Help test new pension calculator

RacyRed

shopndrop wrote: »

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.

Yes, years spent raising children count as contributions years - it was up to 20 years I think - I'm not sure about recent changes though.

There are other "deemed contribution" situations which need to be considered, for instance many jobseekers sign on to preserve their NI contributions even when they do not actually receive JSA benefit.

For many years people earning just below the Class 1 NI payment threshold were deemed to have made contributions, so those years count too.

tori.k

I thought they were doing away with the retirment age this year?to be honest i doubt very much there i will a goverment pension set up by the time i get to retire in 20 years, i recall talk in my teens of putting people on income support that hadn't paid into a private pension as its less then a state pension, number wise im assuming that its still the case?

begbeer

I found it very useful as am thinking of going down that route , have already found out that I could only buy back two of my missing years (making 28 in total) so was pleased to see that as long as I live for four years will be in the black

judexx

Agree with other comments - needs a link to DWP for people to find reitrement date and more explanation of 'How many NI years have you got'

getmore4less

I found a errors on the Mortgage one never got fixed not sure why they ask for testers.

I put in
retire 2009 30 years worth and 25 years purchase
and it came back with

Based on a typical scenario if you've...
30 years of NI contributions and buy 25 more.
You'd need to live for at least 3 years to make your money back
This is because it will cost you £15,459.60 to buy extra years and you will get approximately £4,710 as a backdated pension. In addition, you will get about £4,230 a year more on future pension payouts

.

Look like complete nonsence to me

zarazara

I have enough 30 years for full basic state pension,should I buy more to get a better pension? I dont understand it.

Wilma33

There is no 31st of the month on the date of retirement.

SnowMan

There is a definite need to switch from 'how many years have you got' to 'how many years will you have by SPA'.

Better still two inputs 'how many years have you got so far' and 'how many future years might you have' inputs. Testing years to date + years purchased against the 30 years needed (as the calculator does) is bound to lead to confusion. For example the 50 year old with 28 years to date person who buys 2 years unaware that he or she will likely accrue those years in the future in any case, and so pays money for nothing. Much better to test 'how many years will you have + years purchased against 30'

I would query the wisdom of allowing SPAs up to 2050. Someone with SPA 2050 has nearly 39 future years to accrue the 30 years to get a full state pension.

I agree some info on how to find out what qualifying years you have accrued to date is needed. At the moment a standard State Pension Forecast doesn't tell you this. Generally it is a good idea to get a forecast and then ring them up and find out specifically what tax years so far count as qualifying. Trying to guess without checking is one of the biggest mistakes people make.

I can understand why date of birth isn't used as an input (as would have to program in SPA based on dob also and then there are likely changes that haven't been legislated for which creates a mess) however the input should be called 'When did you or will you reach State Pension Age?' Retire and SPA are different things to most people.

The usual caveat that for example married people might need to check if claiming off their spouse's contributions invalidates the wisdom of buying extra years will be needed.

Think the notes should make it clear who is most likely to find the calculator useful the answer being, a) those who have reached SPA, b) those who are fairly close to SPA c) those with a lot of missing years who may not achieve 30 years by SPA.

Would like the output to show cost of purchasing a year as well as the number of years of survival e.g.

'Buying the 2009/2010 tax year will cost £x. The additional state pension is 1/30th of the full basic state pension (currently 1/30 of £y = z). Therefore you will need to live for...... '

bilbo51

MSE_Guy wrote: »

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

I do hope you've not rolled it out. It looks like you've given the exercise to a new programming recruit and haven't tested it internally at all. If I allowed my development team to do that I'd be sacked and rightly so.

chalkysoil

Based on a typical scenario if you've...
28 years of NI contributions and buy 1 more.

You'd need to live for at least 4 years to make your money back


fair enough.
My efforts at cut & paste produced pages of programming!