Voluntary National Insurance Contribution..?

NinjaSavingKat

Good day one and all.. a query if you will. 

I have the opportunity to pay £951 in missing NI contributions for the years I was travelling (2016/17). I am currently sitting at £136.29 in pension after 24 years of work.

My statement online says 12 more years of working out of the next 27 years and I get the full pension anyway..

My questions - should I use emergency fund to pay this to keep my pension pot topped up "because you never know whats round the corner"..

Or not bother at all...? ( emergency fund is currently in high interest account and would prefer to leave it there!)

Curious of opinions. 

P.S I also have a small 7 year civil service pension and have changed my work based NEST contributions from 5% to 12%.

Marcon

NinjaSavingKat said:

Good day one and all.. a query if you will. 

I have the opportunity to pay £951 in missing NI contributions for the years I was travelling (2016/17). I am currently sitting at £136.29 in pension after 24 years of work.

My statement online says 12 more years of working out of the next 27 years and I get the full pension anyway..

My questions - should I use emergency fund to pay this to keep my pension pot topped up "because you never know whats round the corner"..

Or not bother at all...? ( emergency fund is currently in high interest account and would prefer to leave it there!)

Curious of opinions. 

P.S I also have a small 7 year civil service pension and have changed my work based NEST contributions from 5% to 12%.

If you only need to clock up another 12 years of NI contributions, and you have 27 years to go, paying now seems a bit pessimistic. Even if you aren't working, you might still qualify for NI credits eg if you are job hunting, or have caring responsibilities.You could always top up a future year if you don't manage the full 12 years - might be slightly more expensive, but probably still better than risking 'wasting' £951 now.

NinjaSavingKat

This is exactly what I was thinking. I've pushed and scrapped to get an emergency fund together so will feel it's a waste..... and as you said credits will be applied etc if and when necessary. But when you see a deadline it's easy to panic that a loss is a loss.