Pensions envy. Are we heading for financially comfortable but socially uncomfortable retirements?

Workerdrone

Thrugelmir said:

Workerdrone said:

For me and probably quite a few on here pension saving is almost a hobby. I set a target date and amount and I get a kick out of finding ways to put extra away or when I see my pot grow.

Been an exceptional period of stock market returns. Have you repositioned your portfolio to protect the gains made?  The markets aren't going to remain benign indefinately. 

I have made some changes, but not gone overly conservative as I'm still in the accumulation phase. I have time to buy the dip.

Silvertabby

Workerdrone said:

Silvertabby said:

Workerdrone said:

steampowered said:

Silvertabby said:

Not as daft as that sounds.  I'm not saying that this was actually Labour party policy, just that before the 2010 election a female Labour MP spouted her solution to the 'problem of single pensioners rattling round in big houses, when families were crammed into 2 bed flats'.  No, she didn't mean pensioners in council houses (ie, Labour voters) she meant owner occupiers.

Her 'solution' was to raise the council tax to an unaffordable level then offer the pensioner an 'appropriate' assisted living flat' for 'free' in return for allowing the house to be used as social housing.  

Why do you immediately call out the gender of this person? Are you trying to suggest that women are less capable than men?

Furthermore, there are politicians of all parties - including Conservative - who quite rightly raise the problem which exists in this country of pensioners living in 5 and 6 bed houses, while there is a dramatic shortage of homes for young families to move into. Fixing that would go a long way towards fixing the housing crisis. There are a number of solutions to this (one option suggested by some Conservative MPs was to remove stamp duty for people who downsize into smaller properties, freeing up larger properties for families) so let's not kid ourselves that this isn't a problem.

Applying additional council tax to under-occupied property is in fact already current Conservative government policy. Many councils already charge double council tax on empty or second properties.

I'm sure the poster didn't mean to suggest anything by it. Probably more a case of they couldn't remember who said it but remembered it was a female labour MP. I just had a quick search and I couldn't find who said it either.

In a nutshell.  (I'm also female, by the way!) Probably not on record, because it wasn't official.... but can't help wondering what could have happened if Labour had won?

The Tory idea of removing stamp duty for people who downsize, thereby leaving larger properties for families to BUY isn't the same thing at all.

If I'd told you back in 2019 that by 2020 the whole country would be under totalitarian rule, it would be illegal to visit your own parents, Christmas would be cancelled police would knock at your door if they suspected you were having a gathering, there would be huge queues at every supermarket, basic staples like flour, pasta, rice and toilet roll would be unavailable, most of the country were dependent on state handouts, petrol forecourts would have run dry, taxes were rising and protestors were blocking motorways, you'd have gone straight out to ladbrokes to put £100 on Corbyn winning the general election :-)

It would have been even worse than that if Corbyn had won - he would have given the bulk of our vaccines to his precious Venezuela!

Workerdrone

Silvertabby said:

Workerdrone said:

Silvertabby said:

Workerdrone said:

steampowered said:

Silvertabby said:

Not as daft as that sounds.  I'm not saying that this was actually Labour party policy, just that before the 2010 election a female Labour MP spouted her solution to the 'problem of single pensioners rattling round in big houses, when families were crammed into 2 bed flats'.  No, she didn't mean pensioners in council houses (ie, Labour voters) she meant owner occupiers.

Her 'solution' was to raise the council tax to an unaffordable level then offer the pensioner an 'appropriate' assisted living flat' for 'free' in return for allowing the house to be used as social housing.  

Why do you immediately call out the gender of this person? Are you trying to suggest that women are less capable than men?

Furthermore, there are politicians of all parties - including Conservative - who quite rightly raise the problem which exists in this country of pensioners living in 5 and 6 bed houses, while there is a dramatic shortage of homes for young families to move into. Fixing that would go a long way towards fixing the housing crisis. There are a number of solutions to this (one option suggested by some Conservative MPs was to remove stamp duty for people who downsize into smaller properties, freeing up larger properties for families) so let's not kid ourselves that this isn't a problem.

Applying additional council tax to under-occupied property is in fact already current Conservative government policy. Many councils already charge double council tax on empty or second properties.

I'm sure the poster didn't mean to suggest anything by it. Probably more a case of they couldn't remember who said it but remembered it was a female labour MP. I just had a quick search and I couldn't find who said it either.

In a nutshell.  (I'm also female, by the way!) Probably not on record, because it wasn't official.... but can't help wondering what could have happened if Labour had won?

The Tory idea of removing stamp duty for people who downsize, thereby leaving larger properties for families to BUY isn't the same thing at all.

If I'd told you back in 2019 that by 2020 the whole country would be under totalitarian rule, it would be illegal to visit your own parents, Christmas would be cancelled police would knock at your door if they suspected you were having a gathering, there would be huge queues at every supermarket, basic staples like flour, pasta, rice and toilet roll would be unavailable, most of the country were dependent on state handouts, petrol forecourts would have run dry, taxes were rising and protestors were blocking motorways, you'd have gone straight out to ladbrokes to put £100 on Corbyn winning the general election :-)

It would have been even worse than that if Corbyn had won - he would have given the bulk of our vaccines to his precious Venezuela!

