doesn't cover you to get a National Express, for instance.

It's hardly screw the poor to give them a grand each month from public funds is it?

@CollectionFour other peoples taxes are doing you well then. You didn’t take much responsibility to save for yourself then? Just take handouts whilst owning a house?

Is it? People have paid into this all their lives. What an attitude 😵‍💫

We manage fine on state pension, pension credit, and PIP. No private pension or other private income. House is paid off. Council tax is paid. Live in London where we have free public transport and it goes almost everywhere we need to go. We have a car and use it about once a month. Don't pay road tax due to PIP. Lots of cheap entertainment including free swimming and gym at the council leisure centre, cheap exhibitions and places to visit (some are hugely discounted due to being on pension credit, eg £1 Tower of London, £3 Zoo). We often do theatre trips with last minute deals and DH goes as my carer. Lots of cheap/free events all over London including orchestral concerts, opera tickets, V&A, Kew, talks and public lectures. We use seat filler websites too which gets us cheap tickets to gigs, theatre, concerts etc.
Dental and optician costs are NHS, we have to pay for some things but much cheaper than private. Prescriptions are free. We get help towards bills and don't scrimp on heating (though we dress sensibly and don't walk around in shorts in winter). We get half price water bills due to medical condition. Cheap phone and broadband on a social tariff.
Socialising is mostly cheap, eg meeting up in friends' houses, a walk to the various parks. We don't spend money on things like nail treatments or coffees out, we've never done that so we don't miss it. We eat well by cooking from scratch at home, grow some of our own food in the back garden, and buying from community pantries.
We don't have a cleaner or gardener and don't feel we need one (we have all the time to clean and it doesn't get too dirty with 2 adults in the house, low maintenance garden). We do most basic maintenance and DIY on the house ourselves. No pets.
We go on holiday every couple of years, sometimes we join our dcs and dgcs so it works out quite cheap, but we've also had cruise bargains in the off season. We buy clothes when needed, not as a hobby. Things like furniture and appliances get replaced if they break, and we have enough savings to be able to pay for things like that, but it's infrequent. Pension Credit allows you to have savings up to £10k before PC is affected, which is a higher threshold than UC.
DCs will help out sometimes, eg they've given a tablet and phone as a joint gift. They live locally so no big costs for visiting them. We are able to pay for gifts for them and dgcs but nothing extravagant, but they are happy.

Do a list of all the essentials and what they cost. Im retired with an income after tax of £3500 pm with no mortgage and do not live an extravagant lifestyle. I cant wait to get state pensions. It will make a world of difference instead of spending savings all the time.

I would not want to live on just state pension, I'd be miserable.

We manage fine on state pension, pension credit, and PIP. No private pension or other private income. House is paid off. Council tax is paid. Live in London where we have free public transport and it goes almost everywhere we need to go. We have a car and use it about once a month. Don't pay road tax due to PIP. Lots of cheap entertainment including free swimming and gym at the council leisure centre, cheap exhibitions and places to visit (some are hugely discounted due to being on pension credit, eg £1 Tower of London, £3 Zoo). We often do theatre trips with last minute deals and DH goes as my carer. Lots of cheap/free events all over London including orchestral concerts, opera tickets, V&A, Kew, talks and public lectures. We use seat filler websites too which gets us cheap tickets to gigs, theatre, concerts etc.
Dental and optician costs are NHS, we have to pay for some things but much cheaper than private. Prescriptions are free. We get help towards bills and don't scrimp on heating (though we dress sensibly and don't walk around in shorts in winter). We get half price water bills due to medical condition. Cheap phone and broadband on a social tariff.
Socialising is mostly cheap, eg meeting up in friends' houses, a walk to the various parks. We don't spend money on things like nail treatments or coffees out, we've never done that so we don't miss it. We eat well by cooking from scratch at home, grow some of our own food in the back garden, and buying from community pantries.
We don't have a cleaner or gardener and don't feel we need one (we have all the time to clean and it doesn't get too dirty with 2 adults in the house, low maintenance garden). We do most basic maintenance and DIY on the house ourselves. No pets.
We go on holiday every couple of years, sometimes we join our dcs and dgcs so it works out quite cheap, but we've also had cruise bargains in the off season. We buy clothes when needed, not as a hobby. Things like furniture and appliances get replaced if they break, and we have enough savings to be able to pay for things like that, but it's infrequent. Pension Credit allows you to have savings up to £10k before PC is affected, which is a higher threshold than UC.
DCs will help out sometimes, eg they've given a tablet and phone as a joint gift. They live locally so no big costs for visiting them. We are able to pay for gifts for them and dgcs but nothing extravagant, but they are happy.

Is it just DH’s pension or do you have your own? Might be worth getting your own and benefiting from employer’s matching pension contributions.

I guess many people will be curious how you get PIP if you and your DH are so active and can manage all household tasks without help.

It’s not over 60. It’s over whatever state retirement is for you .

