National Insurance Years: 35ish... ish?

throwaway4372

throwaway4372

throwaway4372

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Martin Lewis was on telly encouraging people to pay to complete their incomplete NI years before the opportunity to do so goes away.
Info for those interested: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/

In doing so he said the number of years you need is "35ish". I thought the number of years was 35 exactly. So now I need to figure out the truth!

I looked at my NI record, it's not a great UI as it seems to require using data from multiple pages to figure the situation out.

Pension Summary Page says:
"Forecast if you contribute another 13 years before 5 April 2053: £203.85 a week" (the max)

NI Record page says:
You have:
- 19 years of full contributions
- 30 years to contribute before 5 April 2053
- 3 years when you did not contribute enough (university)

So that sounds like 19+13 = full pension. So that's 32 years, not 35.

Why? How is the years required calculated?
 
  • 1 year when you did not contribute enough
In 1985 to 1986, I only made fifty weeks of contributions. No idea what I was doing back then, it's irrelevant as I'm maxed out.
 
I’ve got 28 years of full contributions goes back all the way to when I was 16 and had a weekend job at Morrisons. Not entirely sure how I got the full contributions from that.
 
Not too bad

You have:

25 years of full contributions
23 years to contribute before 5 April 2046
4 years when you did not contribute enough

Of the 4 missing, I can top up only the last with an £800 payment. Can I see if that's "worth it?"

Edit, nope.

"Your forecast is £203.85 a week, £886.38 a month, £10,636.60 a year"
 
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john_smith said:
Of the 4 missing, I can top up only the last with an £800 payment. Can I see if that's "worth it?"
Click to expand...
I am not a financial advisor.

But, if you have 23 years left and only need to make another ten years or so of contributions to be entitled to a full pension, I'd say it's probably not worth paying for that last year.
 
Feek said:
I am not a financial advisor.

But, if you have 23 years left and only need to make another ten years or so of contributions to be entitled to a full pension, I'd say it's probably not worth paying for that last year.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you're right. Further reading confirms i'm good and i'm going to be rich when I retire.*



*Not rich
 
peterwalkley said:
Wow - didn't know that and its very handy to know as my missus lost quite a few years with children and being made redundant. Go here if anyone else needs to check: https://www.gov.uk/state-pension-through-partner
Click to expand...
ditto. i had no idea of this!.
i will be ok i think however i am missing more years than most due to a bunch of partials which i failed to top off at the time and working technically in the EU for the last 6 years and it took some time to kick off my voluntary NI payments.

i reckon i will have about 3 or 4 years spare by the time i get to my retirement age so i dont need to backdate the 2 partial years i have which i *could* still top off - and defo not touching the 2 full missing years.
but knowing my wife could bail me out even if needed is great news (she has been in full employment since 18 and so is already getting close to her full bucket for state pension and still has many years to go before retiring.
 
I saw this yesterday on Martin Lewis' Twitter feed. I checked mine out and I have 4 years where I didn't make full payments. Two of which are full years and the other two are part years. One of the part years is before the 2006 cut-off so I can't pay for that. To fill in the gaps of the 3 other years would cost me about £1,800 but then I checked my pension forecast and it says I'm on the £203.85 a week so as long as I keep working and paying in, there's no point me paying the £1,800 to make up the gaps. :)
 
throwaway4372 said:
Martin Lewis was on telly encouraging people to pay to complete their incomplete NI years before the opportunity to do so goes away.
Info for those interested: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/

In doing so he said the number of years you need is "35ish". I thought the number of years was 35 exactly. So now I need to figure out the truth!

I looked at my NI record, it's not a great UI as it seems to require using data from multiple pages to figure the situation out.

Pension Summary Page says:
"Forecast if you contribute another 13 years before 5 April 2053: £203.85 a week" (the max)

NI Record page says:
You have:
- 19 years of full contributions
- 30 years to contribute before 5 April 2053
- 3 years when you did not contribute enough (university)

So that sounds like 19+13 = full pension. So that's 32 years, not 35.

Why? How is the years required calculated?
Click to expand...

It could be that they knocked 3 years off your expected 35 years of contributions due to staying on in education for 3 years
 
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