Pension age worries

[lizzie145]

My dad was a policeman and retired with a good pension but died aged 58 so never got the benefit of it. My stepmum was a teacher and retired early and is still alive and is enjoying retirement.

My mum was a nurse and retired ( they were divorced years ago) at about 60 but later diagnosed with dementia and died aged 73. She had a good pension but didn't really spend very much of it. My stepfather sort of works on and hoc basis but he had a private pension scheme so does ok.

My uncle died aged 60, also a policeman so didn't enjoy his retirement

I am lucky that I stand to inherit a decent amount because of house prices and they had no mortgage.

I have a fairly reasonable pension scheme, due to retire aged 67 which is 18 years away. I did have a plan until I moved house 2 years ago as my mortgage was nearly paid off so I planned to save the money for my retirement. Now I have a 20 year mortgage ( though 40% ltv ratio) so its tied up in property.

I would love to retire earlier as i want to travel more and dont want to be working in my 60's but also want to live comfortably and to be able to help my step daughters out in the future.

[Pumpkin Pie]

Originally Posted by munmun

I agree we had tough times when we were young but like you we now take foreign holidays and like you have been to Australia and other exotic destinations and many places in the US. We didn't make it to the USA with out children until 1987, I think you went before us in 1979?

Today, we are very comfortable and very lucky.

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Yes we went to the USA for the first time in 1979. We had been trying for a family with no luck and decided to spend our savings on that holiday and our first car (old second hand one). Of course I fell pregnant after our money was spent!

[Melanie R]

Originally Posted by FamilyGWales

A number of public service pensions which were subject to the reforms in 2015 have the new pension age tied to the age of the state pension. I don't know if the NHS one is part of that. I would have thought so possibly.

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The NHS pension is tied to this but only for years of service following the revision. Any service prior is still able to be taken at the previous age - I can retire at 60 (if I choose) with 25 years of service, the remaining years will kick in at 67.

[munmun]

Originally Posted by Pumpkin Pie

Yes we went to the USA for the first time in 1979. We had been trying for a family with no luck and decided to spend our savings on that holiday and our first car (old second hand one). Of course I fell pregnant after our money was spent!

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So our oldest children are similar ages so we both understand the difficulties of maternity leave and payments in the 1980s.
Yup, our first car, secondhand third cars were second hand. But, we made it didn't we!

[Bootrip2]

Originally Posted by Melanie R

The NHS pension is tied to this but only for years of service following the revision. Any service prior is still able to be taken at the previous age - I can retire at 60 (if I choose) with 25 years of service, the remaining years will kick in at 67.

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This sounds the same as me,

[Tinkerbell]

Originally Posted by FamilyGWales

A number of public service pensions which were subject to the reforms in 2015 have the new pension age tied to the age of the state pension. I don't know if the NHS one is part of that. I would have thought so possibly.

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Originally Posted by TillySmith

I retired from the NHS in March 2015 after 42 years service ( I was 60 and 7 months), I do not get my state pension until June 2020! I think I left the NHS just in time.

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I jumped ship in 2014 at 55 after 35 years. I don't get my state until 2025. I left because of the everchanging terms and conditions.

[Dinglebert]

Originally Posted by Tinkerbell

I jumped ship in 2014 at 55 after 35 years. I don't get my state until 2025. I left because of the everchanging terms and conditions.

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I was in the fortunate position to be one of the last with mental health officer status. It meant I could retire at 55 with full pension. They stopped that a couple of years after I became a nurse. I do feel lucky to have been able to do it. Mind you the reason why it existed is that mental health nurses tended to die much younger due to stress!

I still do 2 days a week in a non patient role (I burned out some years ago). Due to two kids at Uni and a third probably going in a couple of years I need all the income I can get.

[ali-s]

I have another 14 years to go before I can claim my state pension at 67, I doubt I'll manage to do my job for another 4 years,( I have arthritis which has knackered my hands)let alone 14, but I've always said they'll have done away with retirement by the time I'm 67.

[Talland 2016]

[QUOTE=munmun;14023176]Yes you are right, different problems now. We had expensive mortgage payments and I returned to work when both my children were 8 weeks old as we couldn't pay the mortgage if I didn't.

Maternity benefits were only paid for 8 weeks post delivery. I worked nights as a nurse and my husband looked after the children and then I looked after them in the day and napped when they did. Not something i would recommend, exhausting

Same here
I worked nights as a staff nurse for 10 years when we had children due to the short maternity leave and the tiny amount of maternity pay.
DH paid extra into his works pension, paying as much as he could. Sadly he died aged 58 so never got it. I get a spouse's pension from it 50% of what he would have received but due to the rules of the pension scheme I didn't receive any of the lump sum he would have been entitled to.
Not sure what happens to the contributions he paid into his state pension. This stops if I remarry or die - that statement is printed at the bottom of every letter I receive from them

[tspill]

Originally Posted by sam_b

All of my focus is on planning for my stopping work in 6 years time (at 55). I think that there is a big difference between retirement - drawing a pension - and stopping work.
I know that I won’t be able to access my pensions for a long time ( 65 for my company pensions and 67 currently for state pension). So my focus is on amassing enough money to live on in the interim. To that end I have paid off the mortgage, we are doing all of the big house improvements we need (new boiler, new bathrooms, new kitchen, new windows, new fascias etc all in last few years). The rest of my money goes into isas and investments.

We know that we have to plan for at least 10 years without income, and we have worked out how much we need per annum (inc holidays etc) and as soon as we hit the amount that will allow us to live those years - we will stop. (A kind of draw down plan). My main concern is riding out the inevitable economic crash that is coming and capitalising on it as much as possible.

Financial planning is complex, and so personal and it takes a lot of time - but it’s so important. Balancing between jam today and jam tomorrow is the hardest thing.

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This is in some ways similar to what we are doing.

We decided a long time ago (early 40s) that we wanted to return early.
I have done so at 53 and my OH will do so at 55.
This takes lots of financial planning and hard work and some sacrifice at times.
I seem to be in a very small minority as most seem to live much more for today and spend everything they have. I am shocked at what people spend on phones, coffees and many other things. But that is just me.
We have put huge amounts (relatively) into pensions with all the tax advantages of that.
Some would consider our balance skewed too much to forward planning - but now I certainly and glad we did what we didn't and don't regret it at all.

TBH, complaining the state pensions article doesn't do much good. The option is there for people to take responsibility for these things and acknowledge the risks of relying on things like SP - we know this will change and change again.

As you say, its the "jam today or jam tomorrow" choice. There have been many threads on the dibbled about this and the consensus always to fall on the "jam today" side.
This thread highlights some of the consequences of those choices.

I am not sure what those complaining about this want to happen. What solutions are being suggested? Bottom line is the SP isn't affordable. So there are two options - reduce the cost (this suggestion) or put more in (increase NI/taxes) and we would them have loads of complaining threads on that.

Average age is now over 80 years and we all need to think about how we fund this.