SAHM's - how do you ensure your old agr pension is paid and up to date?

[chelsygirl]

someone told me its paid thru the child benefit you get, does anyone know anything about this?

answers here

I think the child has to be under 6 but i may be wrong.

You get annual credit for about 5 years, I think, through CB, but not any contributions to the fund, but then it stops unless you can claim. You can make NI contributions even when not working to maintain it. DWP should be able to send you a statement of where yours stands atm.

my kids are over 7, should I be paying anything?

YOu get about 20 years worth of credit while you receive CB and aren't working, don't you?

When you haven't worked much they send statements showing how much you have qualified for and what you need to pay to catch up.

You can ring the DWP with your NI number and they'll tell you where you're up to.

That link says it is paid if your child is under 16.

As far as I know i is paid automatically as long as child benefit is paid to the non-working parent.

Fio, dig out one of your original Child Benefit letters the one you get when they are first born) - it might say something on there.

I'm confused by that link - I always thought it was up to age 6 not 16??

I understand that no actual credits are made to your NI account, rather the number of years in your working life are reduced by the number of tax years in which you get CH benefit.

So, for exmple,if you would be expected to work for 40 years to get a full state pension, then got CH benefit for 16 years and stayed at home not working ofr those 16 years, then in order to obtain a full pension you would be expected to work and pay full NI for 24 years.

I think.

Yes, Boys, that is about it (well done!), but how many is the qualifying number of years god knows - I keep reading those things and it doesn't compute.

I've been getting CB for 26 years now, but I know I don't get 26 years of credit. I am just under the wire for retirement at 60 - the rest of you will get 65 so the number of qualifying years presumably increases by 5.

Def worth actually ringing the dwp for your specific requirements.

I phoned them up when I had DD and gave up work - I was told that your NI was paid into your pension as long as you had a child under 6 and were claiming CB for them. So if you had 4 children at 5 year intervals, you could get 20 years paid. But that would probably be the least of your worries in that case!

If you phone them up, a nice person will tell you how you're personally doing for qualifying years. I found them very friendly and helpful.

OK, I have just phoned them as I live abroad with HM Forces, and had to stop paying NICs when I moved as I am not working.

At present, you require 30 years of NICs to claim full state pension. My DS is 12, and I have 22 years contributions, so I get another 2 years added to my total with HRP , as from 2010 HRP is only payable up to the child's 12th birthday, and DS will be 14.5 when this comes in. From that date, I can pay voluntary NICs. 2008/09 contributions are £421.00. On current pension rates, paying that would boost my weekly pension from £72.75 per week to £87.30 pw a difference of £14.55 pw. It would cost me £8.10 per week to achieve this, so I suppose you are making 50% on your investment. I would have to pay 6 years of voluntary contributions, and hopefully I would survive longer than 6 years from pensionable age.

Of course this is all a con, as you don't stop paying NICs after you've paid your 30 years...if you do DHs takehome will rocket from next year!