We manage fine on state pension, pension credit, and PIP. No private pension or other private income. House is paid off. Council tax is paid. Live in London where we have free public transport and it goes almost everywhere we need to go. We have a car and use it about once a month. Don't pay road tax due to PIP. Lots of cheap entertainment including free swimming and gym at the council leisure centre, cheap exhibitions and places to visit (some are hugely discounted due to being on pension credit, eg £1 Tower of London, £3 Zoo). We often do theatre trips with last minute deals and DH goes as my carer. Lots of cheap/free events all over London including orchestral concerts, opera tickets, V&A, Kew, talks and public lectures. We use seat filler websites too which gets us cheap tickets to gigs, theatre, concerts etc.
Dental and optician costs are NHS, we have to pay for some things but much cheaper than private. Prescriptions are free. We get help towards bills and don't scrimp on heating (though we dress sensibly and don't walk around in shorts in winter). We get half price water bills due to medical condition. Cheap phone and broadband on a social tariff.
Socialising is mostly cheap, eg meeting up in friends' houses, a walk to the various parks. We don't spend money on things like nail treatments or coffees out, we've never done that so we don't miss it. We eat well by cooking from scratch at home, grow some of our own food in the back garden, and buying from community pantries.
We don't have a cleaner or gardener and don't feel we need one (we have all the time to clean and it doesn't get too dirty with 2 adults in the house, low maintenance garden). We do most basic maintenance and DIY on the house ourselves. No pets.
We go on holiday every couple of years, sometimes we join our dcs and dgcs so it works out quite cheap, but we've also had cruise bargains in the off season. We buy clothes when needed, not as a hobby. Things like furniture and appliances get replaced if they break, and we have enough savings to be able to pay for things like that, but it's infrequent. Pension Credit allows you to have savings up to £10k before PC is affected, which is a higher threshold than UC.
DCs will help out sometimes, eg they've given a tablet and phone as a joint gift. They live locally so no big costs for visiting them. We are able to pay for gifts for them and dgcs but nothing extravagant, but they are happy.

I'm 51 and husband 60 - neither of us have any private pensions worth a great deal, probably 50k between us if that. But we live a good life now. Personally I don't see the point of paying money into a private pension when you may never see any of it (if i'd worked a normal job all my life I probably would have done just this but I haven't, i'm self employed and it was something that passed me by til it was too late to make any great difference). There's a group on FB called Epic Retirement with some ridiculous figures talked about - but I don't want an epic retirement, i'm happy with my epic life thanks :) We have always said, if we get to the age of 70 and we are sitting in our house eating beans on toast then so be it - the previous 50 years would have been amazing! We have heard of too many people not making retirement for us to worry about it.

My mum lives on state pension and pension credit. Owns her house. She manages but does not drive so no car to pay for.
I want more in my retirement. I don't want to retire and struggle and have to shop everything budget.
DH has a pension pot of over 300k hoping to retire at 60 and pension pot should be somewhere between 500k and 650k depending on growth. We will do drawdown taking what we need when we need it. Once we get to 80 (if we get there!) we're not expecting to need as much so with 2 state pensions and 1 good pension we
are expecting a good retirement.
All depends on what you want when you are not a work slave anymore!

It does with a bus pass if you're over 60.

We manage fine on state pension, pension credit, and PIP. No private pension or other private income. House is paid off. Council tax is paid. Live in London where we have free public transport and it goes almost everywhere we need to go. We have a car and use it about once a month. Don't pay road tax due to PIP. Lots of cheap entertainment including free swimming and gym at the council leisure centre, cheap exhibitions and places to visit (some are hugely discounted due to being on pension credit, eg £1 Tower of London, £3 Zoo). We often do theatre trips with last minute deals and DH goes as my carer. Lots of cheap/free events all over London including orchestral concerts, opera tickets, V&A, Kew, talks and public lectures. We use seat filler websites too which gets us cheap tickets to gigs, theatre, concerts etc.
Dental and optician costs are NHS, we have to pay for some things but much cheaper than private. Prescriptions are free. We get help towards bills and don't scrimp on heating (though we dress sensibly and don't walk around in shorts in winter). We get half price water bills due to medical condition. Cheap phone and broadband on a social tariff.
Socialising is mostly cheap, eg meeting up in friends' houses, a walk to the various parks. We don't spend money on things like nail treatments or coffees out, we've never done that so we don't miss it. We eat well by cooking from scratch at home, grow some of our own food in the back garden, and buying from community pantries.
We don't have a cleaner or gardener and don't feel we need one (we have all the time to clean and it doesn't get too dirty with 2 adults in the house, low maintenance garden). We do most basic maintenance and DIY on the house ourselves. No pets.
We go on holiday every couple of years, sometimes we join our dcs and dgcs so it works out quite cheap, but we've also had cruise bargains in the off season. We buy clothes when needed, not as a hobby. Things like furniture and appliances get replaced if they break, and we have enough savings to be able to pay for things like that, but it's infrequent. Pension Credit allows you to have savings up to £10k before PC is affected, which is a higher threshold than UC.
DCs will help out sometimes, eg they've given a tablet and phone as a joint gift. They live locally so no big costs for visiting them. We are able to pay for gifts for them and dgcs but nothing extravagant, but they are happy.