Dear Jeremy - I am still not going back to work.

[DoorstoManual]

Yours happily retired.

Dear Mr Cunt. Due to working in just over minimum wage jobs while bringing up children (the job had to work around them), paid childcare was pie in the sky. I intend to stop working at my earliest convenience, I am fed up of employers expectations that workers be available on a flexible contract Monday to Sunday 8am to 2100.
The poor pay and working conditions mean you and they can fuck right off.
Regards approaching 50.

Jezza means someone like me.

I left uni and worked in a well paid science career so started saving into my pension mid twenties. Gave up career when dc3 came along and retrained as a childminder when she started school.

I ran and enjoyed my (ofsted outstanding) childcare business until the pandemic when fair enough nobody wanted to pay for childcare when they couldn’t use it. So I closed doors.

So dear Jezza I could reopen my business but because my dh is from the eu we’ve made the decision to move to there. I will be going back to work but will be paying tax in another country. Like my engineer dh who currently pays top rate tax in the uk, will go freelance. I hope you got what you wanted from pursuing brexit because it’s made a lot of eu workers (and their families) feel like they don’t have a future in this country.

Do these posters think this is some kind of gotcha for Hunt? It's like a hedge funder posting like a proud rebel that he doesn't care about higher taxes, as he is officially tax resident overseas.
Good for him, and good for you, I guess, but the rest of us are still having to do those stupid jobs, and will be for decades, with crapper pensions.

Don't worry, you could observe that it's a fine day and someone on Mumsnet would be mortally offended.

I'm still working part time but I want to find another job. Any help I can be offered to get someone to employ me will be welcome. So thank you Jeremy

Dear Jeremy

I was politically neutered when I joined the Civil Service, but one of the things I am looking forward to doing when I retire is actively campaigning for the Labour Party, partly because of the mess you have made of the NHS. So I shall be too busy to take on any minimum-wage drudgery.

Thanks for the Civil Service pension though, it's actually not bad.

@furryfrontbottom

Thank you, I was tempted yesterday to list all the ill health I have suffered in the last ten years including two cancer Primaries one more life changing than the other and heart disease that limited me to one child, but I stepped back and just let the vipers at it.

I have seven years before I qualify for my state pension but I just couldn’t work anymore I was worn out.

So I make the most of a less than ideal situation, but hey if it it helped the vipers (TM Rhubarb or it might have been Custardo🤔) to have somewhere to vent their spleen it was a job well done.

But thank you to all the rational people on here.💋

Still not as good as an MP’s pension!

Dear Jeremy.

I would absolutely love to go back to work. I have a niche skillset which is very much in demand at the moment. Instead I'm sat at home youtubing various bread making recipes while simultaneously doing battle with the LA.

I'll need FT, reliable childcare for my child with complex needs first of all. So that'll be a minimum of 2 people with the skills to manage severely challenging behaviour. And all the things that go alongside that. FWIW, people who have those skills generally do private nannying work at around £20 an hour.

Secondly, you'll also need to find an employer that's totally OK about employing a disabled person. Just to warn you I am also completely unreliable. Years of caring for my child with bog all support has left me disabled. I have spinal issues, my joints have had it, I live with chronic pain, I have PTSD from the total lack of care my child has received, lying down and resting is an essential part of my day thanks to said dodgy joints and spine and there is lots more besides. If I am having a good day I walk with crutches. If I am having a bad day I use an electric wheelchair- that I had to fund myself by the way. If that isn't enough, when, not if one of my child's carers is off work I will be needed to care for my child.

Here's a novel idea. Why not sort out the complete shitshow that's the lack of education and childcare for disabled children/young people instead. I'm not the only parent I know who can't (not won't, important difference there) work because of the total lack of any sort of support for their complex needs children.

In the meantime, fancy a freshly baked baguette? I make a mean baguette it has to be said and I have a fresh batch ready to come out of the oven.

Dear Jeremy.

Can the free childcare please be backdated as I will be missing out due to my child turning 3 in May?

I am another pissed off parent who has had to scrape by for 3 years on sweet eff all and put off having another child due to the extortionate childcare fees.

