How much should DM be receiving each month from teacher's pension after 23 years service?

[BaffledOnceAgain]

My mum took out her teacher's pension when she had children. However, she then returned to the profession and worked a further 23 years full-time. I know it's not a clearcut answer, but for a general class teacher who retired in 2011 after 23 years of teaching, can anyone tell me roughly what she should receive each week or month please from the TPS? She is struggling for money and I'm trying to help, but she's not keen to burden me with it. She's decided broccoli is a luxury she can't buy every week!! She should also get some State pension I presume (but not a full one)?

Depends what she was earning really.

Have you asked her?

Are her outgoings high?

I'm not sure anyone can tell you without knowing her actual earnings when she retired. Does she have an OAP?

It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume she probably has at least £27 to £35k pa coming in.

Did she pay into that pension for those 23 years? She should be able to log into the teachers' pension website and find out what she is due, if so.

Are you saying she cashed in her pension/got her contributions refunded when she stopped working to have her children? Did she actually rejoin the pension scheme when she returned to work? If she didn't that might explain things and she's embarrassed to tell you what she did.

If I retire at 67 I'll have 25 years as an AHP in the NHS pension, with a chunk of that part time, and I should have about £8k a year plus a lump sum. Not exactly rolling in cash but i should be ok because I'll be living with someone. If I were on my own I'd be struggling. State pension at 67 for me should be around another £500 a month.

Teacher's pension should be better than that. Has she talked to her union and/or Citizens Advice? Certainly with the NHS pension the pension office are notorious for miscalculating and it's worth challenging if what she is getting doesn't seem right.

How old is she?
Has she just retired?
Does she have any paperwork/statements from the TPS?
Did she take out a lump sum?

She is now 77 and has sold all the equity in her house apparently. She has several pets and smokes, but has tried to make these cheaper (via cheaper food for them and roll up fags).

She hasn't shown me any paperwork at the moment and is fiercely independent. I'm worried she's either got some old payments going out somewhere or is being ripped off by a company over something. Or maybe she's entitled to a benefit she isn't claiming? She's been taking light bulbs out of fittings to save money.

I'm afraid I have no way of knowing. She worked in an SEN school but I don't think she had any curriculum responsibilities.

Oh dear. It sounds as if she may have been living beyond her income for some time if she's gone for equity release (if that's what she means). But costs are so high it's not surprising.

Ultimately if she won't share any information you can't really help her. I would just keep saying that tbh.

First thing you need to do is find out if she was actually part of the TPS and paying into it. You said she took it out? Did she rejoin? If so she should have a decent pension after 23 years. You can phone them up, they are really helpful.

There’s so many possibilities here

Could there be a MH or dare I mention it, dementia issue?

Does she definitely have a teachers pension? She may not have rejoined it.

Is she divorced? Did she lose any pension that way?

Without knowing her income there’s no way you can know how to help her. But she does sound like she may have made some poor financial decisions.

Conversely my neighbour has 2 retired headteacher parents whose combined retirement income isn’t much under £90k. They are having a lovely time.

She's definitely not having a lovely time. She worked for a LA school and I don't think there was a choice about to rejoin the scheme or not - it is just done for you.

I checked my pension today & after 21 years I would be able to get just over £8k a year. Last 14 years have been various hours of PT. So she should get I should imagine around £12-14k plus state pension which is I think £10k.

It should be enough to live off. Smoking costs a fortune so that's probably where her money goes.

I presume mortgage is paid off? Can she move into a flat?

It’s automatic enrollment now, but it wasn’t back then. None of the public sector schemes were as far as I remember. Lots of women missed out.

It looks like your mum needs some help with sorting out her finances: can you persuade her that you'd be happy to help? She can't carry on like this, it will only get worse. She's only 77 and could have many years ahead.
She could be due a reasonable amount from TP- this can be investigated online with her DFE number.
Also she will be entitled to some state pension, which can also be investigated online - how much obviously depends on how many years she paid in. Both of these need to be claimed.
Once this has been checked then she may need help applying for benefits.
Doing nothing is not an option.
Good luck OP.

Thank you all. I'll keep trying. We've done Power of Attorney recently for the future so I've said if she's happy for us to help then, it makes sense to let one of us check things out now to see if we can make life more comfortable for her.

She doesn't live in a PDSA catchment area. Is there any other way to reduce a regular vet medication cost?

21 years is about 9 to 12k a year depending on when she retired and accessed it. .
If she contributed.

I have a similar number of years in the TPS although I was a senior teacher for a number of years so probably paid more into the scheme. I also get a State Pension.

I’ve just checked my bank account and I get £1050 each month from the Teachers pension and just over £650 state pension ( full number of contributing years). My tax is taken from the teachers pension. I also have a pension from my first job working for British Gas of £450 a month.

This is more than enough to pay for my regular living expenses and clothes etc as I no longer have a mortgage and live alone. I dip into my savings for large purchases like a holiday, new car or home improvements and plan to downsize from my current bungalow into a smaller flat if I run out of savings!

Your mum might get around £1500 to £1600 a month from her two pensions, I don’t know if that is sufficient for her needs or if she has spent her savings - she would have got a decent tax free lump sum from the TOS when she retired, it’s not optional, it’s built into the plan.

I’d say she will be getting under £10k a year.

She will have some teachers pension and the state pension, but there are so many variables its impossible to give an accurate figure. Might she also be receiving a widows pension from your DF?

Any time she was in receipt of CB she would have had NI credits towards her state pension, so she'll probably get close to a full state pension although due to her age it was probably the older slightly smaller amount.

What is more relevant is how she manages her money, and what her fixed costs are. My DM is also a widowed pensioner who probably has less coming in than yours as she never worked full time or had her own pension, she just has the state pension and a small widows pension from my dad's manual worker's pension. She's reasonably comfortable but doesn't smoke or spend lavishly. But she has pets, puts the heating on when she wants, gets her shopping from Ocado, is able to get her hair done, pay for work on the house, treat grandchildren, eat out a couple of times a month, that sort of thing.

When you say your DM 'took out her state pension' do you mean 'opted out'?

Also what is 'sold all her equity'? Are you saying she released the equity from her home and has spent it? Was this a standard remortgage where she has to make payments or an equity release product that doesn't have payments but will need to be repaid when her home is sold?

On paper it's very likely she has enough to cover the basics and a decent amount of discretionary spending but obviously if she smokes, is generally spendy, has loads of subscriptions, has sleepwalked into high insurance costs by never shopping around, is running a family sized house on a single lowish income or endless other factors, then it can be easy to run out of money. But without sight of what is going in and out of her bank accounts it's impossible to say.

She needs to review everything systematically.

Can you get her to look at the Moneysavingexpert budgeting advice?

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/money-help/

Perhaps go through it with her if she's struggling to work things out or doesn't come up with any constructive solutions?

Are you saying she actually gets a suspension at the moment and you don't know how much it is, or she isn't claiming it?

That should be a pension, not a suspension!

My mum is slightly younger than yours, she did 30 years and takes home from her teachers pension around 2200 a month, she did have a slightly higher scale and retirement as she was a head of year. State pension tops her up to over £3000.

She may not have a full state pension. I am 74 and of the generation who were often advised to pay a married woman's stamp.

Standard teachers pension is 1/43, I think. So if she worked FT for 23 years, didn't retire early, and didn't take a lump sum, she should be on about half what she earned as a teacher.
If she retired early, it will be roughly a third or quarter.