revert the pension age to 60/65

mumps

redbuzzard wrote: »

You were lucky;)

Yes mumps, we bought a wreck too in 1977, though it didn't seem to matter - gas fire in the sitting room, paraffin heater in the bathroom, draughty windows- maybe the years have dimmed the memory, but I still think heated bedrooms are unhealthy!

There were two new things in the house when we moved in, the sitting room carpet (the cheapest, nastiest printed nylon one available) and the cooker; everything else was old stuff given to us or bought in the secondhand shop. We were decided to buy a fridge with our remaining savings a week later when the milk went off.

Well, I am a Yorkshireman...




Of course not. And most of us do it sometimes. I suppose my theme was "count your blessings". Trite, in hindsight, for which I apologise though I do think some of these old platitudes have a grain of good counsel in them.

I so agree on the heated bedrooms, they give me a headache apart from anything else.

It makes me laugh when I think what our first house was like after we did it up. My kids would be horrified at the idea of living with the gas fire, no heating upstairs, no fridge and freezer I had never even met anyone with a freezer. The joy of a washing machine, the thought of going back to washing sheets by hand and trying to dry towels that have been handwashed :rotfl:Happy days, I wouldn't change any of it, would you?

mumps

Pollycat wrote: »

Yes, I do agree with this - and I was pretty damed hacked off about the second very-little-notice push back of my state pension.

But, unlike the OP, I'm not accusing the Government of 'stealing money from me'.

I have the common sense to realise, unlike the OP, that my NI contributions were (as I retired early almost 10 years ago and no longer pay NI) for more than just my State pension.

I agree that the OP didn't word it well, I was translating for people who didn't understand.

Did the change in pension date cause you any problems, I assume you had planned your early retirement expecting this income.

mumps

citricsquid wrote: »

I'm not sure it can be blamed on the rich. The world is constantly changing, a decade ago most people had a computer in the home but it was used for a few minutes every day to check the weather or play pinball. Today a normal household will have computers, laptops, ipads, ipods, televisions and unfortunately salaries have not kept up with that growth in consumer demand. The reason people are now working every day of the week isn't because of a conspiracy by the rich to keep the poor man down, it's because now everyone wants needs more "stuff".

Look back half a century ago to the 60s, the apex of a persons life was getting married and purchasing a home, once you were married and paying for your home (through a mortgage) that was that, what else was there to buy? Bills got paid and maybe you were earning enough to save for a holiday to the seaside but that was it!

If the spending attitudes of people had stayed in line with those of our grandparents (or for the older people here, their parents) we would be living in a utopia where people work for 4 days a week and spend more of their time enjoying life than working. I could do that now if I wanted, if I lived like my grandparents did I could work 4 days a week in an average job and still be able to have a good quality of living...

Spending the best part of £1000 on a new mobile phone is expected nowadays, for most people that's at least 2 weeks pay and these are not once in a lifetime purchases, they're purchases made every year or so, that sort of frequent spending would blow my grandmothers mind!

The world has changed for the better, we have benefited greatly from the progressions that have been made in science and technology, however our demands have greatly outpaced this growth, what our grandparents consider luxuries are now considered necessary. This forum is a very good demonstration of this:

There are members that live like our grandparents, they spend money on important things and save for luxuries, this allows their mortgages to be paid off early, their savings to grow and creates a substantial and comfortable retirement, to do this they don't need to work 80 hour weeks or sell their first born, they just need to be sensible.

There are members that are earning reasonable salaries who are steeped in debt not because they made life changing decisions like entering into property ownership but because they were so desperate to have the latest iPad or newest 3D TV that they spent money they didn't have. These are the people that our grandparents will never understand because debt for a luxury is absolute insanity to them.

A family with two adults earning the average salary (combined total £52,000) could live like royalty if their attitudes to spending matched those of our grandparents, they could work normal hours, own their own home and retire with money in the bank allowing them to experience the world!