Remember, that wasn't proper socialism... Proper socialism has never been tried!

Terron

Ganga said:

Ibrahim5 said:

I find the intergenerational stuff a bit scary. I never even thought about whether my grandparents or parents should have retired when they did or where their income came from. I am sure my kids will never stop telling me how lucky I was to retire early.

I think things have changed now ,i know my grandparents had little but in their time the man worked whilst his wife brought up the 4 kids ,my parents were the same ,dad worked ,mam brought up 4 kids , our tea was always on the table , holidays if any were in a caravan in the lakes ,happy days at the time.

In some places for some people that was true. But for most people everyone who could worked.
My father's mother was working in a mill when she got married to a fellow mill worker, who then left home for the best part of three years (called up during WW1). Later she started working from home as a dressmaker.
My other grandmother was in service before getting married. She stayed at home after getting married, but home was a small welsh hill farm, so her husband did too, and nether were idle.
Researching my family tree almost all adults worked and so did the older children.

sammyjammy

hugheskevi said:

It is interesting to think what typical retirement patterns might look like in the future, given all the various changes

• Due to the legacy pension in public sector, a much higher demand for partial retirement from age 60 onwards. Due to ancient rules about abatement (can't earn more than full-time salary as a result of pension plus salary) there will be a lot more demand for working 2, 3 or 4 day-weeks for those in their 60s.

This is interesting, I'm a Civil servant that will be able to take that pension at 60, you'd be mad not to given it doesn't increase if you defer it.  Will abatement still apply even though the pension we will be paying into is a different one to that we have taken?  It does seem harsh that you ability to pay contributions into the average salary scheme is limited by that rule.  

sammyjammy

Workerdrone said:

I'm not buy nature a jealous person. I'm happy to hear of others successes. When I learned that the euromillions £187m had been won by someone in France my first reaction was "I hope they sit down this morning, have a lovely breakfast and then spend the day making exciting plans" :-)

My first thought was I hope it doesn't ruin their life, no jealousy but I find it obscene that one person wins that amount of money, it should have a cap, imagine how many lives would be transformed if 187 people won a million.

Workerdrone

sammyjammy said:

Workerdrone said:

I'm not buy nature a jealous person. I'm happy to hear of others successes. When I learned that the euromillions £187m had been won by someone in France my first reaction was "I hope they sit down this morning, have a lovely breakfast and then spend the day making exciting plans" :-)

My first thought was I hope it doesn't ruin their life, no jealousy but I find it obscene that one person wins that amount of money, it should have a cap, imagine how many lives would be transformed if 187 people won a million.

Ah, my plan for it was 1.) Pay off the mortgage 2.) Go on a nice holiday to think about what to do 3.) Do a lot of charitable work with it.

and

4.) Keep making regular large very public donations to the Tory Party in the name of my mate who is a staunch labour supporter. We always wind each other up :-)

c'est_moi

I have had to listen to a much younger colleague whinge about her circumstances and imply that it was all the fault of my generation that she would not have the luxury of retiring at the age of 51 as I had just done.

It took a lot of self control for me to refrain from pointing out that I was not the one throwing money away on new phone upgrades, constant take away coffees, gym memberships, spa weekends every month or so, a fancy new car on HP every couple of years and remortgaging a home in order to have a landscapped garden and expensive patio doors. Hardly my fault if instead I chose to budget carefully and live well within my means.

I did, however, point out that as I grew up in the Thatcher years I had a childhood of austerity in a household where no one worked full time. I had bought my first house when interest rates were eye wateringly high - and was forced to sell the same house for less than I paid for it seven years later.

Nope. I will not be apologizing to anyone for retiring early. I worked and saved hard to be able to do so. I am also of the opinion that walking away from my job gave a younger person with a family the opportunity to move up on the pay scale. Had I stayed put I would have effectively blocked that promotion for the next 10 years.

Workerdrone

c'est_moi said:

I have had to listen to a much younger colleague whinge about her circumstances and imply that it was all the fault of my generation that she would not have the luxury of retiring at the age of 51 as I had just done.

It took a lot of self control for me to refrain from pointing out that I was not the one throwing money away on new phone upgrades, constant take away coffees, gym memberships, spa weekends every month or so, a fancy new car on HP every couple of years and remortgaging a home in order to have a landscapped garden and expensive patio doors. Hardly my fault if instead I chose to budget carefully and live well within my means.

I did, however, point out that as I grew up in the Thatcher years I had a childhood of austerity in a household where no one worked full time. I had bought my first house when interest rates were eye wateringly high - and was forced to sell the same house for less than I paid for it seven years later.

Nope. I will not be apologizing to anyone for retiring early. I worked and saved hard to be able to do so. I am also of the opinion that walking away from my job gave a younger person with a family the opportunity to move up on the pay scale. Had I stayed put I would have effectively blocked that promotion for the next 10 years.

Here here. You missed mentioning the avocado on toast ;-)

SMcGill

I’ve given up talking to my brother about pensions, he sees any unspent money as a ‘wasted opportunity’ and that would be fine, each to their own, if he didn’t also consider me ‘lucky’. That really winds me up, especially when I wasn’t the one who did things like buy a Porsche AND a Harley Davidson when I hit 40