To be worried how I will manage to work until I am 67?

[brasty]

I am in my mid fifties. I already get more tired than I used to when younger. I wonder how I am going to manage to work full time until I am 67 years old. And continue to do my share of cooking, cleaning, family stuff and actually having some fun.

OP - my heart goes out to you.

I just missed all this and was able to retire at 60. There is absolutely NO WAY I could have worked to 67 - OH is chronically ill and needs me here - I have had various health hiccoughs too.

I do think this is such a short-sighted policy. If all the grandmothers are working till 67+, who will be caring for the really elderly, or for the children while their parents work? Who will be doing all voluntary work that keeps society ticking along?

And, given that realistically health tends to deteriorate and energy reduce, what about the cost of sick pay?

I would not want to be a full time teacher at 65; I would not want to be operated on by a 67 year old brain surgeon.

My pension is tiny, as I took time out to look after my children before the crediting of contributions started. As to my pension from LA (worked as a SW) that too is vanishingly small. Luckily my OH has a slightly higher pension and we are able to manage.

I panic about this too. I'm just about to return to full time teaching after 6 years of part time while my kids were small. Im already exhasted. I can actually see myself dying in a classroom! It's hard enough at 46 let alone in another 20 years. Plus I can see how my academy chain is just pushing out everyone over 40. Being so horrible to the older expensive (at oooh, 27k) that they leave and they can employ young unqualified at 20k instead. I've moved to a new school which will hopefully be better but I can't carry on.like this forever. No academy chain will be employing non slt members over 45. It's depressing.

I take great offence at the sanctimonious comments from people who find themselves in positive housing, income and pension conditions. Smug and callous comments the lot of them that only act to reveal your own failings rather than achievements.

The medal for achievement goes to all of us who have held together families and homes despite a wide variety of negative factors.

I digress.

I am 50 and after lunches in my f/t job, there are days where I literally cannot think. I just cannot process - and I have to carefully pick what tasks I choose that I can actually do! God knows how much worse that's going to get.

And for many of us, the age you receive your pension WILL be the age at which you can retire - and it won't be a matter of choice.

Plus, good luck with the idea of 'downsizing'. I tried this about 4 years ago. You'd be lucky to get a mortgage, that's the problem. Lenders don't care how exemplary our mortgage paying record has been. They don't care that you've consistently been in employment over 80% of the last 6 years and typically increased your income with each job - none of that counts for anything (particularly if you've worked temping, fixed term or agency/umbrella).

So I'm stuck with a 3 storey house but I'd be unable to move anywhere else in this area unless I sold this and moved miles away where I could buy outright. But even then, what would I live on as a not even full state pension isn't going to pay my bills. Do I have to force my children to remain at home with me and pay me rent?! Do I kick them out so I can have people in who can pay me rent? Do I hope that I'm so ill that I'd qualify for some type of illness-related benefit (and do those types of benefits even apply when you're past working age)?

It doesn't bare thinking about.

What do I do - I've not even got the full amount in my state pension - but I haven't got the £4k needed to top it up - do I forfeit my mortgage and lose my house just so I can say well, I topped up my state pension aren't I clever, because obviously it would't be clever would it.

I want to know who is going to employ us all into our 60s.

In teaching it is difficult to get a job after 40 and 50 is ancient. There was a recent reorganisation in my area and everyone in their late 40s was a goner .

As said upthread, the pensions situation isn’t anyone’s ‘fault ‘, it’s a matter of demographics. A girl’s life expectancy at birth is now into the mid-80s. She may not start proper paid work until her 20s, meaning that her working life even if she retires in her late 60s, will take up barely half of the total lifespan. Even if we assume that old old age doesn’t bring massive care/health costs, she would have to set aside half her wages each month to have the same income in her non-working years (or to set aside for her replacement child in his early years). As it is, she must also allow (or someone else must make that choice for her) for those massive old age costs, and the costs of providing for those who can’t or won’t provide for themselves (not that I’m conflating the 2 - that’s a whole ‘mother thread!)

The current system was set up on the basis that lots of people would die either just before or just after retiring: the average life expectancy at 70 was around 1year. It’s now about 15 years . And those extra years are disproportionately spent in expensive ill health.

(Work was on average much physically harder in the early 1900s than nowadays too. )

So if someone doesn’t want to retire in their late 60s or beyond , they have a few options. Lobby government to stop providing expensive life-saving medicine and/or care. Retire the age they want, run down their savings and Refuse life-saving or life-prolonging medical treatment after a certain age for themselves. Find some like-minded people to live with and reduce living costs. But there simply isn’t a magic bullet solution to this.

What savings...

I work for the NHS in a highly demanding job - too young for the ‘good’ pensions....I’m errrr nervous.

Hilariously today I was at a big Public Health meeting where we got shown all the projections for the population.....I live in a county popular for retirement.

Roll forward and many areas here will have the MAJORITY of the population over 65.

They said this would be good as they could retire and put effort back into the community so we will need to spend less . Errr no the rate things are going they will all be still at work!

I honestly have no idea how we are meant to cope with this aging population without migration - but oh yeah, they don’t want foreigners......