You have summed it up brilliantly. I don't live like my grandparents or even parents but some things just seem madness, the mobile phone example is a good one I know several young people at work who are struggling with debt but had the iphone 5 as soon as it came out. They couldn't understand why I was surprised that they had taken on another commitment but were asking me for overtime as they couldn't afford food.

rpc

mumps wrote: »

I think it is fairly obvious, they have paid NI for their working life and will lose the money they would have received between 60 and 65/66.

What about the money that you will receive between age ~70 (when you were meant to die) and 89 (when you are likely to die [2010 based cohort life expectancy for a 60 year old efmale]). A lot more years have been added on the end of the state pension than are being chopped off the start.

If you promise promise promise with no fingers crossed to knock yourself off aged 70 then perhaps you can have your pension at 60.

None of the older generation ever seem to complain about living longer than they thought and us younger folk are just meant to quietly pay for the promises that your generation collectively made themselves. At the time, it seemed perfectly reasonable but things have changed.

Pollycat

mumps wrote: »

You have summed it up brilliantly. I don't live like my grandparents or even parents but some things just seem madness, the mobile phone example is a good one I know several young people at work who are struggling with debt but had the iphone 5 as soon as it came out. They couldn't understand why I was surprised that they had taken on another commitment but were asking me for overtime as they couldn't afford food.

Some people just have their priorities so wrong.

Luckily, I was brought up to save for things I wanted and to understand not spending more than you earned.

Maybe that's why I was lucky enough to be able to retire at age 50.

Freecall

If one could choose their own birth date then in my view the best time to have been born would have without question been immediately post the second world war.

Yes you would have been born into rationing but you would have been too young to know about it. With the NHS ensuring your health in the years that would lie ahead, things would look good.

You would have had a solid education followed by readily available employment in the early 1960’s.

You would probably have got married and bought your own home around the mid 60’s on the basis of a single income. A couple of children would have followed shortly afterwards.

The house you had purchased with an affordable mortgage would have been your home. You would not be on the ‘housing ladder’ because it had not been invented yet. The idea that you would need to borrow more and more money every few years just to try and find a reasonable place to live would have been laughable.

By the time that high inflation kicked in during the 1970’s you would have been well established in your career and likely to be receiving regular pay increases to ride out the storm. As a bonus this would have inflated away most of your already affordable mortgage.

The children would leave home in the mid eighties to lucrative jobs or proper universities while you enjoyed the spoils of the privatisation issues. Interest rates would hit record highs but by now you were a net saver in a strong position to take advantage and to start thinking about retirement.

Although during the 1990’s it was decided that the state pension age was to rise from the long established 60/65, you were luckily of an age which would avoid any of these changes. Not that it really mattered anyway, your final salary scheme was due to kick in at 60 and offered a number of early retirement options.

So by the early to mid naughties you would be able to start your retirement in a position of good finance and health.

The growth in budget airlines had meant that for some time you had started to enjoy a kind of jet-set lifestyle and the purchase of a second home on the Med seemed only natural.

Now, after a decade of that, you are starting to slow down a bit. That nasty Mr Cameron is threatening to take away your bus pass and if you moved permanently to your villa you might lose your winter fuel allowance.

But wait a minute, it looks as though at your age you are probably in the group that will be exempted from these changes so things should work out ok again.

Happy days.



Anybody born around 1945 care to comment?

GhIFA

Southend1 wrote: »

However many thousands, if not millions of people are now forced to work Sundays to satisfy this kind of greed.

I wonder how many children never get to spend a whole day with both parents because you feel it is your right to be able to buy a new pair of socks on a Sunday?

This is the 21st century, we should be reaping the benefit of computerisation and automation and instead here we are working 7 days a week until we drop because of the greed of the rich who want to get even richer through our sweat and the middle classes who can't possibly manage for one day a week without a trip to costa coffee.

What a load of complete rubbish. No-one is "forced" to work on a Sunday. And what about those who, because they are busy the rest of the week, want to be able to go out and shop, or meet up with friends for a coffee or any other such normal activity. Or those that want to work on a Sunday because it suits them better.

