He’s broke should it matter?

[Whenisitspring]

I’ve been dating someone for just over a year and he’s a lovely man but has hardly any disposable income or solid plans for later life (he’s 54) and his lack of responsibility is putting me off. He’s quite naive when it comes to grown up stuff like finances and pensions and I’m struggling to feel comfortable with it. What does everyone think? He’s kind, considerate, loving, and generous with what he has got but I’m not sure…

It doesn't matter to him, because he's always had someone bail him out.

It will matter to you, though, as you need to take care of yourself financially and your children, too. Why should you take care of him?

When my XH & me divorced he rather took me to the cleaners. He took voluntary redundancy at the age of 48 with no plans to work again - pompously declaring that he'd always said that he'd be retired by the age of 50. We had a large house in the country and a mortgage to match. I had 2 flats in the nearby city which were rented out. His intention was to live off my earnings (I'm a manager in the Civil Service and earned substantially more than him) and to travel. Since I worked full time his travel plans didn't include me and were going to be financed on the £22k (or so) that he got as a redundancy pay-out. When I asked about his plans for when we both retired his answer was that I would have a substantial pension (I'd paid additional contributions in the 10 years that I was a single mum & only able to work part-time so had a full Final Salary Civil Service pension to look forward to) and the income from the flats that I had bought with a compensation & insurance payment when my 1st DH died. In other words his plans were to live off me. He buggered off on his travels leaving me with a mortgage, and a 16 year old who was/is ND & rather a challenge.

As soon as he left I filed for divorce. It was all rather messy & lots of bad feeling- he took one of my flats as we were married and the court decided that it was a joint asset because that particular one was bought after we married. He also got half of the profits from the house. I suppose I'm lucky that he didn't get part of my pension as he tried to do.

The lesson that I learned was not to marry someone with fewer assets and income than me. Also, although I've remarried (3 years ago), my DH and me live in our own houses opposite each other and have no plans to officially live together. My DH had a similar experience when he and his wife divorced as they had a small chain of restaurants and she took the biggest & most profitable of those.

However, you also need to be careful about living together as, if he could prove that he has contributed to the upkeep of your home, he can claim part of it should you separate. A (solicitor) friend got around this by giving her partner a rent book - that way he was her tenant & paid rent. Unromantic, but has preserved her assets (and her DCs & GCs) should things go wrong.

The fact that he’s relying on living with someone to be able to survive financially would massively put me off!

plus even if not living together I’d find it hard to be with someone in very different financial circumstances to be (worse off or better off) because of it getting tricky when you want to do stuff together like eat out and travel.

How is he supposed to prepare for retirement apart from having a pension - which he has? His set up wouldn't bother me at all because he sounds lovely and I'm not hugely materialistic. I wouldn't marry anyone though if I owned a house and they didn't.

At least he’s got a couple of thousand for a car. What happened to the equity ( even f it’s not much) in the property he bought with x partners? Maybe he’s just generous and has left them living in the houses and not asked them to sell. He’s a teacher so must have a good salary( and pension one day) London rents are expensive even on the outskirts and he’s managing to pay that. As long as he paid his way and wasn’t demanding marriage ( which he isn’t) I wouldn’t mind he sounds nice to me. Living with some else when he retires might just mean a flat share anyway. I’d give him a chance

Totally agree - how does he expect to live when he retires in about 12 years? He should be putting money into his retirement fund-teacher's pensions, like civil service ones allow you to buy additional years & all pension contributions come out of your salary before tax etc calculated so a very tax efficient way of saving for the future.

A friend who is an retired civil servant was widowed about 2.5 years ago & is on-line dating. She's discovered that many men want a 'nurse with a purse' in other words a woman with a good pension to look after them in the later years.

What if OP draws up a lodger agreement and he gets his own room, bills included. He pays for and buys his own food and all else for himself. That way op gets a live in bf and he can save some more for retirement not at op expense,
and his part of holidays. Nothing ever in his name for the house.
State pension plus teacher pension is not too bad.

"He said he'd always planned on living with someone so the cost of living would be halved. He's assured me that he wants nothing from me"

Well he's said he wants to live with you then. Ie: free rent.

‘He’s not materialistic or shallow.’ You wrote it yourself. I like the sound of him and I doubt he’s that terribly badly off as a teacher renting in London. We have this weird obsession with owning property in the UK. As for pension, he’ll have a teaching pension. As for the car, good for him for not wanting to spend loads of money on one and even worse, getting finance for one. If you love him, follow your heart. Life shouldn’t be all about money, pension plans, car finance, mortgages and planning for the future. I would give it more time to decide, no need to rush this.

He’s not materialistic or shallow

Aaaah so being responsible for yourself, budgeting and saving is " materialistic and shallow "
Him planning to live off someone else's hard work and admitting it is just so noble 🙄
He has a reasonable salary, no DC and by his own admission has somehow lost 2 properties.
At 54 on that reasonable salary he has 2K only for a car and Op calls him broke.
He is either hopelessly naive or foolish/ feckless and I wouldn't be romanticising this if I were the OP
Put yourself first Op and bin

😂 materialistic and shallow..🤣🤣..to make provision for his future.

