The Most Important Document You Will Never Read....

N1AK

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

But not paying them is not an option, in a democracy where pensioners vote at higher turnout rates than any other segment of society.

Exactly right, even more so because non-pensioners are still in general in favour of good pensions. In part because they care for their own elderly relatives and in part because they, naively, believe it will ensure good pensions when they retire.

wotsthat

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Depends what you mean by living as a monk and how you define their lifestyle. To many it may seem that way. Family and children have always come first before wasting money on trinkets and show.

I have never really been bothered by material things and brand influence.

I have always lived within my means but I have been lucky throughout life so far.

I have also worked with people less fortunate and accept that stuff happens in life. I also appreciate that for many young people they will not be so well off, partly due to increasing "taxation" but also due to a lesser number of stable, longterm, decent pay employment opportunities for many.

You've not wasted money on trinkets & show. Never been bothered by material things & brands and you've always lived within your means and you think you've been lucky to get into a decent financial position?

Sounds like the harder you worked and the more careful you were with your money the luckier you got.

grizzly1911

wotsthat wrote: »

You've not wasted money on trinkets & show. Never been bothered by material things & brands and you've always lived within your means and you think you've been lucky to get into a decent financial position?

Sounds like the harder you worked and the more careful you were with your money the luckier you got.

No doubt.

Not banging it all into pensions also helped with flexibility.

Many simply don't have the luxury to make those choices in the first place.

grizzly1911

Conrad wrote: »

Lots of people I know, self included pushed themselves with a big mortgage in order to benefit from selling a considerable TAX FREE asset at retirment. Pensions are so inflexible and reliant on city spiv fund managment which for many of us is all bound up with the Banking and city shark pool we forver frett about.

?

Please don't use capitals you will give Ozzy ideas.;)

Don't let Reno here you dis pensions for the populace at large.

RenovationMan

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Depends what you mean by living as a monk and how you define their lifestyle.

I don't mean anything by it - it was your statement that someone on £30k (back to Grahams model, I'm afraid) would have to live like a monk in order to make ends meet enough to contribute to a pension.

Clearly you made ends meet and so by your own words, you must have lived like a monk. Strangely, when I was on low pay, I still went out with mymates and contributed to a pension, and I managed to balance my chequebook. Clearly I'm some sort of financial wizard and completely on the fringe of society.

RenovationMan

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Please don't use capitals you will give Ozzy ideas.;)

Don't let Reno here you dis pensions for the populace at large.

Why havn't you posted a long and detailed diatribe about Conrad not counting his chickens, about how legislation may change and that he won't be able to sell a larger home and all the other nonsense you posted when I mentioned that I would be downsizing in 20 years?

Odd that you seem to be selective in who you attack. No critique for old Conrade here (though a dig at me) and the criticism poured onto Graham's flimsy model is aimed at myself, not Devon (wh created the model, in case you need reminding).

Isn't that odd! :rotfl:

RenovationMan

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Many simply don't have the luxury to make those choices in the first place.

Well from your earlier post it seems that its a "matter of living within your means, not wasting money on 'trinkets', not being bothered by material things and influenced by brands".

Perhaps many are simply having too much luxury to make the choice [to save] in the first place?

wotsthat

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Many simply don't have the luxury to make those choices in the first place.

Indeed. I'd say most people in the UK have the luxury of choice though - some get more and some get fewer.

At the weekend I was out running and passed a young couple pushing two toddlers in pushchairs. My guess was that as they were having a domestic in public and the young man had a nice array of tattoos on his neck they were being maintained by the state/ taxpayer. If they'd had a bull terrier I could've been more sure but anyway I digress. The young man in question had a 4 pack of Red Stripe lager presumably for later consumption.

He won't have realised it but he was making a choice between spending now, saving or spending later. Clearly, £5 here or there isn't going to make a jot of difference to his retirement but I did think that if he saved £5 from each 'payday' he could've taken his kids on a Sun holiday instead or at least have made a better choice.

Maybe he needed those cans to make his life just that little more tolerable but I did think of this thread and how wonderful it is that even people on benefits in the UK get to make choices too.

kabayiri

RenovationMan wrote: »

...
Clearly you made ends meet and so by your own words, you must have lived like a monk. Strangely, when I was on low pay, I still went out with mymates and contributed to a pension, and I managed to balance my chequebook. Clearly I'm some sort of financial wizard and completely on the fringe of society.

You're definitely on the fringe. I'd say most of us here are.

Go and work in a few places alongside people on relatively limited income. I did, and I confess it's been a real shock. There are people out there who need to focus on paying off expensive debts before they even consider longer term savings. Just look at the average personal debt in this country. It's way too high in my view.

RenovationMan

kabayiri wrote: »

You're definitely on the fringe. I'd say most of us here are.

Go and work in a few places alongside people on relatively limited income. I did, and I confess it's been a real shock. There are people out there who need to focus on paying off expensive debts before they even consider longer term savings. Just look at the average personal debt in this country. It's way too high in my view.

And yet I keep saying that I'm not some Lord, born to wealth. And still people seem to have the image of me sitting in my country manor telling the peasant classes to eat cake.

Bonkers, but I guess it's easier to spout this sort of rubbish than to put forward a cogent argument.