Worried I haven't got enough pension due to claiming UC

[Worriedaboutmypension]

Hi all,

After seeing a thread on here a few days ago about someone who was worried that she didn't have enough pension when she retired it made me look at mine.

I was shocked when I checked it that it was only worth 18k and this is definitely the full amount of the pension not the yearly value.

I've been with my company for 8 years and its the first time I've paid into a pension. I only work 4 mornings a week and claim some top-ups in UC.

I'm 41 and work for just over minimum wage so are unlikely to find much higher paid employment.

What can I do to increase my pension?

Also OP it's worth checking you're earning enough that you're making sufficient NI contributions to get a state pension.

You have two choices do you want to be poorer now, or poorer as a pensioner?

The earlier you up your pension contributions the better, you need to increase your contributions by either upping your hours (which also increases your employers contributors), or by your partner paying into your private pension each month. I’m currently unemployed, I am starting a new job soon, be to avoid gaps my husband has been putting money into my pension each month so I don’t have any gaps.

Sorry this is including my rent that UC covers, that is 1,200 a month.

Are you sure? My understanding is they only reduce benefits by 55p to every extra £1 you earn. So you will still be up overall

I smell a rat.

And what will pension contributions be working full time? Yours and employer ?
It is a long game

I’m afraid you lost me at taking home £3.5k for working 4 mornings a week. Many full time employees would love that kind of income.

At 41 the OP probably still has 27 years left to work! I definitely not too late to make a difference...

Work full time and stop claiming UC!! £2.5k a month for UC?? I work full time (no UC) and earn that! No wonder this country is in a financial mess.

Can you really earn £42k a year tax free if you claim UC and work four mornings a week??

I am seriously going to look into this if so, I work so many hours and pay so much tax for crap like this. My rent is also £1200pcm and I would love for society to pay it instead of me. I’m so tired.

Pension is a key benefit I look at when taking a new job. I work full time and have trained and moved up the ladder and never worked part time at all. I track my pension every month and see if I am on track to my ideal retirement age and goal.
I didnt start paying my pension until age 27.
If you want a good or early retirement its not too late but you need to get into better paid work and work full time.
Either you put the work in now to fix it, or work for longer when you are older. You are working part time at aged 33. At age 33 I was working full time with 2 kids and studying and also doing work on the side.
I think its ok to work less now but you could start retraining for example or upskilling and then you will still have many years to build a big pot.
You are only 33, so loads of time to plan.

I don't think you're going to get any useful responses OP. But i agree with everyone else. I'd love to work 4 mornings a week for £3.5k a month.

Very doubtful.. op do you have dependents?

Yeah you are almost never worse of for this exact reason.

Simple answer. Work full time and all the hours you can. You can’t rely on others to have a great pension. This one is down to you.

Yes you are always better off. I'm wondering if this has been set up as a benefit bashing thread because that's a huge amount of UC, UC has no bearing on pension and people aren't better off on UC as the poster implies.

Kindly, you are working extremely part time - about 40%.
18k over 8 years is pretty good given that you don’t work a lot (objectively, subjectively it might feel different). Simplified, it is the equivalent of over 2k a year, which given your very small salary is quite a lot!
The only way out is to work more, or potentially voluntarily contributions

You can never be confident that your benefits will remain the same. And certainly not until you retire.

not enough and she obviously can’t afford to pay in what’s needed to make a difference.

Yeah this has to be a wind up otherwise I am sacking off my FT Nursing job and going on UC for the rest of my working life.

I don’t know how you can be ‘shocked’ that your pension is low when you only work a few hours a week and have spent most of your working life not paying into a pension

Your pension is small because you have barely paid into it. Workplace pensions were definitely a thing back when you were working in retail but not necessarily auto enrollment and even if they weren't private pensions have always been a thing.

Work full time then

Unfortunately having seen lots of financial applications from people working very part time I can well believe it is true

Well it just shows you can't have it all then doesn't it! You could always pay money into a SIPP but I doubt you'd want to do that. There'd be barely any tax relief for a start as you earn so little.