State Pension help! Please

chesky369

The problem is with the pension forecast, they're not doing them for the next 18 months

My apologies for the mistake.

seven-day-weekend

I believe pension forecasts ARE available for those whose retirement date is before April 6th 2010.

sixtytwo

I would just like to clarify that I am sixty two my husband will be 65 next May.
I did not pay enough full stamp to qualify for a state pension.
Thanks for trying to help.

sixtytwo

I thought I would add that at the moment we have £50.000 in an Allience direct saver and £13.000 in a web saver and £20 per week from a private pension, unfortunatley we will not have that amount come next May as we have been retired for two years and did not know about pension credit,and have been living off our savings. My husband applied for pension credit last month and was awarded £22 per week! he was told he would get back pay for the past twelve months when he first enquired about it but has not got it.Also we can't understand how £22 was worked out as we are supposed to be getting £159 a week interest from our bank accounts!

seven-day-weekend

As regards Pension your husband will not know what he gets until he gets a State Pension Forecast.

You can get one using this link:
http://www.thepensionservice.gov.uk/resourcecentre/e-services/home.asp

If you have not paid/been credited with enough NI contributions to get any State Pension in your own right you will get, as Margaret says, around £62 per week on today's figures.

The State Retirement Pension is not means-tested so it does not matter how much savings you have.

Pension Credit, however, IS means-tested and they will take your savings into consideration and deem that you have income from them. That is why they have only calculated £22 per week.

However the most important thing for both of you to do is for EACH of you to get a Pension Forecast, which will tell you what you will get based on today's figures.

Hopr this helps.

margaretclare

7DWE, this is an extremely clear and succinct explanation of the situation.

Why more people don't make efforts to find out these things in the years preceding retirement, I can't imagine.

The OP says she did not know about pension credit. This has been widely-advertised over the past few years, on TV, all over the place, using the slogan 'Pick it up - it's yours'. Many older people still do not claim it out of a false idea that it's 'charity', but I would have thought there were few who could say that they did not know about it.

Margaret

Biggles

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Pension Credit, however, IS means-tested and they will take your savings into consideration and deem that you have income from them. That is why they have only calculated £22 per week.

I think the OP was actually surprised to be getting as much as £22. The thing about Pension Credit, however, is that it rewards people for having made some provision for their retirement, thus they were awarded PC despite having pensions and savings.

whizzing

For info on State Pension etc there is a very good book called Living on a fixed income by Niki Chesworth. The local library would get it for you. It is very clear and has a bit on Pension Credits, what is you haven't paid enough NI , what happens if you have saving etc. I expect it would help a lot of pensioners to get more pension money.

elona

This may be wrong but I thought if you had not pad enough in stamps to qualify for a pension that you could pay to make up the difference and entitle you to a pension.

If they have savings it could be worth investigating how much would have to be paid for the OP to get a pension in her own right.

margaretclare

Try this: http://www.ageconcern.org.uk/AgeConcern/info_guide_5.asp

'Which' have a book called 'Making the Most of Retirement'.

Or this, which should strike a chord with readers of this thread - it's called 'How to Spend the Kids' Inheritance'. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1845281101/ref=sib_rdr_dp

I found a whole lot of books on retirement income on Amazon, and that was just with a bit of 'googling'.

Margaret