Help test new pension calculator

Former_MSE_Guy

Hi folks,
We are looking for some help testing a new state pension calculator we are rolling out tomorrow morning.

It aims to tell you how long you need to live to make your money back if you make top-up payments to boost you basic state pension.

The link to it is here: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/pension-calc-test


Please feedback your experiences by pressing reply to this thread but ignore the out-of-date warning below the calculator results.

Warning: The calculator is still in testing mode so do not make any financial decisions based on the result.

Thanks,
Guy

RacyRed

How many NI years have you got?


30

You already have enough years to get the FULL Basic State Pension. You do not need to buy any more.

Is this what you want posted Guy?

Additional info: Female, year of retirement 2025

jackieglasgow

Something to tell us how to find out the information you are asking for might be useful to some. How do you work out how many years NI you have paid?

Sagz_2

jackieglasgow wrote: »

Something to tell us how to find out the information you are asking for might be useful to some. How do you work out how many years NI you have paid?

Agree with you there.
Logic would seem to say it equates to the number of years I've worked - but I'm not 100% sure.

RacyRed

Sagz wrote: »

Agree with you there.
Logic would seem to say it equates to the number of years I've worked - but I'm not 100% sure.

Agreed, I calculated the number of FULL tax years (April to April) and used that. I missed out any part years as I'm not sure if they count or not.

sirbrainy

Prog needs a lot more work.

Prog asks for no information on how many more NI years you will earn before retirement.

Eg telling me if I pay for 4 more NI years I have to live 4 more years to be in the money is just wrong - I've got 22 years already and 20 years to retirement and will certainly make my NI years total up to 30 before I retire. So buying ANY missed NI years is a complete waste of money for me.

sandsy

sirbrainy wrote: »

Prog needs a lot more work.

Prog asks for no information on how many more NI years you will earn before retirement.

Eg telling me if I pay for 4 more NI years I have to live 4 more years to be in the money is just wrong - I've got 22 years already and 20 years to retirement and will certainly make my NI years total up to 30 before I retire. So buying ANY missed NI years is a complete waste of money for me.

Yip, I agree!

akh43

Something to work out your retirement age would also help, I know this is available on dwp but if you were going to fill in this it would help if you either had a link to the dwp site to make it easier for people or had a similar calculator yourself. Most people do not know the exact retirement age, especially with the various governments keep moving the goalposts.

I knew my details from previously working out mine so knew roughly how many years until retirement and how many years NI payments I had made but not everyone would know this or how to work it out.

I dont think its ready for release yet IMO.

maryb

Agree with these posts. I know I already have 30 years NI contributions so no need to buy more. But if I was younger and still had years to go it could be misleading.

Maybe also make it clear you can include years when you weren't working if your contributions were protected eg JSA or maternity pay

However it's a fairly recent thing that you only need 30 years. Might be helpful if you developed the functionality to vary this just in case they raise the number of years you need as well as putting off the date you can actually get your pension

(Want a bet they won't do that?)

bendix

All these replies are very polite. Let me be more blunt.

The program is an utter piece of assinnine pap.

shopndrop

What about when you have credits for when you weren't working but getting child benefit? I seem to remember being told that those years were covered even though I was a mum at home.