Can anyone live on a state pension?

[whatisforteamum]

I've never had a pension,bought a house on a low income so scrimped and scraped to make ends meet and paid the mortgage with no outstanding debt .Dh put into a small pension over 30 yrs.
We are in our 50s and 60s and feel the thought of living on the state pension daunting.
We do have life savings and I will call the government pension advice line.
AIBU to think the state pension won't cover the bills of most pensioners?
Can anyone survive on just state pension.

BTW if anyone, or their mum or aunts is receiving a tiny (as in single £ a week) pension based on their husbands , ex husbands, contribution get their entitlement checked out. Over 50,000 women are estimated to be owed something like £5 billion pounds because the system is so complicated they have fallen through the net. You need to claim it, they are not likely to come looking for you.

@bojo7
I've just had a look at mine.

It says I have 19 full years of contributions and then underneath 32 years to contribute.

That 32 years means I have 32 years left until retirement age (so I have 32 years left to contribute to my pension).

Is that what yours might mean?

On another page it says I have 19 full years and need to contribute another 14 to get the full pension- this makes more sense although doesn't quite add up to 35.

My mum is going to be better off in retirement than she is now. She lives in a mortgage free studio flat only runs a little fiat panda. She only needs £400 a month. She works part time 12 hours a week and earns £460 when she retires with retirement and pension credit she will be on £800 a month! She's got two years to retirement and we are trying to get her to retire a bit earlier as she's copd and we want her to slow down.

So glad I started paying into private work pension in my 20s (compound interest & contributions from employer)

I only have a couple of years until I have 35 qualifying state pension years.
I've checked & I can see exactly how much National Insurance I've paid in each year
I am forecast to receive the full state pension

Still working & paying into private pension

I know people who have no private pension

None of us know how long we have to live

I save some & spend some now while I am younger

The very elderly people that I know, spend more in their old age due to needing extra assistance or care.

Ageing population

saraclara
*If either has taken time out of work to look after children, or paid only the married woman's rate of stamp when that was a thing, that figure could plummet.

I spent only a very few years as a SAHM, but it's knocked my pension prediction down a fair bit.*

?? Full years spent at home caring for children are credited as NI contribution years.

Not relying on anyone else to fund my retirement

Full years spent at home caring for children are credited as NI contribution years

They didn’t used to be. They definitely weren’t when mine was tiny.

Sara lara
Only if you claim child benefit
To automatically claim the National Insurance contributions
Can claim, without claiming the money

You can check yourself via www.gov
Uk using your National Insurance number
You login to view your personal NI profile

Don't guess - CHECK !

I can see my 30+ years
But I worked

@quittingteacher, maybe. It says that my current entitlement, as of April this year is about £167 and it will reach the maximum in three years. I have more than three years to reach state pension age.

@Hopeisnotastrategy, thank you. I will probably try to work out the effect. I thought I was quite pension-aware, but clearly not!

Thanks also the person who mentioned state pension could be deferred for 9 weeks for a 1% increase. I did not know that either, and this might be useful if I continue to work beyond state pension age, which I hope I will be able to do.

@SafeMove

Sorry, probably not the best place to ask on your thread OP but I have accessed the link re the state pension forecast. On my records it states that between 1998-99 and 1999-2000 I did not make the full contributions. I was in my third year at university and was on a work placement, so I couldn't work like I did in my first and second year. Then I graduated, got a graduate job, moved to London, a traumatic incident occurred, I got diagnosed with PTSD and could not work for a year. I was a psychiatric inpatient on and off for most of 2000, recovered and worked since then. I didn't get SSP or anything as I was too poorly to claim it, my parents financially supported me in the few weeks when I was not in hospital. Will this affect my state pension? I have one local government and one NHS pension too? Thanks everyone. Panicking a bit!

ask for a state pension check ( from the DWP, not a paid service) and find out how many qualifying years you 'll have if it won't be enough for full SP, and find out if you can make additional "contribution years" (a cash payment)

A person who was contracted out for some years will have their pension reduced by some unclear amount

however, for those years, they will have been contributing to a company or private scheme. If the growth has been good and the charges not excessive, it will deliver a pension that may exceed the deductions from your state pension. Hopefully it was not a scheme that has been looted.

