New flat rate pension

PaulF81

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Aren't you leaving too? Why are you so bothered what happens to blighty?

You will be enjoying the expat UAE and not contributing a further jot. Just make sure you keep up the private pension and medical insurance.

Will be continuing ni contributions but avoiding watching 50% of my salary being thrown at dossers and Low lives.

Generali

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Imagine the uproar if the concept of the welfare was to be abandoned.

No ones mentioned what might happen if the state cannot afford to pay the pension even at these levels.

You can only buy something if you can earn or borrow the money for it. The Government has a little get out clause whereby they can print money but that doesn't always end well.

Ultimately the welfare state as currently conceived can't be afforded IMHO especially the pensions/personal care part.

Moby

PaulF81 wrote: »

Will be continuing ni contributions but avoiding watching 50% of my salary being thrown at dossers and Low lives.

How do you think you'll be regarded as a foreigner in UAE?

Thrugelmir

Generali wrote: »

You can only buy something if you can earn or borrow the money for it. The Government has a little get out clause whereby they can print money but that doesn't always end well.

Ultimately the welfare state as currently conceived can't be afforded IMHO especially the pensions/personal care part.

Everything time a change of any kind is proposed. There's an uproar as to winners and losers. The media was so quick to point out what went wrong in Greece for example. No one is looking down the road at what's in store for the UK if change isn't effected.

Generali

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Everything time a change of any kind is proposed. There's an uproar as to winners and losers. The media was so quick to point out what went wrong in Greece for example. No one is looking down the road at what's in store for the UK if change isn't effected.

Yup. It's the same thing with child benefit. Someone's getting more than me.

Grow up Britons! The UK's economy will be dragged down the tubes by the welfare state.

MacMickster

For many years the welfare system has funded too many "nice to haves" rather than just "must haves". The population has become used to a Rolls Royce welfare system whilst paying only Vauxhall Astra money for it (with the rest being borrowed from our children).

I don't think that we will return to the age of almshouses, but certainly manyof the "entitled" classes are soon going to receive a sharp lesson in the realities of life. At the same time however, we must all fight to ensure that those who are genuinely unable (not just disinclined) to support themselves are adequately looked after.

ash28

Jennifer_Jane wrote: »

If we hadn't spent 45 years or more working and (NI) contributing towards the pensions of our elders, then that would be fine. We did, you are doing it, and your children will be, or are, doing it.

I sent money from overseas to do it, so I would have made other choices with that money. I deliberately funded the State Pension I have with money sent to the UK. So I definitely deserve my State Pension. It was part of my pension planning, and I also have a small private pension.

Things changed before I received my pension - the 30 year qualification (unfair for me because I needed 39 and men needed 42 years); the fact that up to my year, people could update their qualifying years, but not for my year or upwards (unfair that I couldn't upgrade my pension); the fact that I could receive my pension at 60 which was unfair for others, but beneficial to me (although I chose to defer to 62 as I continued working longer, so have "lost" those years' pension receipts, in order to receive a marginally higher weekly pension).

Lots of things have been "unfair" on people, you just have to accept that. Some things are better for you and some things are worse for people.

I agree life isn't fair all of the time for all of the people.

I'm not able to retire at 60, though I thought I would be able to until the mid 1990s, then I thought I would be able to retire at 65, but now I'm not able to - it's now 66.

I will reach state pension age at the end of 2021, I paid SERPS/SP2 for quite a lot of my working life and the last pension projection I had indicated that I would be getting more than the new flat rate pension - I don't know what will happen to that - if it will just be lost or if it will be paid on top of the flat rate pension.....my feeling is that it will be lost.

OH was contracted out all of his working life (we reach state retirement age in the same year) and he will get more under the new system than he would have under the old.

C'est la vie.

DervProf

As far as a flat rate for state pensions goes....... hurray !

At last, something that seems to make sense, and a "punishment" for the prudent is being removed.

Someone like myself, with a modest private pension, feels that we are being penalised for being bothered to actually save some money for our retirement. My understanding is that under the current system, the person who has a private pension, or has saved for retirement may not be entitled to the means tested "top up". The person who "lived it up", and didn't bother to save gets around £30 extra per week (because they're worth it ?). Flat rate for all is fairer, and it means that those who can save a modest amount for retirement are more likely to do so, as they know they will not be losing out on any state pension "top up".

Niv

PaulF81 wrote: »

Will be continuing ni contributions but avoiding watching 50% of my salary being thrown at dossers and Low lives.

So you intend to put the minimum in to get maximum returns? You are no better than the people you are castigating imo.

Its not the boomers that are the problem it is people like YOU!

PaulF81

Moby wrote: »

How do you think you'll be regarded as a foreigner in UAE?

Having wortked there extensively before, I can assure you the attitude to the majority population of immigrant work (western workers mind) is significantly more forward thinking than that of the same thinking in the uk. And the pay is much, much better.