If anything, the Sunday trading laws are still too restrictive, and the view that Sunday is in some way "special" is anitquated and outdated.

redbuzzard

mumps wrote: »

The joy of a washing machine, the thought of going back to washing sheets by hand and trying to dry towels that have been handwashed :rotfl:Happy days, I wouldn't change any of it, would you?

The only thing I'd change is that when my dad offered to pay for the carpet I'd cancel the paper-thin foamback I'd paid for and order a decent one! I truly hated that carpet.

I'd forgotten about the washer - for about three years, we went to the library every Tuesday night, changed the books, then went on the the launderette with the new reading matter; we actually looked forward to Tuesdays. We bought an auto washer when my daughter was imminent, along with the first TV.

Enough already. We're boring the children.

Pollycat

Freecall wrote: »

If one could choose their own birth date then in my view the best time to have been born would have without question been immediately post the second world war.

Yes you would have been born into rationing but you would have been too young to know about it. With the NHS ensuring your health in the years that would lie ahead, things would look good.

You would have had a solid education followed by readily available employment in the early 1960’s.

You would probably have got married and bought your own home around the mid 60’s on the basis of a single income. A couple of children would have followed shortly afterwards.

The house you had purchased with an affordable mortgage would have been your home. You would not be on the ‘housing ladder’ because it had not been invented yet. The idea that you would need to borrow more and more money every few years just to try and find a reasonable place to live would have been laughable.

By the time that high inflation kicked in during the 1970’s you would have been well established in your career and likely to be receiving regular pay increases to ride out the storm. As a bonus this would have inflated away most of your already affordable mortgage.

The children would leave home in the mid eighties to lucrative jobs or proper universities while you enjoyed the spoils of the privatisation issues. Interest rates would hit record highs but by now you were a net saver in a strong position to take advantage and to start thinking about retirement.

Although during the 1990’s it was decided that the state pension age was to rise from the long established 60/65, you were luckily of an age which would avoid any of these changes. Not that it really mattered anyway, your final salary scheme was due to kick in at 60 and offered a number of early retirement options.

So by the early to mid naughties you would be able to start your retirement in a position of good finance and health.

The growth in budget airlines had meant that for some time you had started to enjoy a kind of jet-set lifestyle and the purchase of a second home on the Med seemed only natural.

Now, after a decade of that, you are starting to slow down a bit. That nasty Mr Cameron is threatening to take away your bus pass and if you moved permanently to your villa you might lose your winter fuel allowance.

But wait a minute, it looks as though at your age you are probably in the group that will be exempted from these changes so things should work out ok again.

Happy days.



Anybody born around 1945 care to comment?

I'm a few years younger than someone in your example so have missed out on my State pension and bus pass at 60 but I do agree with some of the things you say.

It would be nice to think that we had enough jobs for young people leaving school.
That we were getting a decent rate of interest on our savings.
That you could travel on a bus without some kid putting their feet on the adjacent seat or someone yelling into a mobile phone or playing bloody music so loud it damages your ear drum. :cool:
That our high streets weren't in danger of becoming ghost towns/cities with empty shops or charity shops (although my ingrained frugal nature means I like these and appreciate those silly people who buy something new and then CS them still with the label attached).

However, I also do appreciate what we have now but didn't have 'back in the old days'.
I like to put my washing machine on overnight using the electronic timer.
Same with my dinner in my oven that switches itself on and cooks when I'm out.
I sort-of appreciate the amazing range of foods we can now get but miss the in-season variety of fruit and veg that you could get in all village green-grocers, all locally grown.

molerat

I notice that the op failed to mention that to get the full sp at 60 a woman had to contribute for 39 years, to get it at 65 only 30 years contributions are needed.

The 2010 changes meant that a person could stop working earlier, from age 46, and still receive a full basic state pension at the appropriate time instead of generally working until at least 55 for women and 60 for men.