Renting into retirement - WIBU to spend my pension pot before age 67?

That's simply what a lot of private rentals are like. Not sure why the aggressive tone in your comments, go for a nice walk round the Bullring or something.

Take the 25k but keep track of dpends like a car you needed it to work or too imboike to work. Your tv broke etc needed a hiliday die to steess ans anxiety couldbt go on own etc. honestly you could die before you even get state pension.
i say this as a person working very hard own home amd my private pension not too great. We have had no benefits. I hate some proole having benefits at my expense but you have clearly worked and i cant grudge you some fun money from your pension pot. You could have just spent that miney years ago. Id be very wary of large sums being transferred across to relatives thats very traceable. Monthly allowance for care while sick not so much. Just keep track amd senisble reasoning. I feel like they barely check up on people anyway. 25% of 86k is hardly mega bucks

Interestingly the state pension was means tested around 100 years ago. Only since the post 2ww welfare reforms was it not..and in those days we were a productive country with a much smaller and healthier old age population. Usually if you got ill you didn't last very long.

Surely if state pension is means tested then it makes matters worse for people with modest means? So people like OP would be cashing out small private pensions in their droves. And younger people would not save into a pension at all as it could very likely work against them.

And if council tax/inheritance tax increases plus a property tax (suggested by the left) there would be little point in buying a house as it would be practically sequestered.

Such a smarty-pants and yet living in such awful conditions perhaps you could redirect your efforts to making your life more comfortable. Youre wasted living like something out of a Wuthering Heights movie.

You're hopefully in the Midlands?

Stop being silly.

I’m in the Midlands hopefully, quite far away from you.

Huh?
Where in the UK are you?

Where I am and all surrounding boroughs/councils have waiting lists for housing of many years.
Properties may be empty for months (when perfectly good flooring and fixtures are ripped out and replaced) But the reality is there is not enough council/housing association properties AT ALL. And private landlords can charge what they like and give zero fucks if a proportion of that rent is payed by taxpayers via housing benefit.

My private rental is double what my council neighbours rent is for the same house, DOUBLE!
My house has the same windows that the council put in 30 years ago. My landlord took advantage of RTB, just a few years after.
Not one window shuts properly, and every pane has blown. He has zero intention of replacing them 🤷

I've got a feeling you know fuck all about social housing or the rental market in general.

Your reply is completely irrelevant to my comment. I am telling you and everybody else that there is Council owned properties stood empty.
They can’t put families in them, but they can put couples and singles in them
And they will if people go and ask

not really
it is like only working a certain amount of hours so as not to lose any benefits and ensuring you can pay for food!

Appalling attitude to social welfare.

There's really not. Most "social housing" tenants are in the private rental sector with the council covering their rents (housing benefit generally is not enough to do so - the difference between the LA rates for a room/flat/house and the actual rate charged is stark).

Not enough private landlords willing to take on a social tenant? Enjoy living with your family in one room of a BnB!

They’ll pay tax on their pension when they withdraw it.
It’s the circle of life and it moves us all

I’m so glad everyone’s taxes have been used to provide child benefit for families who really need it…

Maybe other people can learn from her mistakes then

How smug and not the most helpful post for the OP, she says she knows she should have started earlier. She can't change that now.

@FoxesOverHere Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Of course it would have been great if you’d started earlier but 46 is still young and you have 20+ years ahead to build a pot. If you could put £50 a week into a pension you could easily have over £100k.

@FoxesOverHere it’s actually not too late and I believe there are rules. Although please please check these that if you can only cobble together five grand you get the benefits of the tax-free growth that you get to withdraw it tax-free you need advice basically because it’s not too late to sort this out.

I get that. But I didn’t “get it” at the time. I’m autistic and struggled greatly at school and the early days of working life. I didn’t really have friends. I was incredibly naive and lacked a great deal of understanding about the world. My parents didn’t know I was autistic as it wasn’t really a “thing” for higher functioning people back then. They were constantly frustrated with me for not “knowing” things. I still feel like everyone “knows” things that I don’t! When I moved out I only ate a variation of 4-5 meals on rotation for years. I didn’t really know how to start learning to cook. I do get how ridiculous it all sounds. But that was my life. I went to work, I paid my bills. I thought that was what everyone did! I thought I was doing it all right at the time. I didn’t (don’t) have many friends and I have no siblings. My parents died before they were 70 (they had me late in life so I was only 29/33 when they died). I wish I could go back in time and be young again knowing what I know now. The internet helped me learn so much about life and other people. But that wasn’t a thing like it is now when I was growing up.

