The Great Pensions Crisis - Channel 5

swindiff

Just watched it, but sorry couple A were living in cloud Cuckoo land. How can you have made plans to retire early and move abroad to buy property/land for holiday lets without even looking at what your finances are likely to be at 60?

odd_days

I would think one of the problems with low income people and getting them to pay more in to a pension, is they may or may not reach that age and are they just going to exist working, pay pension, eat and repeat why would they bother. Hardly very appealing.

carl05

I have just finished watching last nights programme and it seemed to me just to be lazy journalism. I agree with many of the previous comments. It appears to me that the financial advisor on the programme must have ignored the value of couple A's state benefit and any value in the house. This gave a totally misleading storey used to give headlines and to scare people rather than to educate on what is required.

Pension provisions for most people are complicated and will be made up from a number of sources including (but not exhaustive) State pension , DB pensions ( for those of use of a certain age and lucky to have an employer who offered them) DC pension, LISA, S and S ISA, Cash ISA, shares, BTL or houses and finally cash. Also have to consider tax and how to legally minimise paying it in retirement. Why is it programmes like this never explain all of this

On the whole i think it was rather poor

Spreadsheetman

carl05 wrote: »

...Why is it programmes like this never explain all of this

On the whole i think it was rather poor

Because it's far too complicated and dry for evening viewing on a tabloid-level TV channel.

The best they could hope for is to be entertaining and scare people enough for them to go off and do their own homework.

Malthusian

swindiff wrote: »

Just watched it, but sorry couple A were living in cloud Cuckoo land. How can you have made plans to retire early and move abroad to buy property/land for holiday lets without even looking at what your finances are likely to be at 60?

Easy. "Have you ever thought you would like to retire in the South of France? The [STRIKE]Kilroy[/STRIKE] Channel 5 team would like to hear from you. If you are willing to be laughed at by the nation for not putting more thought into your pipe dream we will pay your taxi fare and feed you biscuits."

There is nothing wrong with fantasies, a fantasy is just a plan in a babygro. If you want your fantasy to become a reality then you need to start researching ways to make it happen. Which Couple A did by going on the Channel 5 programme.

If they'd already consulted a financial planner or the MSE forum before going on the programme they would have made a lousy case study.

falcieri

Spreadsheetman wrote: »

Interesting program. I found the plight of couple C pretty chilling as that is the one that concerns me personally the most and is the hardest to provide for since it's so unpredictable and the sums are potentially so vast.

I must admit I laughed when couple A walked into the caravan and were informed that 2 weeks of that by the north sea was the alternative they could afford vs. the dream retirement in the South of France.

Especially when you consider how many people would dream of being able to afford two weeks in a caravan by the sea! I wonder what a pension pot looks like in the real world, taking out the retirement home in France and the regular meals out. I mean, not everyone aspires to that. Many people will be relieved just to be able to keep a roof over their heads, food on the table and be able to use their heating in the winter.

MoneyWorry

What was most interesting about the programme was that they had bought into the idea of the recent retirement living standards by the PLSA.

For a couple
£15,700 minimum
£29,100 moderate
£47, 500 comfortable

I think the programme made a good point in that couple A’s expectations were far in excess of their actual pension saving. We also have to remember that the target audience was the huge number of people who have no or little private pension saving. It wasn’t really aimed at the members of this forum who are a lot more knowledgeable.

JustAnotherSaver

Malthusian wrote: »

"She is paying the minimum into her pension *shocked face* and maximum into an HTB ISA" suggests to me that she could be paying more into the pension.

Could they?


Maybe they have £300 per month out of their wage that they can afford to save. £100 goes to their workplace pension, £200 to their HTB ISA as they are going to afford a house before they are going to be able to retire (and once a house is bought they'd then perhaps put £200pm towards their workplace pension ... maybe). Maybe they can't afford to put aside another penny even though they legally could put more aside ... IF they had it.






The point i was making is that there's way too much assuming goes on on this forum and it's very frustrating.
Assuming everyone is a HR tax payer is a regular one. No, just because many of you lot seem to be one doesn't mean we all are. I know very very few HR tax payers. 99% of the people i know are BR tax payers.



I recently made comment about workplace pensions and the like. I said how i was putting the minimum in to my workplace pension as my employer wouldn't pay beyond the minimum. Any extra i save beyond this actually goes in to a SIPP (currently).

One of the replies was i should be maximising my workplace pension.
It's as though that's the knee-jerk response. We wont bother reading what's actually been said, we'll just say maximise it because that's what we're supposed to say, right? Even though someone (me, in my case) has already said they're maximising it.

Brilley

I think it's sad that some people will still need to "rent" in retirement, particularly given the above inflation rise in rental costs over the last decade.

Assuming the average rent is around £500/ month then this is only just covered by the average state pension with not a lot left over particularly if you are single and not eligible for the max. pension.

Double wammy of having to pay this as long as you live with no opportunity for equity release.

GibbsRule_No3

Brilley wrote: »

I think it's sad that some people will still need to "rent" in retirement, particularly given the above inflation rise in rental costs over the last decade.

Assuming the average rent is around £500/ month then this is only just covered by the average state pension with not a lot left over particularly if you are single and not eligible for the max. pension.

Double wammy of having to pay this as long as you live with no opportunity for equity release.

I have never earned enough to buy a property, I was supporting my parents when they were alive from the day I started work so no savings, thus I will be renting until I die or get put in a home (single person, no family). Luckily my SP will just cover the rent and council tax when I get it next March. I will live on my Private Pensions. They will combined amount to about as much as I now earn, I will also work until I cannot work or am made Redundant, working will at least mean pay for six months if I am taken ill. I was going to retire at Christmas but it makes no sense to, I am better off working part time with Pensions in payment. Lucky I know but the programme did say lots more Pensionable Age people are continuing to work, I wonder how many like me are choosing to work because they are better off doing so. The programme really made it sound like lots were "having to work" like the DS teacher.