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?

There is social care for care needs. You would need to wait for a care act assessment and then pay a proportion of the money (a contribution) based on your income. It could be very little if you’re earning very little.

I imagine it depends on whether you want to survive or actually enjoy life?

To break that down even further, it depends what you mean by enjoying life. Some people really enjoy a simple life, maybe gardening, volunteering going on walks with different groups, other people want more of a high life with eating out and luxury holidays.

As pp have said, it’s fine when there are two of you and you also have a small private pension to top it up. But when/if one of you is a widow, it can be tough.

But, if your house is paid for then you have an asset you can sell to downsize, or potentially do equity release ( not that I am advocating that, but for some it’s useful)

What about if you need a new boiler, roof, car, etc.

What about holidays, socialising, going to the theatre, exhibitions, sports events, concerts.

Or needing to pay for private healthcare if the alternative might be a 2 year wait.

I’m fairly frugal but I wouldn’t want to have to count pennies in my old age, or be in pain because I can’t afford a hip replacement.

Yes, they’ve paid into it, but just like today their taxes funded pensioners then. We don’t have our own individual state pension pot.

If you've no savings you could get guaranteed pension credit too. That'll mean no council tax, reduced phone bills, free dentist etc.

I’m not disagreeing with you. Your grandma does have support from you though. If she didn’t have helpful family and was paying for someone to take her to the shop etc, it wouldn’t go as far.

The cost of getting someone in to help with jobs you can’t manage yourself- changing the bed, doing laundry, retuning your TV (and personal care when the time comes) is surprisingly high.

People with family input also tend to share things between them- someone buys a new phone and gives the old one to Grandad, for example.

Day to day expenses may well be covered, but one offs like the washing machine needing to be replaced, or the boiler dying, are hard to cover.

Thousands of people have never worked or contributed towards a state pension and those that have only paid when they worked, not all their lives.

Living on state pension as a single person can be very tough. You will get scammed through council tax where you are effectively subsidising families with children and paying for their use of local facilities. At the same time you yourself may be making minimal use so you get very poor value for money. If you are going to retire from full time work on a state pension you would be wise to find something part time and not too demanding. Good cleaners are always in demand so if you are fit and enjoy cleaning (or dog walking/admin/DIY etc) a few hours a week could bring in a nice little cash in hand income.

@thedevilinablackdressbut you say she gets pension credit top ups so that’s more than a state pension.

It depends what you enjoy doing. I enjoy walking, swimming in the sea, yoga in my garden, pottering in my garden, reading. I enjoy these things more than a holiday to the Maldives, because I don’t like the stress of getting there. Even if it was like for like price I’d choose my peaceful free stuff.

Council tax
gas
electric
water
house insurance
tv licence
savings for household item replacement
phone, broadband etc
birthday & xmas gifts
clothing
household maintenance
probable mandatory health insurance if the fagash fuhrer gets power
this probably leaves about 50p per week for food for two
Heaven help a single person

My mum lives on state pension and pension credit. Owns her house. She manages but does not drive so no car to pay for.
I want more in my retirement. I don't want to retire and struggle and have to shop everything budget.
DH has a pension pot of over 300k hoping to retire at 60 and pension pot should be somewhere between 500k and 650k depending on growth. We will do drawdown taking what we need when we need it. Once we get to 80 (if we get there!) we're not expecting to need as much so with 2 state pensions and 1 good pension we
are expecting a good retirement.
All depends on what you want when you are not a work slave anymore!

My aunty lives on state pension and she does absolutely fine.
She have always lived a simple life, no holidays etc so she didn't suddenly have the desire to do all these things.
Her bills and food are around £550 a month, she goes out everyday to local cities for a walk around, tea and cake.
I get baffled by these guides saying couples need circa 40k a year to survive when people aren't even getting that in younger life with kids and mortgages!

But did you pay enough in to cover your living expenses for another 30 years? If you think about it, that’s a lot. Assuming people go to uni, as so many do, that’s working from 22-67- 45 years. Then living another 30 when you aren’t earning… did you really pay 33% of your income into your pension to cover the 1/3 of your adulthood when you aren’t going to earn?

@Squirrelchops1 so someone who doesn’t make any provision doesn’t have to pay for things like council tax & those who scrimped & will have a small workplace pension get taxed & have to pay for all their bills. It makes it seem pointless to save up for old age - unless you will have a decent amount coming in.

It could be the opposite though. I have already lived the high life in my twenties, thirties. Enjoyed it very much, but I have no desire to do it any more.

Yes, if you want more than just to keep the lights on you need to make your own preparations.

This is such an odd attitude. You've been paying tax for hospitals, schools, roads, parks, the justice system, defence of our country, the benefits system, social care and a million other things most of which you will have benefited from. You have not been paying tax so that you can live a life of luxury when you retire.

Car related expenses if still driving….

I wonder how to people cope who rent privately. Home owners have their mortgages paid off by retirement age but renters obviously carry on. Do they get housing benefit to cover the rent or does it come out of their pension?

I find the free bus travel an absolute boon. Amazing that I can travel on buses to anywhere in England without paying a penny!

Yeah that’s how it is in this country. Make no provision and the state will scoop you up.

Exactly. Loads of people have never paid tax if on low incomes or benefits.

And don’t forget that if you only have state pension, you will get other benefit top ups as well. Housing benefit if you rent, council tax benefit etc (using old terms here, I know most things come under UC now)