45% of working age people not saving toward a pension at all

If rent is a struggle could they not move home for a few years and save ? So many young adults moving out of home too soon without the means to financially support themselves properly. Are they in a house share or living alone?

If you are struggling financially then you have little choice but to think of the now rather than the future. Bills need to be paid now so for people struggling financially, those current bills will take priority because your landlord isn't going to take kindly to ''Sorry, I didn't pay the rent this month because I saved it for my pension instead''.

I know! She needs to do what a stranger on the internet tells her to, they’re bound to know more than she does about her life!

Most will be women who cannot afford as they are single handedly paying for childcare. All the while the husband puts into his....

So many young people are struggling to pay rent and eat. They simply can’t afford to pay into pensions.

Both my young adult kids are working for the NHS at entry level jobs. They work hard and after paying for their rent, bills and car (got to travel between sites), they genuinely have little left and feel hard done by compared with some others f their friends who haven't gone to uni.

When I find them that at least they are starting to contribute towards their pension, they look at me like I am an alien. I don't blame them, pension was a very far minded concept in my 20s too. I'm so so glad I just paid into it young and didn't question it so that I was able to retire early and go PT in a much less stressful and rewarding job.

I do get though that they can't see it now as I myself do. I hope it will be worth it for them when they reach older age and they can look forward to a comfortable retirement.

This was me in a similar way. I was a single parent and the father of my child managed to evade paying any child support and I needed every penny I earned to cover the bills. I worked part time when they were very little, no help with child care in those days (and yes I do think that child care these days is a staggering expense and there needs to be more help) and at times I was so skint I had to skip meals. Also back in the mists of time ery few work places offered a pension scheme so I had the double bind of no money and no scheme other than through a private provider which was unaffordable Fast forward and I could only afford to start paying in at a much later stage in my life, but thank heaven I was able to as the only reason I get by as a retired person is because I have a small pension alongside my state one. With the cost of everything these days I do not know how many people could afford to put in an extra 10%. A lot can barely cover essential costs.

Imagine not being able to pay your rent/mortgage/fuel bills right now.

The discussion I was listening to says you need to be contributing a minimum of 10% over your working life. I imagine it would be pretty difficult to mandate people pay that much in, when so many are struggling.

What could you do to rectify it? It won’t magically change! You need to be proactive!

We have a go with our teens

Then they come out with such starry eyed flourishes of “well I will work and pay tax then die”

oh ny lord

they forget we probably have to bank roll them for another decade at least!
to us staring open mouthed like they know what a bill actually is

although there is a glimmer of hope once they were earning and spending their own money on fizzy drinks they soon figured out it was “oh my god mum” much cheaper at the local newsagent than the local supermarket express - progress!

they will enter the world of rent bills and tax soon enough and then live with it for decades - let them drink cost effective Coke Zero whilst they can!

Another one living in a bubble who thinks 80 quid a month is nothing.

But imagine you and DH with no resources when retired and no way of doing anything about it

I’m not surprised at this at all.
if you earn enough not to get benefits you don’t get much help with uni for your teens, no child benefit, have to pay for food, drink, escalating bills, I’ve paid child care, not worked due to a disabled child, so reduced to one income but same bills, never been able to put anything into a pension I’m just coping with day to day tbh.

What do you think life will be like as a pensioner with no resources and being too old to do anything about it.

This is the third wildly different estimate of what £80 a month pension gets you

I’m well aware of that but thanks anyway!

I would need to save at least 400 percent of my income each month to end up with a decent pension pot. This obviously isn't happening and hardly any saving is happening because I have to fix my leaky roof, replace my knackered windows and assorted other pricey home repairs. As wages have stagnated for the past decade at least I can't do more.

I’ve seen this figure bandied about and I don’t get it. My pension pot isn’t quite at this level, but it will yield me significantly more than the state pension.

Of course I know how expensive rents are in some areas. I rented for years in my twenties. Could only ever afford a room in a shared house! No one should be paying 51% of their wages on rent and if they are, they either they live alone when they could rent a room or they are living in a area in which accommodation is much too expensive for their salary. I could never afford afford to live in London for example. So I don’t!

Saving £80 a month in your pension from the age of 20, with an employer’s matched contribution would get you about around £1000 a month in pension. That would effectively double what you get on state pension. Assuming you have a mortgage paid off, which many do, £2k a month isn’t overly shabby, and is definitely better than not having it. You may also be eligible for pension credit, and income support.

Those who say it would be impossible for most people to save in a pension because they have no spare money are being rather economical with the truth. There will absolutely be people who are on a minimum wage and might struggle to have anything to spare at all.

According to the ONS, despite the cost of living, travel remains a priority for people with less than 20% of people opting to have a cheaper U.K. holiday or going without. Annually, as a nation we spend £78.6 billion on overseas travel annually. We spend £63.75 billion on takeaway food. £27.4 billion on alcohol to drink at home and £24 billion in pubs. We spent £14 billion in pensions. We spend 12 times as much on holidays, drink and takeaway food than we do on pensions.

The problem we have in the U.K. isn’t that people can’t afford to save in a pension, it’s that it isn’t made a priority. Nobody would ever suggest you give up every nice thing in order to save for a pension, but for most people who are working an average job on an average wage, £80 quid a month isn’t not a major sacrifice, and when your employer matches your contribution it’s money for your future you are leaving on the table.

For those who are parents, the best 18th birthday gift you can give your child is to start a pension for them.

The writing is on the wall that they are going to start to withdraw life lengthening procedures. I already happens with the postcode lottery.

Obviously, we had the odd even back in Victorian times that made it to 85 but they need to become the exception rather than the rule again in order to make the economic system work. That will take precedence over anything else.

This. I certainly don’t have enough to save for a pension.

I think it’s really daft the way people pretend we can cram a lifetime of experience into the school curriculum and that some how 15 year olds will remember it, understand it, and won’t be able to make the mistakes every generation has made before them 🙄

There’s old age and then there’s old age though. Many many people are physically and mentally fit enough to work into their 70’s. I’m in farming where many ex farm workers retire full time aged around 65 but pull a 40-60 hour week self employed in the summer months well into their late 70’s. Great bit of income for them, keeps them busy.

There are clearly a huge number of people who can’t afford to save on a monthly basis. But a lot of people who are self smolyed have other retirement plans. I’m technically one of those people not saving but will be fine in retirement. But I also wonder if at the other end of the spectrum the IHT tax changes are having an impact. Our advisers have definitely shifted from pensions.