Is living on the state pension really that bad?

I've always thought money was relative. A wealthy person may think nothing of buying a bar of soap for £18 whereas a poor person will buy one costing 0.80p. we all try to cut our cloth accordingly and live within our means.

Everyone exists on different levels. I'll always remember chatting socially (while workingm an Art Event) during the festive period with an arts patron about preparing for Christmas and at the back of mind was the fact that this woman's husband is a billionaire. I kept thinking 'your Christmas is going to be very different from mine.Your husband is worth almost 10 billion pounds!' She still had gifts to buy and things to do, and said how stressful it all was, etc...

Despite enjoying what I do, I earn a complete pittance and would class myself as a low earner.

So all the pensioners you know only get state pension? Do you know that for sure?

Lots of pensioners struggle.

Ah yes, the person who thinks that illness is one of those things that only happens to other people.

I'm looking forward to it as it'll more than double our income.. and triple when dh gets his.

There was a tv show where MP’s I think lived on unemployment benefits. Was years ago though.

YANBU OP. If you have had to get by on a low income at some stage in your life, you have the skills to manage.

I personally think everyone should challenge themselves to spend at least 6 months of their life living on what they would get on benefits, whether they need to or not. It would certainly teach a lot of the wider public about having more empathy.

I don't know anything about annuities but assume that you would buy one with your pension lump sum or any savings and then they would invest the money and pay you an annual amount (monthly) for life.

A company pension also pays out for life? You will have accumulated at pot with your contributions, your employers contributions, etc.

My friend pays an addition lump sum of around £8K a year into her company pension, HMRC then give her pension tax relief of 20% and this buys her around £500 extra every year for life. Another poster said this was a defined benefit scheme (she is a part-time lecturer).

To me it sounded like an excellent return if you lived longer than 16 years after retiring.

I am still trying to get my head around 'saving into your pension' instead of say, setting up an ISA, or another saving account and then buying an annuity...

What if you have an expensive repair? Eg you need a new boiler or work doing to the roof.

Only about 5% of people in the UK need care homes and most od those are 85 and older.

If you want the extras that make life more enjoyable but are not totally necessary then people should have their own savings/pension for that. You know, like working people have to

I became a carer age 26 to my disabled child. There was no chance of me working, their needs were too complex. Fortunately dh earned enough for us all to live on - but what I really, really regret is not paying into some sort of pension for the future. I didn't think about it, or even know it was possible at that time.
Just a few pounds a month would have made a small difference. Too late now.

Heaven help anyone retired would expect to be able to afford a car….many posters on here think they should just sit inside their cold house and starve to death. I suppose on special occasions they should go and sit in a library….if it hasn’t been closed down!

Ok, we are not retired yet but we have worked out what we need to cover our basic expenses on our mortgage free home and its £1500pm including all regular bills, and food but does not include a car (which we have, holidays or gifts etc). So we could manage on that but it would be slim pickings for holidays away/christmas and gifting. We are lucky and my husband has a really good private pension, I do not.

If I was single, the small private pension would negate any chance of universal credit etc and I would actually be worse off than if I I hadn't invested into my private pension. As it is, if my husband dies before me, I will get some of his pension and I will be OK and vice versa because he has a good pension.

For a married couple in 2025/26 the full weekly state pension is £460.50 per week combined or approx £24,000 per year or £2000 per month - as a couple its doable, its when you are single or have dependents that it becomes a real problem.

And if you don't have savings and you need a car, new boiler or other expensive like house maintenance, that is where the issue arises. Particularly if its an unexpected repair. This is what cripples people.

If you are single and £230.25 per week, and becoming fragile and can't afford help around the house then things are going to start going wrong and become neglected. Older houses cost more to heat and as a pensioner your bills may rise substantially because you are at home all the time. Can you afford to smoke/drink, have pets (we don't). There are so many variables.

I know a fair few single elderly people who have sold their homes and gone into rented accommodation as they cannot keep up with maintenance, the house falls into disrepair, the bills go up and emergency repairs that they cannot fund, are needed. When their house sale money runs out they get benefits int heir rented home. But again that depends where in the country they are and how easy it is to get affordable rental accommodation.