At the end of the day I can’t go back in time. I can’t change what I did, didn’t or should have known. I didn’t have parents who started a pension for me. I didn’t even think I needed start one. That’s done now. All I can do is hope I can either support myself in old age through the sale of my house or that I’ll qualify for a state pension.

I started my children’s pensions when they were born paying their child benefit into it
They should have well over 2 million in their pots by the time they your age with another 20-30 years to compound on top of that
I’m older than you so the information was out there. It just needed to be applied.

Falling prices a bit are fine it depends how far. And if they come back up again in the next 20 years. (Prices have come down before so it’s the general trend I’m worried about). I only have a small 2 bed house so it really isn’t big enough for a lodger as well. Plus I don’t do well with other people’s noise or living with other people generally to be honest (I already wear noise cancelling headphones all day and night if my neighbours are being particularly loud). The house is on the outskirts of London so like I said I was hoping in the future to sell up and move to a much cheaper area and use the profits as my pension. But if prices crash that much that that’s not possible then yes I will either be on benefits or living on state pension alone. I just need to face that really.

I guess yes I could retrain. But into what? Plus I don’t have thousands laying about to pay for it. Every other thread on here about young people is about how there are no jobs. That AI is taking over so many jobs. Companies are having 200+ applicants for entry level jobs. So what if I retrain (costing more money) and that job disappears into AI? What if I just cannot get a job in the new field? Because let’s face it if a company could employ a 25 year old or a 50 year old who would they choose? And there wouldn’t be much point me going into a minimum wage job simply for the pension because it will hardly grow into a decent amount at all in the 18/19 years I’ll have it. I couldn’t afford my mortgage on a minimum wage job anyway.

So realistically I’m just going to ride it out and whatever happens happens. I’ll enjoy what I can in life now just hope either property prices stay on the higher side or I die before I need to worry about it. Either option is fine.

@FoxesOverHere Property prices are already falling (generally). If you don't have young children living with you could you get a lodger or two? And you're not too old to retrain, nobody is.

To be honest it’s possible I’ll end up in the same position as the OP but for different reasons. I have zero pension as I’ve been self employed my whole life. Yes I could have started a private pension but I’ll be honest, it just never crossed my mind. I’m 46 now and was diagnosed as autistic as an adult. I’ve never really been good at “knowing stuff” if that makes sense. My parents never taught me about pensions and I just naively thought state pension was enough. I’ve learned in recent years that I should have started a pension but I don’t think I can really afford it. I obviously won’t have any employer contributions, and I don’t get sick or holiday pay so I need to fund those from my normal pay. I’ve seriously fucked up in the career I chose and being self employed I know that now. But at 46 I’m too old to retrain in a new career.

My plan is (was?) to sell my house and downsize to give myself extra income. I’m absolutely more than happy to do that. But everyone says property prices will likely fall/crash so I probably won’t get enough to fund hardly anything. So realistically I’ll be reliant on state pension only. (I’ve worked without any gaps at all since 16 so I’m on track for a full state pension at least. Even if they increase the years needed I’ll have done 50 years by 66). I think more education is needed for young people to start private pensions especially if in careers where they won’t get great (or any if self employed) workplace pensions. I honestly wish I could go back in time and not do my job. I have panic attacks regularly thinking about old age and of property prices crash. But I guess there’s nothing I can do about it now. Quite honestly I’m hoping for a short sharp illness to take me out before 70 like both my parents.

A really reliable, inexpensive to run car - definitely makes sense to me. You won't be able to afford to buy one after you retire so buying one before makes sense. You can draw down 25% tax free and use that for this.

Then you can do a flexible draw down on the rest. Again, white goods with a long lifespan is a sensible thing to do and buying a decent telly seems reasonable to me. I can't imagine that's going to cost more than £5k though.

However, before you do that, I would triple check that you'll be entitled to pension credit. It says here that the standard amount for pension credit is £238 per week: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pension-credit-technical-guidance/a-detailed-guide-to-pension-credit-for-advisers-and-others

But then it says here that the state pension is £240 per week:

https://www.gov.uk/new-state-pension/what-youll-get

I would definitely go and talk to CAB or Ge UK now as Age UK says that the pension credit team can look at historic spending and determine if they think it constitutes deprivation of capital.

First of all as of 1 May we have no fault evictions going out of the window so that will actually need to be a genuine reason why?
So that’s a positive as I see it.
Secondly, there is social housing available and the more people put pressure on the councils by joining the list. The more will be built.
I can think of one particularly very beautiful town whether there are empty Council flats might not be the best bit
But this is a town where a new build flat would cost you £400,000. There are Council properties available. They’re currently stood empty.
Because they’re not suitable for families, they won’t put them in them even temporarily