80 will be the new retirement age

[SueEllen]

With property paid for (no rent or mortgage), £10k would be an easy comfortable life.

Council tax - could easily eat up a large part of your income.

[Gonzo]

If someone dies before retirement age, or early into retirement does their state pension get inherited via probate or is it lost to the state?

There's nothing to inherit! All your NI contributions have already been spent paying the pensions of people that have already retired.

You just have to hope that the following generations will accept the same arrangement.

[escapeUK]

Nonsense.

Fuel bill per year £2k
Council tax per year £2k
Food £50 per week - £2600 per year
Clothes etc £1k per year

Rethink your numbers.

You rethink yours, my current fuel bill £800 a year. Council tax £900 a year. Food bill £200 a month. Leaving about £500 a month to spend on whatever I wanted.

I actually kinda did this. In 2009 I was doing 3-4 days contracting a month! Which covered all my bills and left me a life of leisure. I think of it as my mini retirement, was a great year sigh. I miss it.

[MarillionFan]

You rethink yours, my current fuel bill £800 a year. Council tax £900 a year. Food bill £200 a month. Leaving about £500 a month to spend on whatever I wanted.

I actually kinda did this. In 2009 I was doing 3-4 days contracting a month! Which covered all my bills and left me a life of leisure. I think of it as my mini retirement, was a great year sigh. I miss it.

Let's wait for someone to answer who isn't being a naive

[escapeUK]

Let's wait for someone to answer who isn't being a naive

Hmmm so the state pension is about £500 a month, but you think people really need 5 or 6 times this to survive. They dont.

Also not sure how Im being naive when I actually lived on a thousand a month and paid rent and had a great life.

[SueEllen]

Hmmm so the state pension is about £500 a month, but you think people really need 5 or 6 times this to survive. They dont.

Also not sure how Im being naive when I actually lived on a thousand a month and paid rent and had a great life.

There is your issue.

Lots of old folk own their own homes so when the boiler goes, the roof leaks, etc they need to pay for it out of their own pocket.

Oh and it's worse if you live in a conservation area. So that leaky roof you need to replace now can only be replaced with a specific material which triples the price.

[TimberWolf]

So much for the baby boomers having it easy, their parents had it easier still, in retirement at least.

[BrilloPad]

There is your issue.

Lots of old folk own their own homes so when the boiler goes, the roof leaks, etc they need to pay for it out of their own pocket.

Oh and it's worse if you live in a conservation area. So that leaky roof you need to replace now can only be replaced with a specific material which triples the price.

They mostly live in somewhere too large. They should sell up and give the young people a chance at the decent sized homes.

[bobspud]

They mostly live in somewhere too large. They should sell up and give the young people a chance at the decent sized homes.

I'm working from home at the moment and will be for the next few years. If I didn't have a dedicated office to hide in for most of the time, I would probably kill, or be killed by my wife...

The idea that I could end up in a small house with no personal space and have to face my wife day in and out with little hope of repite makes me beg for the chance to work to 80!

[PAH]

All you do it just go on benefits to top you up to the income *they* think you need to live on. I saw this with my two grans. One no pension, so free home, free council tax and money for everything else. Other gran good pension, she owned her own home, so paid for everything herself.

Very little difference between the two.

Same with mine. One grandparent has been on the disability for years and gets a free bungalow and has more disposable 'income' than my parents. My dad (her son) thinks she did an Albert (Only Fools and Horses) and took a dive to get on the sick as she's now fitter than he is, but as she's nearly 90 they won't be re-evaluating her needs.

Another grandparent had a few pensions from companies he worked at over the years meaning he was over the threshold for pension credits and other benefits so was worse off for it. Despite going for years with a reduced wage due to all the contributions he made.

So you're still better off having no pension, getting state pension and it topped up with pension credits to around £200/week, unless you can contribute hundreds per month to your own pension to come out only slightly better off once you consider you won't be getting any of the benefits you would if on state only pension.

Trouble is this is likely to change over the coming decades but what will happen if people don't or can't afford to save a significant part of their wages over their working life (if they have a job)? Surely there will always be some form of state aid?

I'm thinking of changing my private pension to a SIPP so I can make some bad investments and get on the scrounge when I'm older. Though with the poor performance of my pension over recent years it looks like the 'professionals' are doing that for me.