To think we are heading into a pensions disaster

[She11y]

I asked ChatGPT what the median pension savings were for someone in their mid 40s and I got the below reply:

Ages 35 to 44: The median pension pot is approximately £30,600.
• Ages 45 to 54: The median pension pot increases to about £81,200.

This website has a similarly sobering statistic - average pension pot for 50-59 is £96k.

https://www.nutsaboutmoney.com/pensions/average-pension-pot-uk

These are averages and the number will be brought down by some people who have zero pension savings but it's still a very low amount.

How are people going to survive retirement. There aren't many jobs for people the wrong side of 50z

Agree

I think you're clearly fairly clueless given how many posters have patiently explained the current situation to you.....

Politicians have known about the looming pensions disaster for at least thirty years. I guess they've brought in workplace pensions now but it's too little too late. For starters, they aren't a good deal. If everyone including middle/low earners were to contribute as much as they needed to get a decent annuity, it would take too much cash out of circulation now. And of course it doesn't help much for the people who are going to be retiring during the next twenty/thirty years, a lot of whom lost their first works pension back in the 90s/early 2000s during the buyout/acquisition madness of that time, or who couldn't get into a works pension for big chunks of their working lives because of qualifying restrictions. Even with the workplace pensions now, they don't have enough time to make up the ground especially given that the returns are low on these.

Really there needs to be a massive rethink around what to do about future elder poverty. Endlessly raising the retirement age isn't the answer because healthy life expectancy plateaued a while back and has actually dropped since. So it's pointless saying "well you'll just have to work" when clearly people cannot, or at least not in the traditional sense. Older people do have a lot of skills and experience though, especially life skills. Perhaps some kind of set-up where they could provide semi structured support to full time employees in return for subsidised access to energy/food or something? I honestly don't know, but there is a lot of knowledge there.

Oh yes
I get what you were focussing on now. The £150 a week!
Good point!

Thing is the kids will be propping us up regardless. Whatever money we save only has a value related to the cost of the things we want to buy at the time we want to buy them. If our problem with more older people and lower birth rates continues, which I hope it will for the sake of the planet, we will see more inflation and our pension savings devalued. It's still dependent on the number of people working to make the stuff/provide the services etc... If there are less people working our pension savings will be worth less. Money isn't a fixed thing.

We all the need to learn to accept simpler lifestyles, to take personal responsibility for our health and to consider working in some capacity when we are old.

I did a nursing degree 12 hour shifts including nightshifts plus assignments. When we were in uni it was 9-5 Monday to Friday...I kept a job and worked as many hours as I could throughout uni because I didn't have anyone who could pay my rent bills and all the fun stuff and I didn't want to be ladled with debt....I came out with a very small personal loan which was paid off quickly because I worked my arse off before and during uni. It can be done...don't get me wrong I was knackered and so glad to end it after 3 years but it can definitely be done with a full on course. You do what you have to do.

Not when your rent is £20k

When family members trained as nurses they couldn't as they were rostered on shift on top of classes.

I am going to be a little real here and say, I think the answer to dealing with kid's uni fees is, if you can't afford it, they don't go. Not unless they plan to be able to support mum and dad in their dotage.

There is a bigger picture with this which is that we are spending far, far too much on degrees that people don't really need for the work they will do, and a type of education many often aren't particularly suited to either. Productivity is low - well maybe because young people perfectly capable of working are being locked up in education for years.

Universities are a bubble that's going to burst, I already am seeing it among young people now, where quite a few whose parents went to university are choosing other paths. And more employers opening up to other kinds of qualifications as well.

A lot of idiots would. Uni students should be paying their own way through uni, or not going. Parents shouldn’t be forfeiting their retirement to pay for someone else’s career.

Look up student loans max maintenance. Then look up rent in student towns.
Thats your answer

I am in my mid-50s, and have worked for 30 years and am lucky enough to have a healthy NHS pension pot. I hope to work at least till my early 60s. I don’t feel guilty about my pension. I have done 56 hour shifts in the 90s, always worked FT and not taken a day off sick for 27 years and counting, despite having truly challenging times. I have gone above and beyond for people and still mostly enjoy my job.

My pension will be supporting both of us though. My husband‘s private pension is absolutely tiny: shockingly so.

1998

If your rent is £20k you're better off having nothing at all in your pot and claiming housing benefit+ anything else you can. Unless you have absolutely loads and loads.

Someone else's?? It's not some random person

And the rent in the same city now to rent a room in a shared house is £132 per week bills all in - 2025 Brighton.

So yes - my £150 a week wage in 1998 would still cover the rent 27 years later.
My loan can buy my food and other bits and bobs.

Also - during the holidays (14 weeks per year) I would work full time and earn about £400 per week so that more than gave me some extra spends.

Mum and dad kept their pensions and savings and are managing nicely.

Some posters on Mumsnet are so weird about their own children when they turn 18!

My parents are wealthy but honestly them paying international fees for me to study in the uk was the most precious gift they ever gave me because (a) I met my DH at uni (b) it provided me with a route to settle in uk and (c) they did disinherit me when I decided to marry my dh so basically everything I have now including my son and my London flat and my life is due to that. I also helped dh pay off his student loans as I had none.

I do feel sad for other young people who don't have these opportunities. If I never went, I would probably be in a golden cage like my sister (who did get an interest free loan to buy £3.5 million condo) and socially pressured to marry a suitable boy while my parents run her life (she was saying to her new dh the wedding was fucked from start to finish). For many young people, university is their chance to fly the nest and experience rel life.

I’d love to know more about your life.

Pensions disaster is nothing new.

I'm Gen X and will need to work until I die. I've known this for many years and accept it.

I got my first "proper" job after PhD at 27 in an EU country. I set up good pension provisions and was well paid.

I moved back to the UK and it was difficult to transfer my pensions, so I cashed in one and left the others there. I got a good, well-paid job in the UK, but 2 maternity leaves plus working part time screwed that up.

I became self-employed about 10 years ago and with set up costs, effects of COVID and an acrimonious, expensive divorce leave me with little disposable income. I am in the red most months. I have absolutely nothing to save.

I should get half of ex-h and my pensions combined, but he has dragged his heels on financial settlement (despite having finalised divorce), but he won't agree to that and I can't keep throwing money at solicitors and court fees to make him accountable.

As far as I'm concerned, there will be no retirement.

The state pension age is currently 66.

The UK state pension age will rise from 66 to 67 for men and women by 2028. The increase will begin gradually from May 6, 2026.

Why are they????

The OBR have, and see it slightly differently to how you're suggesting,

In our October 2024 forecast, net public sector pension spending decreases substantially from £1.6 billion in 2024-25 to -£3.9 billion in 2029-30 as scheme receipts grow more quickly than scheme expenditure on average due to increased earnings as a result of the 2024-25 public sector pay deals and the uplift to departmental spending over the forecast period. As a share of GDP, unfunded pension payments gradually fall from 0.1 per cent in 2024-25 over the forecast period to -0.1 per cent by the forecast horizon

I’m Gen X. I’m disabled and in poor health, I don’t see myself living to any sort of retirement, never had any spare money to put into a pension, apart from the Gov one, which is minuscule because I’m only able to work part time. I came into the world with nothing, I expect I’ll go out the same way. Pointless worrying about it really, the eff all I can do about it.

Use the calculator I quoter earlier. 4% rule has been created to US retirement planning not UK one, even it's creator is changing it. Anyways, it isn't suitable to the UK system.