Is my pension contribution "worth it"

kidmugsy

jamesd wrote: »

the care appears to be cheaper

There is no care: it provides insurance, not care. Moreover, when you allow for the large excesses, the punter will often end up with having to stump up for treatment the cost of which might well exceed his savings. And that's assuming that he can find doctors in the requisite specialities who have signed up to the system. It does seem to be a shambles, and has already cost a lot of workers their employer insurance, as employers move staff to part-time work to avoid having to pay for Obamacare for them.

It's all pretty rational: when labour was in short supply, employers would fund health insurance to attract and retain workers; now labour is surplus, they look to shed the cost. A bit like Defined Benefit pension schemes, perhaps?

kidmugsy

atush wrote: »

anyone here dissing it ... has never lived in the USA.

If you count a three month spell, I have lived there. But your point is empty; I've never met any non-American who defends their traditional shambles. The question is whether Obamacare is much cop.

atush wrote: »

When I graduated Uni, I was dropped from my parents cover. I broke my ankle when I stepped into a hole and it cost a whole weeks salary to go to a walk in clinic. If I had gone to an emergency room, it would have cost me a months wages. I had a job, but there was no health insurance included.

That's an absurdly feeble argument: why the devil hadn't you bought insurance for yourself? Why do you expect other people to pay for it - many of whom were likely to have much smaller lifetime earnings than a uni graduate?

atush

N1AK wrote: »

No. Because the bond would have beat the FTSE average in that period by more than 100% even accounting for dividends and came with considerably less risk.

You might be naive enough, or blinkered, to assume I was suggesting the FTSE 100 offered no return during that window. People with better reading skills would have noted I didn't, but merely highlighted a measure by which is has performed poorly. Even the TR which people are jumping on to defend it is poor.

The FTSE 100 has gone through a considerable length period of poor performance, which you are dogedly denying. I am not suggesting it is a poor index; merely that your analysis of it thus far has been.

I am neither naive nor blinkered and yes you declined to mention the income. Plus you said Ftse, and there are more than one ftse index.

Basically, you are massaging the facts to prove your point. Which disingenuous at best.

And I dont invest in the ftse 100, I invest in funds, shares, trusts and invest globally. and yes I believe that is still best (with other assets as well) for a pension invested for periods of more than 10 years. You invest in cash if you want to.

gadgetmind

I'm not convinced that there is any solution to healthcare that won't attract (often justified) criticism from some quarter. I also speak a lot to friends and colleagues in other counties and - despite me not being it's number one fan - neither do I think the NHS is a particularly bad solution.

Let's just say that "Breaking Bad" would need a few changes if a UK remake was attempted.

gadgetmind

N1AK wrote: »

You might be naive enough, or blinkered, to assume I was suggesting the FTSE 100 offered no return during that window. People with better reading skills would have noted I didn't, but merely highlighted a measure by which is has performed poorly.

Blimey, do you really need to descend to ad hominem attacks? Why not try playing the ball rather than the man?

You deliberately picked the worst-case window, for what most people don't regard as being a very well-diversified index, and then ignored dividend reinvestment to make things look even worse.

Why not at least look at some more representative investment scenarios?

gadgetmind

Bootsox wrote: »

I don't really understand the point your trying to make but, to get the ball rolling, what line of business are you in?

My point is that talk is cheap, and anyone who feels we're not running out business they way they would run it is perfectly welcome to compete with us.

We do lots of things, but people best grasp it as "we design bits of chips".

gadgetmind

greenglide wrote: »

My employer's scheme is way more than that. Even with an excess and a limited cover (so excludes everything likely to actually happen) it is still over twice that amount.

Are we being conned?

OK, let's me find some paperwork and check figures. I have to pay BIK on my health cover, and I then pay voluntarily for the rest of the family. I have the family figure to hand and it's just over £500.

We have no excess but do have an outpatient cap. My wife received over £30k of cancer treatment without them so much as blinking.

FatherAbraham

OldBeanz wrote: »

I think this article should be a sticky!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/10742396/When-saving-for-10-years-pays-more-than-saving-for-40.html

But the Ermine debunked that article in May:

Why Compound Interest won’t help you retire early

I’m always the bad guy when it comes to the compound interest myth, but really, it’s not powerful enough to help you retire early. I’ve picked up the challenge, but the reasons why are

1. the real-inflation adjusted return on equities is too low and
2. you don’t live long enough and
3. you don’t work long enough (sort of related to #2)

None of these are within your control.


http://simple-living-in-suffolk.co.uk/2014/05/why-compound-interest-wont-help-you-retire-early/

agarnett

gadgetmind wrote: »

My point is that talk is cheap, and anyone who feels we're not running out business they way they would run it is perfectly welcome to compete with us.

You said it! Perhaps rather easy to say now from the crests of the waves you've been riding, if that semi-Googlewhack phrase you used is the pointer I think I guessed a while ago

We do lots of things, but people best grasp it as "we design bits of chips".

I lost a few quid and eventually after a decade made a few quid back on the guys who started their impressive rollercoaster doing something for the Beeb, hit the rocky patch you described, but then who in recent years have been coining it on the back of something else found in a goodly proportion of the connected world's pockets!

Interestingly I read how they pay the global lawyers more to protect what their engineers invent, or to buy up competitors to gain their ideas, than they pay the engineers to invent the ideas or improve them? Or is that an incorrect deduction followed by an unfair summary?

I admit it's all been fun to behold over the decades, and no doubt they can recruit some of the best on the name alone.

Not exactly a representative example of the UK work environment at large though is it? Or perhaps it is if it is just another business that has designed quirky ways to corner other peoples money-flows and defend rights to keep doing it ?

gadgetmind

agarnett wrote: »

Y
Not exactly a representative example of the UK work environment at large though is it?

I hope that it is. Using our smarts to design things that the rest of the world wants, avoidng the trap of trying to race to the bottom regards what our workers will be paid to make things, lobbying for our government and educational establishments to train people in relevant skills to compete in the world economy (no, not the liberal arts!), well. ... if this isn't representative, someone is doing something wrong.

All UK businesses could be doing this, and should be doing this.