Yours truly -TeaAndTwoSugars

It’s not so long ago that age and experience were considered of no relevance. I was in the police and on numerous occasions this was expressed by Government Policy. No chance

Same here, will have to work until I am too ill/old to do so….then what???

This is to the Tory party in general. You’ve never cared about workers before. Now there aren’t enough to run the country . What will you do now?

The Tories want us to work until we drop dead, it's cheaper that way. You know it makes sense.....

The French are up in arms at their retirement age potentially being raised from 62 to 64!
When the UK was part of the EU, how come we weren't on pension parity with them?

Female and 59, redundancy during the pandemic, and no employment offers despite massive experience and solid CV.
Downsized my house, paid off my mortgage and I've gone back to college as a mature student studying something that's always been a dream, on a full student loan that I will probably never earn enough to pay back.
So ...up yours Jeremy Hunt!! I'm now living my best life.

I'm a single parent still working at 68!

OP on the same page! I am 60 soon, but retired about 10 years ago. Was in marketing- bloody good at it actually and had a great salary and great pension. When it all went social media realised I was a dinosaur. Life VERY different now. Scraping by on pension from work, and trying to hold out until 67 - my NEW retirement age! Heard recently that a couple of my peers died 'in harness' and will never experience the joy of ignoring the alarm. JEREMY has zero impact upon my plans....

The 30 ish year olds saying that they will never retire.
No such thing as automatic enrollment for work pension when I started working.
We only started our pensions in our 30's.
Yes house prices are much more expensive and wages are crap.
But if you can save even a bit extra for retirement just do it.

Dear Jeremy,
Thanks to Covid, and the total lack of any real government understanding or funding of the NHS, I am the only member of my specialist team left working over the age of 55. I’m still here. and can’t afford to retire, thanks, which works really well for you. Not so well for me, as I’m now not as well as I would like, and struggle with my health on many days.
If I could have retired at 55, I would have, but may have considered part time, as this may have been better for me…since I look after both of my frail elderly parents when I’m not at work, they are a whisker above the at which they would get funded help. They can’t afford to pay, so it’s me.
It’s not just funded childcare that would help people get back to work, if they have retired. It’s funding for elder care and support, and specialist support for those caring for people or children with complex needs.
Fortunately for you, Jezz, lack of money isn’t something you need to worry about, nor the fact that you are knackered and in pain every day, but still need to work to make ends meet.
Ta very much anyway,
UoW

I think the point is that however much is in your pension, those of us who are younger expect the law to change so we can't get it until we're well beyond current retirement age. The 55 rule clearly isn't staying.

Which is why we are spending some of our savings for the first year. The rules of just about everything have changed many times since I started work.
You have to try your hardest to make sure you bullet proof all of your plans as much as possible so no matter who or which party is in charge at any given time can't touch, cancel or change your carefully laid plans.
And other things like recessions, interest rates, redundancies, illness, bereavement, break ups etc happen to most people at some point over a lifetime.

Dear Jez,

I'm not going back either. If I've been unlucky enough to inherit my father's illness I've only got about 5 years of healthy life left and I'll be gone in 10 so am living it up whilst I can. Work? Put it where the sun don't shine.

Dear Jezza,
go and speak to your old mate smug faced Cameron and ask him for the reasons he gave into some old Tories and their stupid referendum, taking us out of the EU and created job vacancies instead of forcing people who have worked hard all their lives back into work.

I’ve worked since I was 16 , and then as a nurse in short staffed wards, ruining my spine and health. I like the op have no intention of returning to work once I retire, they’ve had my blood sweat and tears.
I would take a post in the House of Lords, which seems to be all about sleeping and having lunch whilst getting paid and then talk about “ never retiring” but until that offer comes in you can stick your back to work.

Perhaps those old Tories would like be the first ones to give up the golf course and try the minimum wage jobs? Actually we should have a new law that none of them can ever retire and they should be made to do these jobs full time forever as a commitment to what they believe in. That's what they want for us.

Yep. I reckon any millennial wanting to retire before 70 is likely to have to do more than make sure they've got a good pension.