No money at all

[AngelaBB]

My husband retired in August, I have been retired two years. He didn’t talk to me about retiring , just came home and said he had talked to HR and never went back to work.
He is hopeless with money, I gave to run everything and I find it exhausting. He hadn’t bothered to sort out his pension, although he told me that he had and just left it, we now have no money at all. He has finally sent the forms in but has been told that it will take at least six weeks to all come through. I have no money at all, used my overdraft facility and credit cards maxed out. He expects me to sort it out but I don’t know how. There literally is nothing in the pot. He can live like this but I can’t, he thinks I’m over reacting and it’ll all work out but I’ve had enough. Am I being unreasonable?

OP it would be very unlikely that if you have both worked that you have NO pensions. It would take more effort to opt out than to stay in!

You can hire companies to do a pension search for you and I would recommend that. It takes a few months but is well worth it if you have potentially 40 years of work where you may have accrued pensions. (I used Profile Pensions.)

Mine is 63 and his state pension age is 67.

You're both to blame for this mess - him for resigning without discussing it with you and you for mismanaging your finances. Why hasn't he started receiving his state pension yet if he retired in August? How did you get into the position of maxing out your credit cards and overdraft? Sounds like you've been living beyond your means and both decided to retire when you couldn't actually afford to.
You both need to find some kind of employment. Are you receiving all the benefits you're entitled to? Do you own your home - if so, perhaps you need to consider downsizing to free up some funds.

So he is also now entitled to state pension?

If you retired on state pension 2 years ago and he is 2 years younger?

You have no savings between you?

I would go to CAB straight away, OP. How are you even going to settle your overdraft and maxed out credit card on the state pension anyway?

One of you at least will have to get a retail job or something as many pensioners do, to top it up.

Can you not get a little cleaning job or care job even if just stopgap ? Have you children you could borrow from ? Register for food bank. Pension credits. Buy cheap food from reduced counters.

Citizens advice bureau would be a good start or debt advice.

Check out Martin Lewis’s website for advice, also Citizens Advice. There are probably some extra benefits you can claim. As an aside, I recently heard about a man in his thirties who chooses not to work and is claiming all sorts of benefits that he really shouldn’t be entitled to (e.g. saying he’s an alcoholic even though he doesn’t drink at all) totalling £1600 per month. With this in mind, there must be something extra that you are entitled to, especially as you have worked all your life.

So are Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg....

Not that they're great (well Bill is ok) but you get my point I'm sure.

Maybe the husband could get “a little cleaning job”🤔

Dies he get a state pension? If he is retirement age he should also get a works pension of some sort as should you add all employers have been required to enrol their workers into a pension it might not be much but there should be something. Also have you checked to see if you are entitled to any benefits?

No judgement then? Unhelpful😫

Do you not understand that often people know perfectly well that they need a plan but they are powerless to do anything about it? If they're on minimum wage, or have health problems for example, there's just no way of paying into a private pension. That's the situation I'm in although I'm converting my garage to let out and create a small income stream.

My XH did a similar thing - took redundancy & his occupational pension early without discussing with me. He would boast about being retired at the age of 54, but, having taken it early, his pension was much reduced, he regarded that as his 'pocket money' & expected me to continue working full time to support the family. I left him as it was obvious that he didn't give a shit about me & that we weren't in a partnership.

She was 67 ffs!!!!!!!!! Christ I'd better get off this thread before my brain explodes.

Each individual person can check their state pension age & how much they will receive here

https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

How old is he? Can he claim a state or work pension yet? Is he looking for work or claiming jobseekers?

Have you claimed for everything you are entitled to since he stopped working? Do you have savings?

Find out what he will receive and when. See Age Concern who can help you navigate / claim benefits.

Each individual person can check their own record
It will show each year

https://www.gov.uk/check-national-insurance-record

No, you’re not being unreasonable. He made a major decision without you, didn’t sort his pension, and you’re now in debt with no money. That’s a real crisis, not an overreaction. It’s unfair that the stress and responsibility are all on you, and it’s reasonable to say you can’t live like this and need him to take responsibility now.

You both need to look for temporary work to tide you over for the next 6 weeks.

If the DH was dismissed, he was entitled to his contractual accrued annual leave. Has he had that?

DWP had a window where they didn't write to advise people to claim their pension. This practice has now stopped. I got a letter notifying me my state pension is payable from my 66th birthday and they would write to me about 4 months beforehand to invite me to claim.

Anyone born after 11th April 1961 now has a retirement age of 67. Those born in the year prior to that have a curtailed entitlement depending on birthdate so 66 and 1 month to 66 and 11 months.

@AngelaBB does he have any entitlement to occupational pension? Does he have any savings? Do you own or rent? Do you have a spreadsheet of non negotiable outgoings. Do you have any way of findingnout what happened at work? Did you ever discuss mutual retirement arrangements? How long have you been married? Could you downsize.

It is until 5th April this year.

You say they or typical ADHD but this should all be prefixed with SOME people with ADHD. We’re not all one homogenous mass.

Personally I can’t stand chaos and couldn’t live like this. I love a crisis but I have severe anxiety (a common co-morbidity with ADHD) so would worry myself sick if I couldn’t afford the bills. Also don’t mind a form or lots of questions.

More and more, the response on Mumsnet to men burdening their partners is they must be ND. The reality is plenty of people, ND or NT, would like to leave the boring bits of life to someone else and will if they can.

Yes. I’m sure someone will employ two OAPs for 6 weeks.

Indeed
It's all so tedious , their armchair diagnosis