Is living on the state pension really that bad?

[cateringday]

I mean, if you own your home then you’re getting around £250 a week just for bills and spends.
i have a tiny pension and DH has none. I am always worrying about this but then realised that we will have no rent or mortgage to pay.
im just wondering if it would be as awful as people make out? I hear stuff saying you need £300000 in pension pot to have a comfortable retirement, why would you need that much?

These days the cost of living is so much more than the mortgage/rent.

Our mortgage is around £1200 per month but it’s only about a quarter of our outgoings (granted life is expensive for a family with teenagers). I don’t think £250 per week is much to cover all living expenses plus birthdays, Christmas, holidays etc. even with no mortgage or rent to pay.

I think there's a lot of people out there calling their collective income from various sources "the state pension" for convenience in conversation, when in reality it's more than that

This is true. A close relative receives full state pension. However, he also gets housing benefit, council tax benefit, has an NHS dentist, free prescriptions
(and other perks I can't bring to mind immediately)
He lives in a one bed flat so his gas/electricity is minimal and he gets by comfortably. He wouldn't without all the add-ons.

I sincerely hope this is a tongue in cheek opinion Ballondoor!!

I think people need to wake up to the fact that you need to be shrewd with your money throughout your life to enable you to retire in a healthy financial position. What's the point of fancy clothes, fancy car on the drive, takeaways, if you have no savings? I'd hate to be going into retirement with just the SP waiting, and quite honestly, I cannot keep working til 67.

You never know what's round the next corner.

A bit of a silly comment, not everyone wants to go on expensive cruises every few months [insert expensive hobby of choice]. And there's difference between retirees in their 60s who probably do have expensive hobbies in many cases and people in their 80s and 90s who might be happy enough to potter in the garden if they are fit.

I don't know anyone on a pension who struggles, although they own their homes which makes a difference. I really don't know how people manage in old age when they rent though.

Ok, we are not retired yet but we have worked out what we need to cover our basic expenses on our mortgage free home and its £1500pm including all regular bills, and food but does not include a car (which we have, holidays or gifts etc). So we could manage on that but it would be slim pickings for holidays away/christmas and gifting. We are lucky and my husband has a really good private pension, I do not.

If I was single, the small private pension would negate any chance of universal credit etc and I would actually be worse off than if I I hadn't invested into my private pension. As it is, if my husband dies before me, I will get some of his pension and I will be OK and vice versa because he has a good pension.

For a married couple in 2025/26 the full weekly state pension is £460.50 per week combined or approx £24,000 per year or £2000 per month - as a couple its doable, its when you are single or have dependents that it becomes a real problem.

And if you don't have savings and you need a car, new boiler or other expensive like house maintenance, that is where the issue arises. Particularly if its an unexpected repair. This is what cripples people.

If you are single and £230.25 per week, and becoming fragile and can't afford help around the house then things are going to start going wrong and become neglected. Older houses cost more to heat and as a pensioner your bills may rise substantially because you are at home all the time. Can you afford to smoke/drink, have pets (we don't). There are so many variables.

I know a fair few single elderly people who have sold their homes and gone into rented accommodation as they cannot keep up with maintenance, the house falls into disrepair, the bills go up and emergency repairs that they cannot fund, are needed. When their house sale money runs out they get benefits int heir rented home. But again that depends where in the country they are and how easy it is to get affordable rental accommodation.

Heaven help anyone retired would expect to be able to afford a car….many posters on here think they should just sit inside their cold house and starve to death. I suppose on special occasions they should go and sit in a library….if it hasn’t been closed down!

If you want the extras that make life more enjoyable but are not totally necessary then people should have their own savings/pension for that. You know, like working people have to

I became a carer age 26 to my disabled child. There was no chance of me working, their needs were too complex. Fortunately dh earned enough for us all to live on - but what I really, really regret is not paying into some sort of pension for the future. I didn't think about it, or even know it was possible at that time.
Just a few pounds a month would have made a small difference. Too late now.

Only about 5% of people in the UK need care homes and most od those are 85 and older.

What if you have an expensive repair? Eg you need a new boiler or work doing to the roof.

