Retirement

GadgetsDS

i was wondering how old do u have to be before u can retire, is it 60?
also if u retire who pays your House mortgage and your bills ect?

AndysDad

Just wondering how old you are ...as I think you are living in 'Cloud Cuckoo Land' if you think just because you retire someone else pays your mortgage and other bills.I know we live in a 'Nanny State' but thats going a bit too far!

GadgetsDS

i know i was just wondering how people that are 60+ and retired pay there bills?

Savvy_Sue

By working our little cotton socks off while we're young and fit enough to be able to do so, paying into a private pension plan, and saving what we can ... That at least is my plan, not having reached that advanced age yet! But I don't think DH expects to retire at all ...

The age at which you can claim your State Retirement Pension (funded by what you pay in National Insurance Contributions) is going up rather than down, so unless you're a lot older than you sound I'd say all bets were off about the age at which you'll be able to claim it. Plus how much you get depends on how many years of NI conts you've made (or had credited if you were claiming certain benefits).

There are some benefits exclusively for older people: Pension Credit is a top-up to bring people to a minimum safety net level. In fact that may be the only one: apart from that there's the other benefits available to younger people - housing benefit if you're renting, council tax benefit etc. But living on benefits is no picnic, and I'd rather not be dependent on that.

Best advice you're probably too young to take: get a pension plan set up now. If your employer offers one and makes contributions into it, almost certainly that's your best bet, even if you don't expect to stay there for long you can move the money later. ALL employers of more than 5 people (I think it's 5) MUST now offer a Stakeholder pension and (I think) arrange deductions from your salary into it on your behalf, but they don't HAVE to make a contribution themselves.

GadgetsDS

na im only 23 but my friends dad has had is own business for over 20 years and the business just went bust, hes 65 and i just was wondering how hes gonna pay his house and bills coz he said hes retiring now

chesky369

I hope your dad has a private pension then, as he's probably going to find the state pension hard to manage on - hope his mortgage is paid off.

margaretclare

Really good advice, Sue.

We get state retirement pension which we paid into via our NI contributions over a working lifetime - DH and I worked from age 16 to 67. A woman has to pay until age 60, a man to age 65. There are 'extras' - what's now called the State Second Pension, for us it was SERPS. And paying into pensions at work, of course.

Hopefully you'll no longer have a mortgage by retirement, that's what most people would aim at. Everything else still has to be paid for e.g. council tax - we pay £103 a month for a C-band property.

My eldest GD age 27 at the end of the year, will be starting a new job in January, Youth Worker with the local authority, and she will join the Local Government Pension Scheme from day one.

Like you, SavvySue, I wouldn't want to have to claim pension credit, although if my income was that low I wouldn't hesitate to claim it. Fortunately it isn't.

Margaret

ckerrd

You can "retire" at any age you want.

When you get state pension (or a private pension) is a completely different question

roddydogs

Just wondered why anyone would reply to an obvious daft post!

margaretclare

GadgetsDS wrote: »

na im only 23 but my friends dad has had is own business for over 20 years and the business just went bust, hes 65 and i just was wondering how hes gonna pay his house and bills coz he said hes retiring now

DH has a cousin who's still working as a London taxi-driver and he's 71. He works to pay the bills.

We don't get the story of WHY he has to do this - he's been self-employed for decades, but we just get the sob story and not an explanation of why he didn't pay enough to qualify for pension, or enough pension. They have a house paid for in a nice part of north London, but they want to move out to a bungalow in Hertfordshire, so it's not really 'downsizing'. If you have a family home that's paid for it's sometimes possible to move to somewhere smaller and release some of the money.

Margaret

GadgetsDS

roddydogs wrote: »

Just wondered why anyone would reply to an obvious daft post!

if u dont like the post why are u in here?