Karmacat: To Infinity And Beyond!

taka

2042 for me! :eek:

se999

Karmacat wrote: »

Thing is, tho, I was always supposed to retire in 2014 - and the investment vehicle for my house was set up on that basis - a lot of existing financial planning was upset when this change started happening. Of course, other things upset my financial plans too (like, my income dropping by a third ) that didn't help one bit.

Well me & OH mega caught up in the changes. The Labour one to bring women in line meant over 3 years of pension lost, according to the website it's now 5 years but might be more as the changes aren't finalised yet according to the pensions website as to how they're calculating it. OH will lose min 2 months . When you've got years to go to adjust to the changes it won't seem so bad, but for people in their 50's there's no time to increase the private pension, and also increasing unemployment in the 50+ age group means basically no income other than means tested benefits which you won't be entitled to if you've saved for retiring :mad: A real mess when you've followed government advice, paid contributions etc., and they change the rules at relatively short notice as far as retirement planning :mad:

Karmacat

se - exactly! I haven't put enough away, but £100 extra a week from 2014 was going to make a big difference. I suppose because I'm so "young" in terms of the people caught up in the changeover, it doesn't *really* make much difference - I suspect it will be 2 or 3 months extra delay, the change from 65 to 66 .... but it feels like a huge difference!

taka - you're one of the babies on here :rotfl:

se999

Pleased to hear that someone else has spotted it KC, I can't understand why more isn't being said about it really. There's lot's of protest groups for pensioners etc.. Others for other things, but the one's in 50's hit by this seem to have no voice.

Besides the pension itself, it's the loss of things like free prescriptions, I'm currently having to pay for a prepayment certificate (cheaper than individual prescriptions), but with increasing age more of us need more prescriptions. The loss of bus pass entitilement until 'pensioned' means a group of 60 to 66 year olds, unable to afford to get out and about for free, so more likely to be stuck at home unable to afford to get to libraries and other activities likely to keep them fit and active , as with pensioner discounts at leisure centres etc., which also are likely to ward off dementia. I do think if they move the bus pass and other entitlement ages along with the pension it's going to mean a less healthy, less active group of people when finally entitled, but maybe that's in the calculations!!!

Sorry if I'm ranting too much, just put a lot of effort into sorting finances out, and then the last few years government decisions :mad:

MrsMoo2U

Se never apologise for ranting about things like this. I am very disillusioned and I feel that the whole country is sleep walking into a complete breakdown of the welfare system. When I think about how hard people fought for the rights that we have today and these rights are slowly being eroded and we are allowing it to happen through apathy. People are very quick to shout about what is happening to peoples rights in other country but seem oblivious that we are being mugged time and again. It seems to me that the poor are constantly paying for the rich grabbing ******* 's greed and incompetence all the time. Who said life today is better than in years gone by. At least than people were not hypocritical and openly flirted the class system. At least then people knew that they were being down trodden and were prepared to fight against it.
I made the mistake of listening to the radio today and some complete t*****r came on and said that the poor should be kicked to the kerb, they were a burden on society, the rich were the heroes in this country and deserved to be treated better:mad::mad::mad::mad: I swear if he had been in the same room as me .......... well, I cant say.

Sorry KC rant over. Slinks back to her own diary.

Karmacat

Good grief, cherisong! Please, rant away ... its a worrying time when that kind of thing gets airspace .... se, I know, its us lot in our fifties that are really getting shafted - my mum retired at my age, with a redundancy payment equal to a year's salary and an index-linked pension - its so different from my own circumstances, its laughable.

se999

Maybe we should get MG's matrix advice? I don't know if it's the people affected don't know the impact, I know people like my parents wouldn't have realised. Or maybe we're too complacent, the French is the opposite end of the scale. There's been nearly no coverage and publicity on this compared to other people affected by cuts and potential cuts, but I'm not in the UK and relying on BBC website and Times and European press, so how do they know how much they're losing?

Karmacat

Maybe, se... between having moved recently, being ill, and *still* having no tv to watch the news on, and no inclination to buy papers every day, I'm probably not much more in the swim of general feeling than you are.

I'm really not sure about campaigning ... on balance, I don't think I would, tbh ... I certainly *feel* like I'm getting shafted, no two ways about it, but the truth is that since those retirement ages were established, 100 years ago, life expectancy has increased by 25 - 30 years. People were *old* at my age then, not just middle aged (and I've only just accepted that I *am* middle aged, lol). I know people complain that there are lots of rich people and they should do their bit .... well, there've always been rich people, and just like always, most of them try to get away with paying as little as they can out of their money, thats just the way things are with human beings. Its a very rare person like Paul McCartney who could be helped by being a tax exile and decides not to be.

Along with the longer living span is the lessening number of children being born, in spite of the increase in the last couple of years. Fewer workers funding more pensioners - remember that the government funds pensions out of *current* income, not out of investments. Something had to give, somewhere, and I understand (even if I hate it!) that it ended up being the pension age. All I can do for me personally is make sure that I repair the damage to my own plans as much as possible, and make sure that the people I care about aren't suffering either .....

It feels incredibly heartless to write that, but having looked at the history of this thing, thats the outlook I have

se999

The logic of the pension increase seems OK in theory, it's just that the current government hasn't realised the big hit in a short timescale for women in their 50s. A more gradual implementation would help a lot, basically as there's nearly no time to do anything about it relative to lifetime pension planning. So it's not saying it's not needed in the long term, it's just short term, we're in a mega mess.

I know the government pays pension out of current income, but if it was a private scheme where you'd paid in your contributions and they basically said get lost for another 5 years you're getting nothing until then they'd be jumped on. I can't remember which country, but in one the unions were taking the goverment to court to check out the legality of this.

They're also setting up this NEST scheme to get more pension revenue in, what are they going to spend that on!!

Sorry if I'm getting political, just a bit fed up to put it mildly.

Seaxwyn

I found the budget cuts very depressing. I can't see why dismantling so much of our welfare state is a better solution than closing tax loopholes and taxing banks. I don't underestimate the scale of the problem but I think there were ways out of it that wouldn't have hurt people so much.

Pensions is an area that particularly worries me as I have made very little provision for private pension. And am paying an interest only mortgage so won't end up with a big asset to sell. I have made bad financial decisions all my life. Unlike you, Karma - at least you have made good choices about housing.

Oh dear, feeling quite gloomy now, and really I came on as I wanted to find out how you are - your health? new house? Your diary moves so fast that I can't even try to keep up to date with news.