I meant to add I’m a single parent (no fault of my own - married a lovely man who had a breakdown and bailed....) with a disabled child who will never not be a dependent.

Oh well....just keep on going I supppse!

Roll forward and many areas here will have the MAJORITY of the population over 65
being part of a majority is probably a good thing, a majority has clout...can get it's voice heard

I honestly have no idea how we are meant to cope with this aging population without migration - but oh yeah, they don’t want foreigners......

Good point. The problem is only going to get worse as the Uk birth rate is declining & will probably reduce further. Less young people, less taxes to collect.

I wrote a very long and emptional post about how terrified I feel about this as well and how the sanctimonious people on here who seem to think I should have magically found money that I don't have for my pension can frankly go screw themselves. I hope they never find themselves in unfortunate circumstances that completely over turn every thing they've worked and saved for and seem to have sold their humanity and empathy which explains how they are so well set up for old age compared to the rest of us.
But then my phone ate it. So this is what it is ;)

Pensions should just form part of your total investments - there’s property, cash, other investments etc.

Ever read 'The Mandibles'? What's scary is how it could possibly come true, a dystopian place without a single shot fired, all if it caused by financial collapse and a majority population of elderly people.

Pensions should just form part of your total investments - there’s property, cash, other investments etc.

There you go Brasty, have you remembered to include your property portfolio when thinking about retirement?

Pensions should just form part of your total investments - there’s property, cash, other investments etc.

Of course! What good advice, Raving. I'm sure the OP will find it very useful...

Raving ODFUD

Can you take out a high interest deposit type investment if left untouched for a certainperiod of time. To the poster who said they would never retire, it might not be an option if you get ill or if your OH needed you to be their full time carer.

I honestly have no idea how we are meant to cope with this aging population without migration - but oh yeah, they don’t want foreigners......

Er, ever heard of a pyramid scheme? Because that’s exactly what you’re suggesting. Unless they are of the nationality Nonexistian, who never get old themselves, or return to Nonexistia at the end of their working lives and don’t draw a UK pension (oh, and don’t send every spare penny to Nonexistia during their working lives rather than keeping it in the UK economy)...then of course the ‘foreigners ‘ will just add to the ageing population themselves.

The countries that are best weathering the ‘demographic bulge ‘are those that 1) saw it coming and planned for it - including making some unpopular choices and 2) didn’t try to ‘import ‘ a temporary solution to the problem.

Oh I totally forget about my property portfolio and other investments. How would I cope without the advice here.

thehodgeofthehedge

Yeah, have loads of money leftover for investments, but of course, blame people who don't. All their fault for not making the right lifestyle choices.

Oh silly me. I forgot about the property portfolio, duh! I’ll just go tell DH to relax and rely on that.

Hang on. I can’t. He’s gone back to work instead of retiring, because we cannot afford to lose his income.

I feel for you OP. Where I used to work, well known high street store, pension was based on the working hours in your last 7 years. So a colleague would have worked 30 years full time, but if she changed to part time her pension would be calculated on part time rate. She was utterly exhausted but had to keep working FT. I don’t know how they got away with it.

Another problem is that there is less and less work that needs doing.

Not just because of automation, but also because we don't have as much that needs manufacturing.

I'm not going to link to anything because I don't want to provide sources that people feel are biased, but for those interested I'd recommend searching for "peak stuff", and choosing whichever site you think is most reliable.

Plus the fact that inadequate collection of tax means that a lot of money is being siphoned out of the economy all the time.

However you feel about wealth inequality and corporations etc etc, in neutral terms, one of the biggest problems with a small number of people being insanely wealthy is that their money doesn't get spent. It just sits there.

All of this together is creating a perfect storm.

As far as I'm aware, people who have ideas about how to deal with it are suggesting things like lowering retirement age, to create more flexibility for older people and open up more jobs for younger ones, and shortening the working week.

This is why politics has got more radical in recent years. It's had to.

The employed population is overworked, and (mostly) both underpaid and in an unstable position due to economic, technological and political change.

The unemployed population is too large. Especially given that the workload of so many people in employment is too high. That's ridiculous.

If we did share employment out more equally, we probably don't have enough real work to go round in order to maintain current pay levels, as the work isn't worth as much.

I have no political loyalty at all. I did vote Labour - after a lot of thought - at the last election. But I'll listen to anyone who's got an actual plan for looking at this situation properly, rather than - at best - tinkering around the edges. Which is what raising the retirement age is.

I wouldn't be surprised if this disaster rumbles on, supported by successive governments whose members benefit from the status quo. But I wouldn't be surprised if something serious gives, either. I just worry that if it does, the human cost of it will end up being paid by the most disadvantaged.

I'd rather the Government - any Government, I don't care - put a real radical plan for restructuring how employment works in place now, before it gets to that point.

If you do have poor health, it might be worth looking at enhanced annuities or taking your pension pot out differently. They changed the rules a couple of years ago.

It is something that young people need to consider, especially when dropping to part time hours or giving up work when you’ve got younger children - this will often catch up with you at some point.

It depends which social model you’d prefer if you think that the state should provide more or not. If they put more into welfare and it’d be a bill big, where would that come from?