I don't know anything about annuities but assume that you would buy one with your pension lump sum or any savings and then they would invest the money and pay you an annual amount (monthly) for life.

A company pension also pays out for life? You will have accumulated at pot with your contributions, your employers contributions, etc.

My friend pays an addition lump sum of around £8K a year into her company pension, HMRC then give her pension tax relief of 20% and this buys her around £500 extra every year for life. Another poster said this was a defined benefit scheme (she is a part-time lecturer).

To me it sounded like an excellent return if you lived longer than 16 years after retiring.

I am still trying to get my head around 'saving into your pension' instead of say, setting up an ISA, or another saving account and then buying an annuity...

YANBU OP. If you have had to get by on a low income at some stage in your life, you have the skills to manage.

I personally think everyone should challenge themselves to spend at least 6 months of their life living on what they would get on benefits, whether they need to or not. It would certainly teach a lot of the wider public about having more empathy.

There was a tv show where MP’s I think lived on unemployment benefits. Was years ago though.

I'm looking forward to it as it'll more than double our income.. and triple when dh gets his.

Ah yes, the person who thinks that illness is one of those things that only happens to other people.

So all the pensioners you know only get state pension? Do you know that for sure?

Lots of pensioners struggle.

I've always thought money was relative. A wealthy person may think nothing of buying a bar of soap for £18 whereas a poor person will buy one costing 0.80p. we all try to cut our cloth accordingly and live within our means.

Everyone exists on different levels. I'll always remember chatting socially (while workingm an Art Event) during the festive period with an arts patron about preparing for Christmas and at the back of mind was the fact that this woman's husband is a billionaire. I kept thinking 'your Christmas is going to be very different from mine.Your husband is worth almost 10 billion pounds!' She still had gifts to buy and things to do, and said how stressful it all was, etc...

Despite enjoying what I do, I earn a complete pittance and would class myself as a low earner.

yes - this - it's the unknowns. I have state pension plus around £400 a month from a teacher's pension. I worked out I would be OK if I then top it up annually from savings - ie from the proceeds of my downsizing from family house to 2 bed house. I reckoned I could get to 80 (if live that long) before having to sell this house to move into a retirement flat.

Then comes the need to get a roof repaired, a simple rewiring which turns out to be not that simple, car needing a new clutch, NHS dentist closing and suddenly having to go private and need a lot of work doing or be toothless at the front... all in the same year. I got through two years of my "top up budget" in less than one. My car is 12 yrs old - when it reaches the point that it becomes a money pit I will have to go without.

I've had two holidays in the last 15yrs, haven't been out for a meal since November, which is OK, I choose to spend money on other things, but I have to be realistic and accept that the "little flat" might be closer than I thought.

You spend a lot of time in your 20's and 30's working towards things being a bit better, better house, car, job, salary, savings.... once you are retired on limited income it becomes about managing dwindling resources not trying to build them up.

I wouldn’t be able to manage on £250, I guess if there’s 2 of you it maybe easier living off £500 a week but I am in my own and will likely stay that way. I do pay into a private pension but I am not sure that’s really going to benefit me as it’s not a huge amount (hopefully I can increase it at some point).

I don’t own my own home so will need to pay rent and all my bills. I don’t want to be living in Tesco value beans in my retirement 😬.

You can’t count on there always being two of you to cover expenses tho. My DH developed cancer and died within 18 months so I have to cover everything myself now.

This all seems rather pointless when the OP has never returned.

Throwing out a question but not coming back to give more context etc.

You do wonder why.

I think it is dependent on the kind of life you're used to. If you've got by on minimum wage all your life, state pension will probably be fine for you. If your used to a six figure salary and spending that on luxuries then there would be quite a decline in your quality of life if you were to live off a state pension.

Even though you've paid off your mortgage your house will still need running repairs as time passes. These can be pretty expensive. Things wear out.

Top ranking European pensions - shown in euros
1 Iceland 35,959
2 Luxembourg 31,835
3 Norway 30,879
4 Denmark 30,211
5 Switzerland 27,010

Way down the list is UK £11,973

The issue is non home ownership. In this scenario it.might be worth using the TFLS of your pension for a house deposit?