Getting Old

HangTime said:
By the time I'm a pensioner, I expect the pension will be more than £60/week.

The real 'problem' is that OAPs are making up an ever-increasing proportion of the population (typically due to people living longer). This means that the drain on taxpayers is conequently increasing too.
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It is due to the post-war baby boom that you have so many pensioners. The change to private pensions is a recent event, most people were told their work pension would see them in relative comfort in their old age. Govts. of all shades in the UK have known about this spike in OAP numbers for decades and did nothing to prepare for it.

Todays young will have to put a lot more aside for their old age. Their will be a lot of poorer old people when they retire.
 
Not everyone will get the full pension. At present you have to work for ~40years to get the full pension. This is going down in a few years to 30 years. People working less get a proportion of the pension or none at all.
 
Deluxe1 said:
Not everyone can afford it.
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The vast majority of people cant afford it.

In fact, very very few people can.
There was a few years ago, a weekly pension and investment slot on talksport on a friday.
One friday, the presenter (the now sadly deceased Mike Dickin) was getting frustrated with the financial advisor he had on and pressed him for a figure in respect to how much you would have to save to get a 12k a year income from a private pension.

The answer was £500,000.


The feature was immediately dropped.
If, like the vast and HUGE majority of people in the country on less than 25k hell even less than 50k, you are not going to save half a million quid by the time you are 65.
Any money you plan on saving is better off in a bank and not in a pension.
 
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atpbx said:
One friday, the presenter (the now sadly deceased Mike Dickin) was getting frustrated with the financial advisor he had on and pressed him for a figure in respect to how much you would have to save to get a 12k a year income from a private pension.

The answer was £500,000.
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annuities run at about 6% so 500k would provide 30k , also to have 500k to buy the annuity you would probably only have to save half of this ( at most ) as the investment would provide the other

I'm no expert by any means but 12k from 500k just doesnt sound right
 
Rotty said:
annuities run at about 6% so 500k would provide 30k , also to have 500k to buy the annuity you would probably only have to save half of this ( at most ) as the investment would provide the other

I'm no expert by any means but 12k from 500k just doesnt sound right
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Its what he said.

I'm just relaying it.

There was quite a large amount of callers after he said it saying what chance do i have to save!! etc etc.

If you look at what you have said there, you might as well have the money in the bank and live off the interest, then you have access to it at any time and its not locked into someone telling you when you can have it or not.
 
atpbx said:
Any money you plan on saving is better off in a bank and not in a pension.
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The critical factor is how much your employer contributes. My employer matches my 3% (of not a lot) with another 3% (of not a lot), and overall it was never going to amount to much of a pension. So I don't bother.

Many employers are significantly more generous, which means that even if your particular fund does very badly, your employer's contributions buffer you nicely against wasting your own money.

If -- as seems likely at the moment -- we enter a new inflationary age, then your savings will not be safe stashed in an ISA or under the bed. Inflation will destroy them just as easily as stock market tremors can wreck your pension just before you retire.

My plan, FWIW, is never to retire completely, but to gradually do less and less, stretching semi-retirement out towards my early 70s... should I buck the family trend and get that far.

The amount I'd need to save to generate even one day's income a week is so large (compared to disposable income) as to be unattainable. Better, as a lower paid worker anyway, to tailor your lifestyle to your means... and relax into senility with a bus pass and library card.

Andrew McP
 
Ill be leaving the UK and heading back to NZ when I get old, then as my dad comes from the cook islands, ill head to raratonga.
I am one of the very few people in the world who can own land there, not just the house on the land, so basicly Ill be living on a tropical island :)
 
I lost my Final Salary scheme with work last year, fortunately to sweeten the deal they are contributing a hell of a lot for the next two years, basically they will double what ever i put in, upto a max of 10% for the next 3 years, then its a sliding scale for the next 10 years.

So not as good as the FS scheme but still not bad for the next 10 years either.
 
wohoo said:
I lost my Final Salary scheme with work last year, fortunately to sweeten the deal they are contributing a hell of a lot for the next two years, basically they will double what ever i put in, upto a max of 10% for the next 3 years, then its a sliding scale for the next 10 years.

.
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we managed to hold on to our FS scheme but contributions were increased from 3% to 9%
 
Far too many 'holier than thou' types who will be very dissappointed when they get the estimate for their annuity: it's not so bad for you high end earners but not everyone can put money away for their old age, even today.

Unless you are putting a lot more than £1000 a month into your pension, you will be unlikely to get any decent sort of income; most people are not putting anywhere near that amount into their pensions yet expect it to look after them in later life ....... WAKE UP!!!

Many pension funds are unit trust investment type things; how many people will get what they expect from their unit trust mortgage ?

Pensioners do have to pay council tax and buy energy like everyone else so in 2007-2008, the full basic State Pension is £87.30 a week for a single person and £139.60 a week for a couple does not go very far.

edit to correct state pension figures.
 
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£1000 a month over 40 years ( even assuming small investement growth ) would produce an annuity well in excess of £50k a year
 
Rotty said:
£1000 a month over 40 years ( even assuming small investement growth ) would produce an annuity well in excess of £50k a year
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Best part of £30k, assuming your investment only keeps up with inflation. That's a VERY nice sum, considering you'll probably be mortgage free and generally have less out-goings.
 
Surfer said:
anyone on a nhs pension scheme? Is it worth it you reckon?
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I'm on it, but i believe it has changed recently. When i joined (3yrs ago) i got an independant financial adviser to go through my then current pension and the NHS final salary one, and it only took him about 30minutes to tell me that the NHS one blew my old one out of the water. Not sure what is involved in it now, but i would say just look up an IFA local to you, they will usually give you the first hour for free to look into things and is well worth it.
 
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