Women and pensions

[Gin96]

AIBU to think women are short changed when it comes to pensions? The amount of women I speak to who don’t have a private pension. A lady I work with is 67, she only has a state pension and can’t afford to retire. Ladies in there 40’s with no pension at all, they don’t think it’s a problem as the state will provide for them. Why are we not taught in school about finances and pensions? As I get nearer to retirement age I am suddenly taking an interest and it is a mind field trying to work it out.

I think it’s 12 now

Here you go

What are the credits for parents and carers associated with child benefit?

If you are aged 16 or over and claim child benefit for looking after a child under the age of 12, you may automatically receive Class 3 National Insurance credits that count towards your state pension and some bereavement benefits. Note that you may receive these credits automatically if you have claimed child benefit but elected not to receive any payments because you or your partner are subject to the High Income Child Benefit Charge (HICBC).

Thank you so much, I thought it was 18.

At least I know where I stand. Will hopefully be back in the workplace by the time youngest is that age.

Your welcome, if I can help one woman get a chance of getting her full state pension I’ll be happy 😊

I think the biggest issue with women’s pensions at the moment is the generation of women who spent their life beliving the would get their state pension at 60 and planning as such only to then be told a few years before no it’s going to be 66 now

^^ This

I work part time and when people ask why ( like actually wanting to isnt a valid reason) I bring up pensions as a massive reason why. I actually over pay in mine because who knows what my life is going to be like in 40 plus years. Also my husband is going to have a great pension because he has worked full time and didn't need to reduce hours due to having children but what's to say we are going to be together when we are retiring? Even those who are sahm should be taking out private pensions and putting money into it. It's so important!

Talking about pensions when you are young is boring, but necessary

I am so glad that I started paying into a company pension in my 20s

Look at how compound interest functions

I pay X into my work pension & my employer adds the same contributions for FREE, yes FREE MONEY !
FREE MONEY
FREE MONEY
I also receive free life insurance !

You can look up your state pension, how much you have contributed, how much you will receive, what date etc if you are in UK on www.gov.uk and you will need your National Insurance number

You should also take note of your husbands private pension because if you do ever divorce you are entitled to a percentage of this.

Only if your husband has one @gin96
In my case I am the earner and in a divorce he’d get half of mine. We aren’t all kept women!

I pay 7% my employer pays 10% so well worth doing and tax free

@Gin96

You should also take note of your husbands private pension because if you do ever divorce you are entitled to a percentage of this.

And vice versa depending on circumstances. If the woman is the bigger earner, or the man was a SAHP, the man may get some of her pension in a divorce.

I was more talking about SAHP’s whether a man or woman, they should be entitled to it if they have sacrificed their earnings to look after children

But that is proportionately women

It's a bloody minefield ime, opted out based on poor advice, 1 st pension got at 20 wound up 8 years later, choice included leaving funds in place, no interest just monthly charges applied for the next 40 years so I transferred the money out relinquishing 25% of the value for doing so. At the same time an endowment which i was spent 10yrs saving into, didn't perform as expected and instead of the dream car at 30 i struggled to buy a bike. First mortgage was an endowment .... Then the endowment bubble burst....... Took a stakeholder pension as fees were minimal, I pay in every month but expect it will be another dud!

I am nearly 59. I k ew pension investment was a good idea in my 20s. I have always invested the maximum.

Returned to work 2003 after a seven year break and joined the LGPS. When in 2013 I changed jobs to another LGPS provider I transferred everything and purchased a total of 24 years. I presently have 3/4 of a full occupational pension at 60. I hope to work for about another 4/5 years and welcome the fact I do not have to retire at 60. It was ground breaking legislation for a mid 40s second careerist. I am on target also to get a full state pension at 67.

If you start a pension asap early in your career it is money not missed. I do not understand how people reject free money in the context of employer contributions.

All of life is about planning and good judgement. I have thirty something colleagues who don't contribute to the LGPS - no dc but property owning with partners. They are stupid imo and I'm speaking women who are post grad educated.

We are born, we die, there comes a time when we will not work but will need to live. It really isn't rocket science. A lottery ticket won't do it and nor will hope.

Landlubber - you should be able to log into your pension online & see how it is performing or request a yearly statement

My mum had her (state) retirement age moved twice, the second time at short notice. She worked and paid into a occupational pension since the 80s so has some choices now. It wasn't great what the government did.

I might be eligible to buy some extra years 'stamp' so thanks for that tip, I will look into it. I've always paid into my schemes when I've worked but I haven't always worked.