An annuity is unlikely to be the best way of drawing it.

If you have lost touch with your old company scheme, there are ways of tracking it down.

@JulesCobb

Pay off all debt before you retire, and keep working for as long as you’re able. Be prepared to live frugally.

This

How bloody depressing.

I'm going to have to do this. But how bloody depressing all the same

Thanks also the person who mentioned state pension could be deferred for 9 weeks for a 1% increase. I did not know that either, and this might be useful if I continue to work beyond state pension age, which I hope I will be able to.

But, it will take you approx.18 years to make up for any pension that you defer in this way. So if instead of taking State pension at 66, you defer until 67, you'll receive a 5.4% increase to your pension, but then have to live to 85 before you make up for the year's pension that you have missed. Not a good deal.

Depends on your genes @tanguero!

@tanguero, I realise there is a fair payback time, but if I take the state pension when I am still working I would pay 40% tax on it. And my family is long -lived.

It is depressing
I started working for the nhs at 40 and a main draw to the job was the pension

My aunt also receives attendance allowance which is paid if there are additional care needs - we didn't know about it she would have been eligable for years beforehand

www.gov.uk/attendance-allowance

The thought of working at nearly 70 fills me with dread I have to say

@CheeseyMcCheeseface

Does anyone know how much NI you have to pay per month/year? Could it be a £1 a year for it to count as a contribution?

No, you have to make a set contribution based on your earnings and/or employment status. I pay voluntary class 3 as no longer working but below pension age - c.£780 a year at present

You can live on them @whatisforteamum especially if you have life savings as mentioned. Obviously, maybe not in London, or in a large home, but it sounds like you have a lovely smaller home and a second state pension which is a massively different situation to people who are on one. You've also mentioned life's savings.

My aunt lives on the state pension only and has a lovely 2 bed smaller semi with lovely garden. Outside of shop, household bills and a cheap phone, she goes out to a tea room or pub weekly for a meal or treat, gets a couple of magazines monthly, the paper at the weekends, has a small dog that she enjoys walking and no mortgage, nor any debt. She puts aside a small portion for an annual holiday, nothing fancy. Other than that she stays with her siblings for weekends. She has 75,000 in the bank and keeps 3000 in her bank account for things that go wrong, and honestly lives a lot better life than most. Partially because she's in a lower cost area, partially her smaller home with no mortgage and of course having her 3 dc and grandchildren all within about 15 minutes drive is quite lovely for her. Her garden also brings her huge joy and she spends quite a bit of time out there daily. The highlight of her retirement was paying for a lovely conservatory.

She and my uncle raised 3 dc on barely more than minimum wage. It took them until they were 55 to buy, but they bought outright. He enjoyed 10 years in the home before he died. I'm so pleased they had that time together.

Anonforamo that has cheered me up.
I don't expect anything fancy but I would like to live in my home of 33 yrs.our ds was born here.

@Gwenhwyfar

"Unless you are having to pay for support for personal care, cleaning etc. Far more likely at 90 than at 70."

Isn't that provided by the council?

Probably eligible for attendance allowance (not means tested) if needs help with personal care.

But workplace pensions are compulsory now aren't they

I’m a contractor and am able to opt out. I have done so. If I was young/starting out, it would be different but I’m in my 50s now. The paltry amount I could get by paying in for a few years wouldn’t help me. I’m in an HA house and so any income aside from state pension would be deducted from housing benefit, or any other benefits I may be entitled to. So I wouldn’t see it. As someone said upthread, in my scenario it’s better to have no provision.

The money I save by not paying into any pensions pays for me to go and do all my travelling now (well, not right now!) so I won’t feel I’m missing out by not going on cruises or whatever once I retire. Being in London there’s a ton of activities I can access in retirement at little to no cost. But I am also very happy pottering at home or in the garden.

I’ve done ok financially some years, not so well in others. But I’ve never been a high earner of the likes you find on MN. So I never established an expensive lifestyle that I need to sustain.

If you contracted out of state pension then you will have an alternative pension from your workplace so it's not like there will be less money overall as some seem to be suggesting.