Retiring at 62

thebullsback

I intend to retire next month at the age of 61 ( will be 62 Feb 2021) .I have my state pension forcast of £164.16 per week as of April 2020.Made up from 46 year Full contributions

I do not intend to work again and I would like to keep contributing to my state pension to achive the £175.20 per week max.in 2024.

I have heard that i could " sign on" for job seeker allowance and that my contributions would then be paid for me.

As I say I have no intention of working again and belive that no benifit will be paid to me as I have a personal pension income of over £500 per month which I belive bars me from recieving job seekes allowance.

Any thoughts welcome .Thank you

NedS

You will not be eligible to claim for jobseekers allowance as you are not seeking a job.

Presumably you need an additional 2 years of contributions to receive a full state pension. You will need to purchase these if you are not working. They still represent excellent value for money whereby you recoup your investment outlay in around 3 years, so if you plan on living past 70 it's an easy decision to make. Alternatively, if you require that additional £11 per week of state pension and can not afford to purchase it, you may want to reconsider your decision to retire early and work on another two years.

thebullsback

IMy pension statment says I need to contribute 4 more years (from April 2020) to achive max pension

molerat

You need to be clearer as to precisely what your forecast shows as the amounts you have quoted do not add up.  Using the first number you have 4 years, including 20-21, left in which you can contribute (20-21,21-22,22-23,23-24) but only need 3 to get the full amount but the 3rd will only give you £1.04, 1/5th of a year value, so may not be worth worrying about if you have to come up with hard cash to get. This year may already be full.

thebullsback

Estimate based on NI  contributions record up to 5April 2020 £164.16 per week

Forcast if you contribute another 3 years before  5April 2024  £175.20 per week

£175.20 is the max i can get

my NI record

46 year full contributions

straight from my pension statment

molerat

So it is as I have posted above. You will only need to buy one full year,plus maybe a part year for 20-21, to get £174.17 ish.

garmeg

molerat said:

So it is as I have posted above. You will only need to buy one full year,plus maybe a part year for 20-21, to get £174.17 ish.

Think you meant part year 21-22 here? The full year to which you refer may be 20-21?

molerat

garmeg said:

molerat said:

So it is as I have posted above. You will only need to buy one full year,plus maybe a part year for 20-21, to get £174.17 ish.

Think you meant part year 21-22 here? The full year to which you refer may be 20-21?

No, the current 20-21 year as, depending on earnings, it may not be full after leaving work next month.

NedS

thebullsback said:

IMy pension statment says I need to contribute 4 more years (from April 2020) to achive max pension

Just to clarify how molerat arrived at his figures, each additional year gets you 1/35th of the full state pension (plus any inflationary increase) until you hit the maximum.

So ignoring inflation for the moment, an additional year will give you an extra £175.20/35 = £5.00 per week. So two more years conts would get you an extra £10/week, up to £174.16 at which point it's probably not worth worrying about the extra £1. So you need 3 more years for full state pension, but 2 more years gets you within touching distance and the third year probably isn't worth the purchase price as it would take you ~14 years of drawing your state pension to break even.

EP456

What is the procedure for purchasing additional years after stopping work?  Thanks

mark55man

I just wrote to the future pension centre asking for an explanation of why some of my years were part.  They were very efficient and the letter include full instructions for payment and timelines by which it needed to be done