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.

DH has opted for several salary sacrifices each time he gets a pay rise. at first I thought he was mad as I tend to have a 'live now' attitude and he is the cautious one. But I realise he is actually being very wise. you get tax relief on it too so again, FREE MONEY!

redspider it’s the delayed gratification principle isn’t it. However tempting it seems to have more in your pocket in the here and now, it’s sensible to have a balance of enjoying the moment while also preparing for the future

I tried to bludgeon into my children the importance of saving. And told them never to take out a loan for anything that wasn't life-or-death essential.

Lots of people stick their head in the sand about saving for the future but are quite happy to drive around in an expensive car and live for today rather than tomorrow. Idiotically, I've been that person myself and I can't believe I was that stupid.

Yes and I am very glad he balances my more impulsive nature. I have always contributed to my own pension since my 20s and am on course to have full NI contributions in a few years(I'm 48) and am so much more aware now. I will be advising my DDs to start as soon as they earn. DD18 already saves half of her earnings from her Saturday/holiday work so it's good to give that message early.

sicario do you mean the morons responsible for social services, environmental services, planning, libraries, leisure centres, parks, etc?

May I respectfully point out (and I'm LGPS but not local government) that such schemes are part of the overall benefit package. I decided to work locally for family reasons and my salary because of that took an overall hit of about 40%. My counterparts in the private sector earn between £25k to £50k pa more in central London.

My DH was self employed for much of his working life but earned four or five times the average government or local authority lawyer but no: sick pay, holiday pay, employer's contribution, etc. He decided in the early 00's that for him a pension was a mug's game. Instead he borrowed and bought three one bedroom flats. The rents paid the mortgages and will be part of his pension.

I must have been such a moron to marry him

@Sicario "the morons" working in local government include social workers, trading standards officers and environmental health officers. They all tend to be better educated than the general population with undergraduate degrees plus post graduate qualifications and all earn less in the public sector than they would do privately. In fact I know ex-social workers who more than doubled their salaries by going into the private sector to do other things. The pensions are just a "perk" to try and keep them in the roles but it doesn't work.

@Sicario loans shouldn't only be taken out in life and death situations but when it is of long term benefit.

Examples of loans taken out that should have long term benefit are student loans, car loans, mortgages and annual travelcard/rail pass loans. You can obviously take out loans for these things but not do it wisely.

Just ensure that you weren't 'contracted out' during any of those 35 years -teachers,local government,health services etc- or your NI contributions will not fully cover you.

I don't think that's true. Being contracted out did not reduce your basic state pension entitlement. It did reduce your extra entitlement, which would theoretically be replaced by the other pension your contracted out contributions went into.

Agree with the last two posts. You can’t cherry pick the best bits from each sector... a public sector final salary pension, but with the higher earnings of the private sector, and with the freedom of being self employed!

Doubtless I could have earned significantly more in the private sector but the public sector pension was a big draw for me.

Also worth pointing out that pension reforms have hit everywhere; it’s not just the state pension age rises which are frustrating for people. My teaching pension is very good but my god we pay a lot in.... my contributions have pretty much doubled over recent years, while the amount I’ll get out remains the same. And younger teachers will have the added hit of not being able to access their pension until they’re older.

The fact is, with people living longer, pension schemes were unsustainable as they were so the reforms are painful but necessary. I’d love to not be paying over 11% of my hard earned income in every month, it’s been a big hike up over recent years but I’m not naive enough to think the money tree can just bail us all out in our older age

I have had a pension since I started work at 16. One of the reasons I won't go part time even though we could afford it is that it will impact my pension.

I see posts with various reasons for not having a pension but then it's their future not mine so if they want to survive on just the state one then that's up to them.

Does anyone have further information on the proposed increases in retirement age for those born after April 1970? I know it hasn't been legeslate yet but it would be nice to have an idea of what I'm aiming for. I haven't been able to find anything.

Caddy and- Currently 67 but possibly rising to 68.
All the information is on the govt website and fairly straightforward. You can check the current situation by entering your date of birth

Cadsuane bloody autocorrect!

I have checked that but wanted to know if there was further information than 67 but under review. As a teacher the number of months extra could move me from one academic year to another if you see what I mean.

I am 64 and when I retire at just short of 66 I will only get the state pension.

No one ever talked about private pensions when I was young. I am not sure I even knew they existed. When I was about 40 an advisor came to where I worked to discuss pensions. He told me it was pointless starting one at my age as I would have to put in a really large sum each month.

@PettyContractor it is true.

I was contracted out and so will need more than 35 years contributions to get the new full state pension. I think it's only about three extra years in my case. You can check online.

www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/the-state-pension-rules-and-changes-explained

This might be because you were ‘contracted out’ of the Additional State Pension at some time before 6 April 2016. If you were then you and your employer would have paid National insurance at a lower rate than the full standard rate, and there may be a deduction from your new State Pension starting amount to reflect this. This can even be the case if you have 35 years of National Insurance contributions or credits – because some were lower, they won’t add up to give you the full new State Pension.

However, you can continue to build up your State Pension to the maximum (currently £168.60 per week) up until you reach State Pension age. You can do this even if you already have 35 years of National Insurance contributions or credits.

I've got a stupidly small pension from an old job, can I move it in to an isa?

@bingowingsandthings why would you want to?

For most people the answer would be no. There are strict rules about drawing down a pension (which you’d have to do to put it in an ISA). Currently, you’d need to be over 55. Even if you are, withdrawing it could trigger something called MPAA which would limit all your future payments into a pension, for life.

An ISA only offers you the same investment options as a pension - they are both tax ‘wrappers’ - not investments in themselves. For example, I have a pension and an ISA that both hold the same investment funds.

There are differences (pay into a pension - you get tax relief, pay into an ISA and you don’t pay tax on the interest earned). So there are reasons to choose one over the other. But once the money is already in a pension, why do you want to move it?

"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"

It's not just women who have to wait until they are 66 who were told they would retire at 60. Those born in the 1960's were told the same thing and have have to wait until 67 before receiving a state pension. We're all in the same boat.

@ohtheroses in 1999 I took an endowment mortgage and when I raised reservations with the ifa that the fund may not pay out as expected, I was assured the financial companies had previous over estimated the fund growth but it was a known issue and the companies were more realistic in their projections. 5 years later we remortgaged and cashed in the endowment as it wasn't going to pay out sufficiently 😢

@ooooohbetty: For men born in 1960, the state pension age has only risen by 15 months, to 66 and 3 months (DP was born in April 1960).

He's five years younger than me and will have to work 15 months over his expected retirement age. I will have to work for 6 years over my expected retirement age.

Mind you, the govt website still says "under review". I'll combust with rage if they put it up again before my 66th birthday, and then they won't have to pay me anything.

It's only £5k and I've not paid in to it since I left the job years ago. I just worry I'll forget about it when retirement age comes and thought it'd be easier to have all my savings in one place (which is my lifetime isa)

Lakielady that’s because of the inequality between state pension ages in the first place though