Is living on the state pension really that bad?

That’s presuming the state pension is that much when you get to it and I would think the age of receipt will push up to the 70s soon - so as long as your happy working till then!!

We decided to give up the car. The savings added up: insurance, 'road tax', fuel, servicing, maintenance, tyres etc. etc. We don't have a TV so £175-ish saved there a year on the TV licence alone. No Sky subscription - some of my friends are paying £70+ per month. No foreign holidays, we hated the stress of foreign travel, especially airport security queues.. We can look at it as doing our bit for the planet! We holiday in the UK. Bus travel is free in Scotland once you reach 60 or are under 22. Neither of us drink or smoke. We both enjoy walking or swimming in the sea. No debt at all. We seem happier than those around us, which has brought us to the conclusion that you can be happy with less.

We downsized to start with, so that was less council tax and smaller fuel bills. But then, fuel price rises, food price rises and an increase in council tax have wiped that out.

We have private pensions, although DH’s was decimated when the pension provider went bust. He’s never been able to recoup that. I don’t get full state pension and I think there’s been a miscalculation somewhere.

We have one car. We have a self catering holiday every two or three years. We sometimes have a coffee in a cafe, but rarely eat out. A takeaway maybe two or three times a year.

Neither of us could live here on our own.

I’m going to Canada for 3 weeks soon with DP …we are both early 60s …he has no medical history…li had cancer 6 years ago….NED now ….my insurance for 3 weeks is £250 for the 2 of us….and I definitely shop around for best deals.
pits a lot cheaper for Europe….but 6 days in NY last year was 100…..and 7 weeks in Australia and Indonesia was 300 quid ….it’s a hefty add on to holidays

all of this depends on where you live, what kind of home you have, and what your needs are. I am talking about needs, not wants.

When you consider you'll most likely have paid off the mortgage and be down to one car between you, life might not be too bad at all. My wife and her sister will inherit a pretty nice house worth a fair amount, and a fair bit of money between them eventually.

That doesn't make sense. Among people who live a "normal" lifespan. only around 10% actually need residential care before they die. It used to be around 5% when I last was doing work on it and it has now decreased. If you are saying "if you live long enough, you will end up needing care" well that's a kind of true, I mean you might need to wait until people reach 200 years old for it to be true though!! but the actual facts are that most people who live a normal life span do not ever go into residential care.
"Care home residents as a proportion of the population
Between 2011 and 2021, there was a 4.0% decline in the number of care home residents aged 65 years and over, while the total usual resident population in this age group rose by 20.0% over the same period. This means that the proportion of the older population residing in care homes has decreased over time, from 3.2% of the 65 years and over usual resident population in 2011 to 2.5% in 2021.
The biggest decrease in the proportion of the older population residing in care homes was among people aged 85 years and over, down from 13.7% in 2011 to 10.8% in 2021.
The proportion of the older population residing in care homes increases with age for both women and men. A slightly higher proportion of men aged 65 to 69 years and aged 70 to 74 years reside in care homes compared with the proportions of women in these age groups. In age groups from 75 years, higher proportions of women reside in care homes compared with men, with the differential increasing with age."

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/ageing/articles/olderpeoplelivingincarehomesin2021andchangessince2011/2023-10-09

The recent political rebellions about winter fuel payments or decoupling state pension from triple lock:

what annoyed me was recipients complaining they couldn't have x or y if they had reduced pension. X or Y was some treat once a month or once a week. Or ability to run a car. Or some other thing that would be luxury to many working single people.

All I could think of was many families (in work or disabled adults, not smokers, not drinkers) with kids who never have x or y, or maybe once a year might have x or y (probably not both). They literally can't afford it. Meanwhile the pensioners were pulling their "Woe is me" about not having an extra £200/year for fun stuff. I know families where £200 would be the annual holiday budget for 2 adults, 6 kids, in a borrowed caravan 20 miles from home for a week.

I also know a lot of pensioners who can't get out, don't want to travel or can't go to the pub or a cafe. They do need good heating and a decent telly service, but that's it for most of their fun. They don't need a lot, either.

It is doable if you choose a frugal life…..and once there’s only one of you it’s even harder….maybe if you downsize you can free up some money to have as a fall back …and to do some fun stuff….my nhs pension is 1400 a month….i also have a lump sum plus savings….I’m 61 but still choose to work 2 days a week as I don’t feel I have enough to do the things I want now I hav e more time…namely travel

Rates of dementia have actually decreased over the last twenty years. The rise in dementia cases is because of the larger population size, not because rates of dementia are increasing in older people.

It's really not a great system when people who have barely worked or not lived here long,( I'm obviously not counting people who have been unable to work like disabled or carers) and therefore don't qualify for full state pension get topped up with pension credit and all the freebies that brings like all council tax paid, all rent paid, free dental and optical treatment, free TV license once 75. It's very unfair.

I don't know how old you are but you have no way of knowing what the pension situation will be when you actually retire. Full state pension isn't even £250 currently, it's £230 something and even when it goes up in April, it will be £241. If you were trying to live on it, you would see what a huge difference that £10 or £20 (or £20 or £40 for 2 of you) would make to your standard of living. Also bear in mind that not everyone receives the full amount for various reasons, and also, some people can top up with pension credit while others can't.
The most worrisome thing about living on a pension that is "just enough" is knowing that increasing your savings won't be possible, rather they'll dwindle as you dip into them here and there.

