Is anyone going to be living just on state pension when they retire?

[Shinyseas]

It looks like I will be. Never really earned enough to put money aside for a pension, married someone who was terrible with money and at the age of 51, have youngish DC so even though I’m earning better money now, I’ve got to get them through teenage years, then off to Uni. All feels too late to save anything decent. I’ll be early 60s before my youngest leaves home.

When I checked this week, my private pension is set to give me 1.5k a year 🙁

People do survive on the state pension I know - but it must be very very tight.

@Blossomtoes I don't know why you are raising your eyes like that.

My expenses have SOARED since retirement (as I now have time to see people and do things now I’m not working).

Apparently, it’s quite usual for expenditure to increase in tbe first couple of years of retirement (as I people start to do those things working made impossible) and then the expenditure lowers to below what was spent when working.

< appreciate all this is irrelevant to OP’s position >

Not the case unfortunately. If you get the basic state pension, which is £212 a week (about £11,500 a year) it puts you over the limit of being eligible for pension credit.

To get pension credit, your income has to be less than £173.75 a week.

It's only really much older people who are on the older state pension (which is less) that are eligible for pension credit.

Anyone who has paid all their NI stamps will get the newer state pension at £212 a week.