A bit of a silly comment, not everyone wants to go on expensive cruises every few months [insert expensive hobby of choice]. And there's difference between retirees in their 60s who probably do have expensive hobbies in many cases and people in their 80s and 90s who might be happy enough to potter in the garden if they are fit.

I don't know anyone on a pension who struggles, although they own their homes which makes a difference. I really don't know how people manage in old age when they rent though.

I think people need to wake up to the fact that you need to be shrewd with your money throughout your life to enable you to retire in a healthy financial position. What's the point of fancy clothes, fancy car on the drive, takeaways, if you have no savings? I'd hate to be going into retirement with just the SP waiting, and quite honestly, I cannot keep working til 67.

You never know what's round the next corner.

I sincerely hope this is a tongue in cheek opinion Ballondoor!!

I think there's a lot of people out there calling their collective income from various sources "the state pension" for convenience in conversation, when in reality it's more than that

This is true. A close relative receives full state pension. However, he also gets housing benefit, council tax benefit, has an NHS dentist, free prescriptions
(and other perks I can't bring to mind immediately)
He lives in a one bed flat so his gas/electricity is minimal and he gets by comfortably. He wouldn't without all the add-ons.

These days the cost of living is so much more than the mortgage/rent.

Our mortgage is around £1200 per month but it’s only about a quarter of our outgoings (granted life is expensive for a family with teenagers). I don’t think £250 per week is much to cover all living expenses plus birthdays, Christmas, holidays etc. even with no mortgage or rent to pay.

I think that if you want to travel and have a flamboyant social life, you should be making your own arrangements and not relying on state handouts to do it!

There’s the Trinity Study which looked at living off 4% of your pension pot.

So Your Annual spending × 25 = your needed pension pot or worked the other way,
pension pot × 4% = your Annual income, it would equal the same either way.

If your pot was
£500,000 × 4% = £20,000 per year (£20,000x 25 =500,000) . I know that’s alot of maths!

it’s worth looking at your spending and tracking it. I think you can check how much pension you would be entitled to as well and at what age

Depends on your lifestyle - I dont want to be watching the pennies in my retirement. We will have our private pensions, the state pension (if we still have it) and be mortgage free. 45 years (possibly more) of hard work, I want it to be fun!

I would rather keep working part-time than try and live on just the state pension. I imagine alot have a very simple life and that will suit some people (see comment abit further up). Im sure you can still have a very happy life seeing friends and family, hobbies that are not expensive etc. However, I love holidays and travel and im not going to do that on the state pension.

My DF doesn’t spend any money on the places we visit, I have to buy him the cup of tea. He normally takes a flask!

Before state pension family often had to take their elderly parents in.
I’d sooner help fund pensioners through my taxes than live with family, parents or dc.

I agree with you - at present there seems little incentive for some people to be self reliant and actually work, particularly when working people are taxed so heavily. I recently looked at my personal breakdown of where the tax is spent, and the highest amount of all goes on welfare (and this excluded state pension payments which were listed separately from the general welfare amount).

Of course disabled people need society's support, no question. But there needs to be much more done in educating people about finances and the world of work.

Work gives you so much apart from money - self-esteem, friendship and motivation. Yes it's tough - those years juggling with childcare is hard - but this has improved since my day.

Everyone should be expected to make a contribution to society unless there are extremely pressing reasons why they shouldn't. In one particular area where I used to work, there were generations of the same family who had never worked, I can't see how this can be remotely sustainable in terms of the economy. Working people and all taxpayers are surely getting fed up with the way it's skewed against them. I don't think this Government is helping here. Reform is definitely needed but not in the way they're doing it.

Which means that if you have a small private pension, a modest home that you own outright and pay council tax you really aren’t much better off than someone living on state pension + pension credit, particularly if you’re on the old state pension.

Free bus travel enables pensioners to visit places. The money they save on travel they can spend at their destination e.g lunch. Supporting local businesses. Similarly young oerson railcard does the same.

How is housing benefit of any benefit to any village or town. It just benefits the person claiming it who is not taking responsibility for their individual situation.