So honourable to find a dim soft nurse with a purse.🙄

Yeah, you’re his retirement plan @Whenisitspring. Run.

To me, it's not really the fact that he doesn't have a lot of disposable income. There are a lot of people with 'living wage' jobs that are paycheck to paycheck. If he's 'happy' or is forced by CoL into living like that then fine, I'm not going to criticize. Horses for courses. And home ownership is not the end all and be all, especially with prices and mortgage rates as they are.

It's the fact that he's banking on 'living with someone, paying half' as his entire retirement plan. That's what wouldn't work for me because it indicates that he believes that he won't have enough retirement income to support himself living independently. Someone like that has an intended plan on living with a partner, it would be a need and not a desire. IMHO, I'd never be able to trust that the person was there because they loved me and not because they needed my 'financial help' to survive. And I wouldn't be able to trust that they'd be able to continue to pay their 'fair share' or meet their half of repairs and emergency expenses as time and inflation took its toll.

First off, hell will freeze over before any man plants his boots under my bed, should I become single, even if they were a zillionaire. But if I were to consider it, I'd only consider it with a man who could easily support himself on his own.

When we were in the process of divorce and we had a number of what-if and remember-when conversations (mostly instigated by him trying to make me sentimental - too late mate), I asked XH what his life plan would have been if he hadn't met me. He listed off a number of women he'd had offers from, or had had his eye on at the time, who had their own house and/or decent income. I said, so the plan was to find a woman to keep you, not to pay your own way. He was unable to answer. But he was the one who claimed to have been used...

Not sure if OP's partner is one of these (would need more background that she may not even know) but I'd be wary, personally. Nobody so agreeable as one who is looking to move in and be subsidised. If they're still that nice once they're in, well, maybe they do deserve you.

I do agree that there is an unusual obsession with owning and not renting property in the UK but isn't that due to the uncertainty of private rentals unless you are in a HA property? He could be kicked out at any time if he's in a private rental and then if he can't find an affordable new place he will most likely want to move in with OP. Renting isn't inherently bad, but that is also something that adds to the precarious situation he is in with no savings/spare money.

"When I asked him about where he'd live when he's retired and not working to pay his rent he said he'd always planned on living with someone so the cost of living would be halved"

....and likely as not your are potentially that "someone".

Also, there are no partners as perfect as someone who has nothing but an eye to a partner who is comfortable. He might seem to be lovely, but maybe take a few years of not living together and not sharing finances and see if he's quite so lovely when he realises that he's not going to have a comfortable old age courtesy of your earnings. It doesn't really matter WHY he doesn't have anything, and anyone can be unlucky, but his explicit desire to live with someone and 'share finances' would be a red flag for me.

So I'd see how up for 'sharing' he is when you don't pool finances.

He’s got 20 years of contributions into the Teachers Pension Scheme. That’s an outstanding defined benefit pension scheme that far outweighs anything you’d get in the private sector.

UK pensions generally aren’t as good as our European counterparts. Given that’s the case, people generally want to own before they retire so their pensions don’t have to cover rental costs too.

His teacher's pension will be worth maybe £10,000 - £15,000 a year in retirement, already. Add that to the State Pension, and he could be living off around £25,000 a year in today's money, and more for every year he keeps working. Maybe not perfect, but better than many, and not exactly broke for a pensioner.

"When I asked him about where he'd live when he's retired and not working to pay his rent he said he'd always planned on living with someone so the cost of living would be halved. He's assured me that he wants nothing from me and would pay half of everything and he's not concerned with getting married or not, he said it would be up to me to do whatever made me happy."

Always planned on living with someone. Anyone, really. Well, not quite anyone - anyone who can provide that place to live. But yeah, anyone. You'll do. You can be the adult and I'll be the manchild/exotic and expensive pet.

That's quite the admission! 'Nah, I'm not looking after myself, I'm going to leave that to somebody else.' It's very optimistic of him. What if someone/anyone didn't materialise in time? Or not at all? What would his Plan B have been?

"I'm very conflicted because his personality traits and qualities he has are wonderful, he's not materialistic or shallow etc but I feel scared and insecure about his lack of a later life plan and lack of financial security."

Well I'm sure he's very charming in the current situation of interviewing for a Sugar Mummy, but do you think the mask might slip a bit once his feet were under the table? I do. And actually - he is shallow. And as for not being materialistic - he certainly expects someone other than himself to supply the material goods of living, so yes, he's materialistic too. He might not be bothered about owning the materials, but I do believe he will be quite insistent that he have access to and the use of someone/anyone's material goods.

So to answer your question - it does not matter that he's broke. It matters that he expects this to be remedied by someone/anyone else.