I'm getting old!

Uneducated_Archie

Hi, I've just had a letter from The Pension Service telling me that I can claim my State Pension in September this year at the age of 65.

My wife is currently claiming her pension but is still working. I stopped working (well stopped being employed on 28 Mar 13 - I stopped working years ago, ha, ha, ha).

I've done a bit of Google searching and come up with figures for a lone pensioner and for a married couple. Obviously (as far as the Chancellor of the Exchequer is concerned) the married couple's rate is much lower than the two individual rates.

Could someone please advise me on this?

Lets say for example that my wife is drawing £103.oo a week for a 85% pension and my pension in September (100%) was £107.oo (total £210.oo) but the married couple's pension is £170.oo would my state pension be reduced to £67.oo a week?

Thanx

JoeCrystal

It does not matter. There is no such thing called married couple's pension. Instead, you individually claim the pension. The closest thing is when a wife or husband can claim 60% of it spouse's history as pension so that added up to £170...

Cheers,
Joe

margaretclare

I keep saying this but....there is no such thing as a married couple's pension!

Uneducated_Archie

I took my information from this site:

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-2296364/Budget-2013-Flat-rate-pension-144-confirmed-George-Osborne.html

Quote: It is expected that by the time the flat-rate pension comes in it will be worth £155-a-week, with married couples getting double that. The current basic state pension is worth £107.45-a-week, or £171.85 for couples. Unquote

Thanx Joe That answers my question.

Margaret - I'm certainly NOT going to read everything you post on these forums before I ask a simple question, am I?

Thanx again Joe

dunstonh

Quote: It is expected that by the time the flat-rate pension comes in it will be worth £155-a-week, with married couples getting double that. The current basic state pension is worth £107.45-a-week, or £171.85 for couples. Unquote

Doesnt say married couples pension, which as has been correctly stated, does not exist at this time. One pension can be enhanced if a spouse has not enough provision to qualify in her own right. Your wife appears to have qualified for enough in her own right

Margaret - I'm certainly NOT going to read everything you post on these forums before I ask a simple question, am I?

Probably more for the benefit of the regulars. We do repeat an awful lot in this section. So, we do sometimes "apologise" for repeating.

jamesd

Your wife might usefully check whether she can still buy more years to increase her state pensions. Sometimes this is possible. She should also check that her employer isn't deducting NI from her pay.

You might both consider whether it is desirable to defer taking the state pensions for a while. The amount they pay goes up by 10.4% for each year you defer, pro-rated for shorter times. It's a nice way for those in normal health to get extra inflation-protected income for life. You can defer once even if you've already started taking the pensions, so your wife can still do this. Optimal deferring is one to three years for men in good health and two to five years for women, with the best depending on just what the individual life expectancy is.

You might also want to say a bit about your anticipated income sources and amounts, as well as any pension pots you have. It's quite possible that there will be additional optimisation possibilities there that we could tell you about if we knew a bit more.

Uneducated_Archie

dunstonh

I can’t tell if you post is intended to rile or reassure me?

Clearly the official post suggests, to a layman like me, that there could be a couples’ pension, especially as the words “state, pension and couples appear in one sentence”?

Quote: The current basic state pension is worth £107.45-a-week, or £171.85 for couples. Unquote.

I had already phoned the State Pension office, this morning, to tell them that I intended to draw my pension at the age of 65. The official on the other end of the phone asked me if my wife was drawing her pension and of course I told him she was doing so. Hence the reason why I asked for advice on this forum.

Now, I’m NOT esoteric as far as state benefits are concerned because I’ve never had to draw any and I thought that perhaps there were kind hearted people in these forums (like Joe and James) who could give me the answer to my question. I certainly did NOT expect to receive such an unhelpful reply from margaretclare.

I’ve spent a great deal of my working life training people and as such have always considered that there is only one stupid question – the one which is NOT asked. If people asked me a question which I had answered previously I would certainly NOT say “I answered that question yesterday”. Such a reply would be unhelpful, show a lack of respect to the pupil, lack of team spirit and as such lead to a situation where I as an instructor would NOT be able to command respect.

Quote: Probably more for the benefit of the regulars. We do repeat an awful lot in this section. So, we do sometimes "apologise" for repeating. Unquote

Well yes dunstonh……. It might be better if people gave friendly, polite and informative answers rather than: “ I keep on saying…………” then of course there would be no need to apologise would there?


Jamesd

Thanx for your reply James. I’ve already asked the Pension Office to pay my pension when it is due in September.

My wife has been drawing her pension since Feb 2010. She doesn't pay NI contributions. She was given the opportunity to buy in for the years when she didn’t work when we lived in China and Gibraltar. We thought in 2010 that the buy back years were very expensive and NOT worth it. I seem to remember that she was five years short of a full pension.

Hopefully we won’t starve:

No Mortgage – House Owner
No Children
No Will
No Debts


Pensions: I have three which I’m drawing at the moment 13.2K (I’ve asked Inland Revenue to offset my tax allowance against it), 4.5K (taxed), 3.1K (taxed)
State Pension in September, last year's figure was £121.98 per week.
Wife’s state pension now: 5.4K
Wife’s occupational pension 30K/80*16 years (when she retires) 6K pa.


We have savings and have made full use of our ISA allowances.

Thanx

jamesd

How are you getting income from those pensions you're drawing? I'm wondering how much you're getting in work defined benefit pensions (final salary and similar), from annuities and from income drawdown. That's because you may be eligible to use Flexible Drawdown instead of Capped Drawdown and that would give you more flexibility in how and when you take pension income.

Buying past years is normally a great deal. Using the £107.45 a week basic state pension part only, each extra year purchased to get to 30 is worth £186.24 in income for each year you live, increasing with inflation. That tends to mean that you're ahead in just two or three years. It's £110.15 this year but the cost of back years will also have gone up. The numbers in this paragraph assume the person reached state pension age on or after 6 April 2010.

For women who reached state pension age before that date the benefit for each year purchased is an extra £143.26 per year purchased up to 39 total. This is still using that older £107.45 a week value.

Some people who already started getting paid their state pensions between 6 April 2008 and until 5 April 2015 can still buy past years. Hopefully the gain per year makes it pretty clear how short the time is to get ahead from doing that and she might consider doing it, since it's likely to be a great deal for her if she can. MSE has a calculator that shows just how good a deal it is.

jamesd

If you or your wife happen to know anyone who is five or less years from retiring who wants a checkup it's a good time in advance to get them to come here. Some of the planning can take a few years to work, particularly for those in public sector jobs who might have work pension and state pensions combined that add up to £20,000 or more.

margaretclare

I wrote what I did because there does seem to be a misapprehension about, that a married couple get retirement pension paid to them as a couple. We've seen before that actually, officialdom is not all that helpful and can cause confusion. In the Budget there is often a mention of 'pensioner couples'. So, we do seem to answer the same question over and over.

This does come up time and time again and a little searching, not of what I wrote but e.g. 'pensions for couples' or similar, might bring forth a lot of fruit.

I can never understand how people do in fact expect to draw retirement pension as a couple, as seems to be imagined. Whose bank account would it go into?

dunstonh

I can’t tell if you post is intended to rile or reassure me?

I dont know what you mean by that.

Clearly the official post suggests, to a layman like me, that there could be a couples’ pension, especially as the words “state, pension and couples appear in one sentence”?

Nothing official about a newspaper article.