I'm curious - how much is your travel insurance for these long haul trips? I ask because a lot of younger people don't realise it's another thing that can increase massively once you're older. A friend with multiple health conditions is quoted more than £1000 - for a 10 day trip to Greece.

We live in the middle of the country in an old stone house. We have just had to buy a new sewage treatment plant for the house. About £11K in all. The house needs constant heating most of the year. We had part of the roof replaced last year - around £20K, and this year our washing machine died and had to be replaced. Our microwave is on the way out and our modest TV is 12 years old so probably next. We don't go out in the evenings to the pub or restaurants. My husband is on the old state pension and I am on the new one. I have a tiny pension pot, thank God. We have decimated our savings paying for the unexpected expenses and are just managing to juggle our funds. However, if one of us dies, the survivor will not be able to afford to continue to live in our house. If we can't drive, any money saved on the car will have to be spent on taxis to get to the nearest town to appointments or shopping. We both have chronic health conditions so this will increase as we become more decrepit. It's all a bit of a worry now. I would urge everyone, if they are able, to put a lot of money into a pension while they can.

Do you mean some form of home assistance? Because only around 5% of older people actually need care homes.

What happens if you rent as I don’t see any opportunity to buy and there will be many others renting too, it’s a big concern.

A shake-up of the care system is long overdue. The vast majority of care homes are dreadful, provide minimal care in dour surroundings, and it's easy to see where the money goes - straight into the pockets of the owners. Affordable care means care homes being a. part of a subscription model, where you pay throughout your life, similar to the state retirement pension and b. administered by the NHS. The vast amount of money that currently goes into the pockets of greedy owners, redirected into a ring-fenced national care budget would raise standards.

I agree

It’s doable but best avoided if possible, you want retirement to be fun, not limited and trying ri live a frugal life,

Personally in retirement (hopefully in 15 years or so), I want holidays, decent car, heating set to 25, luxury products for all my crafting hobbies, day trips, lunches out, M&S shopping, helping Grand Children if any appear, picking a care home of my choice etc. So no, that isn't enough for me but I've paid into a work pension since I was 18 and started a private pension at 43 so hopefully I'll be able manage all that.

However, all these pension payments now mean I can't do some of the above during my working life!

So even an attempt to make some provision for yourself results in you being penalised. It is not a great system, tbh.

We are a retired couple on the full state pensions ( well i’m missing 2 years but that’s only about £40 less per 4 weeks)
We have a small downsized house and no dependent children now. Mortgage paid off with the 20% tax free lump sum which we took from our private pensions at 60. I don’t know how renting pensioners would manage.
We have a car.
I have a small teachers pension ( £400 monthly) My husband has a lump sum invested pension ( don’t know the proper term for that) and a very small ( £200) other pension for a different job many years ago.
We enjoy our lifestyle and have enough money for a couple of holidays a year and hobbies, plus enough for general house maintenance.
However it would be very different if we were single paying all of the bills, we didn’t have husbands pension fund for large purchases eg when we need a new car/boiler/kitchen/roof etc anytime in the future.
I also inherited about £90000 when my dad died ten years ago.
Our monthly outgoings of council tax, all household bills, food, petrol, phone contracts, local trips out, gifts for children and grandchildren, dentist, hairdressers, ie everything except for special things like theatre tickets, holidays etc, come to just about the sum total of our combined state pensions.
So we are using our private pensions in other words for everything else
Also do 2 overseas long haul flights every 2 years to see overseas adult children
I think it very much depends on your lifestyle, we’ve never had much spare money anyway so weren’t suddenly expecting to live an extravagant lifestyle when we retired. We’ve had lovely holidays but never spend £1000’s on them.
We are perfectly happy with our income in retirement, everyone’s circumstances are different.

Your question doesn't make sense.

Do you mean what's the difference between taking out a personal pension savings plan and paying into an employer's pension plan?

An annuity is what you purchase with your pension pot upon retirement. The annuity is the promise to pay you X amount per month until you die. Any pension pot can be used to purchase an annuity. It's not compulsory to purchase an annuity any more (it used to be), you can use your pension pot however you like these days.

The difference between employers plans and personal plans is that sometimes the employers one comes with added benefits, such as for example your employer paying into it too and matching your payments. With any pension plan if you pay in 80p, the government pays in the tax relief 20p, so £1 total goes in. If your employer also pays in 80p the government pays tax relief on that bit too. So in that scenario, for every 80p you pay in to your employer's pension plan, you'll get an additional £1.20 paid in from employer and government combined. Whereas the person with the personal pension plan is paying in their 80p and only getting that additional 20p off the government, because nobody else is paying in.

Also, having even a small private pension means you're not eligible for pension credit which could be a problem if your private pension is tiny.

Personally, no, it won't be enough. Because I plan to do all the big trips I have not been able to do while working. Some of those will likely be the cost of annual SP for a couple of weeks. We have planned for this to be affordable.