Landlubber did you not weigh up the risks and look at the small print? I knew in the mid 80s that endowment mortgages could go down as well as up and they'd been going up for a v long time. On the basis of what goes up must go down I didn't do it. I found the quotes the other day, the monthly payments would have been less and the bank advised an endowment was the best option. Overleaf stood the warning. Had I gone ahead I think I'd have been compensated on the level of persuasion which was clearly mis selling. But five years into my first mortgage and I could see the loan starting to be chipped away.

I know some older people who worked. Only the males at their companies were offered the opportunity to pay into a company pension

How times have changed

However, reading some other recent posts, I see some young people choose to work part time & I assume not pay into a pension. (Assume no health or child care issues)
Better to work when young & healthy, than old & poor health

One of my work pensions, now actually appears on my online banking My Accounts page, so I can see exactly how much is there

Auto pension enrollment - opt out of free money ?

Re the offer of the small stamp, my mums the same age as yours and clearly saw it was a raw deal so continued paying full stamp and topped up whenever necessary.
All women need to take full responsibility for their own pension provision and aim for the best they can get in their circumstances. It doesn't take a great mind to calculate has much you'll have to spend off the back of a state pension. The state pension has never been enough to support a lifestyle, it's only tried to cover the basic living costs and no more. All women should have had a private pension to top up the state one in order to not have to drop their standard of living. That's a basic issue I dont feel most women get.

ohtheroses
‘All of life is about planning and good judgement. I have thirty something colleagues who don't contribute to the LGPS - no dc but property owning with partners. They are stupid imo and I'm speaking women who are post grad educated.’

Agree with this. I’ve been shocked at how little some of my (intelligent) colleagues know about pensions, and some of the misunderstandings that people have. I’ve seen colleagues genuinely shocked when they reach their 50s and realise that working part time has seriously impacted their pension. Or women who think they’ll be fine because their husband has a great pension and don’t actually realise that if he dies first, they won’t get the whole lot transferred to them.

I know it’s a lot of information to take in but surely as adults we have a responsibility to educate ourselves in the basics? And also apply the ‘common sense test’ too ... eg: if you are paying in 10% of a part time salary surely logic tells you that you’re going to accumulate less than 10% of a full time salary?

Reminds me a little of those recent cases where people invested large sums of money (in some cases pension lump sums) into savings schemes promising interest rates of up to 8% or so: way higher than other savings accounts. Why would you not read up about it and see that the investments made with these savings were very risky, and these companies were not covered by the FSCS? If something looks too good to be true it probably is!

Financial issues aren’t the most exciting thing to read up on, I get that, but it’s so important.

That’s unfair @ ontherose as a lot people got caught out with endowment mortgages. Early pensions were very dodgy, Robert Maxwell comes to mind. Pensions are a gamble but not as bad as they used to be, i’d prefer to have some sort of plan though

I totally agree that each individual should take their own responsibility for their own finances

I keep a close eye on my finances
Even setting up regular savings, tax free ISAs, pensions, share saves, other assets all add into the pot

I spend some, I save some

I find it really difficult to square the imbalance between public sector workers' pensions - which are massively subsidised by the taxpayer - and everybody else. Public sector workers will be well set, with guaranteed gold-plated pensions funded in the main by the taxpayer.

For anyone who doesn't work in the public sector, they will have the state pension, which is a pittance, plus anything they have saved for themselves.

I think there is something very wrong with this balance. It seems inherently unfair. Certain professions - nurses, doctors, teachers, police, military service etc - yes, absolutely. But the morons working in local government? Anyone who's ever been an MP? You just take a look at the size of their taxpayer-funded pensions. Fuck that.

Ladies in there 40’s with no pension at all, they don’t think it’s a problem as the state will provide for them.

People need to take responsibility for their own financial future. It's up to all of us to educate ourselves (if we haven't been taught it at school) on financial services. I work in the public sector and can honestly say I'm the only person in our entire team who understands our pension scheme and the benefits it offers. That's because I've sat and read up about it because it's bloody important. Anyone can spend a few hours on the internet getting to understand what is available to them and do something about it. That said, I have a great deal of sympathy for people who cant actually afford to pay in, that's a different scenario.

It's a bit like the endowment scandal. There were multiple warnings about policies being insufficient to pay of a mortgage at the end of the term, but people still seemed to find it a huge shock despite being written to and told there was likely to be a problem.