Is the State Pension enough to live on if you are single !!

Mustbeananswer??

eskbanker said:

Mustbeananswer?? said:

Homeowner Pollycat....no Mortgage.Tell you what if I sell it and rent somewhere would I get rent paid by Housing Benefit...and then live off the Capital ??  

That's presumably a rhetorical question, but no, HB is means-tested, so if you have the capital from selling a property then you wouldn't be eligible.

However, it's intended to cover rent costs for low earners, so if you have no rent or mortgage costs then this is all academic anyway, i.e. the costs of your housing are considered to be taken care of.  That's not to say that you're ineligible for other benefits though, but if the above calculator didn't identify any then that's likely to be the end of it....

It was a comprehensive calculator ...and I think a lot of people would benefit from giving it a run...Thank You 

pseudodox

Pollycat said:

pseudodox said:

I do more than survive on SP.  With careful budgeting & no requirement for friperaries that eat money I am quite content.  If I had £30,000 per annum I would be more than fairly comfortable & would not know what to spend it on!  I have all the things money cannot buy - good health, good friends, a view to die for from my edge of the countryside house.

I'm quite interested in what your food budget is and what sort of things you eat on that budget.

Including toiletries, cleaning stuff etc around £30 per week.  Last week I had a £4 off if you spend £40 coupon so I stocked up on loo rolls & tinned/packet staples etc. This week will spend around £25, mainly on veg & chicken for some curries/casseroles.  I eat a lot of vegetables, salads, fruit, pulses etc & lots of vegetarian dishes.  The only meats I eat regularly are chicken, bacon, sausages, corned beef & I batch cook curries, casseroles, pasta bakes, nut roasts etc, also make my own soups & bread.  All very wholesome & fairly healthy food I grew up on.  Just wish I could make the fluffy dumplings like my Mum made - no matter how long I cook them they never rise to the same lightness!

badmemory

pseudodox said:

Pollycat said:

pseudodox said:  Just wish I could make the fluffy dumplings like my Mum made - no matter how long I cook them they never rise to the same lightness!

I think your mum must have known my late mother in law.  She once told me she put something else in that wasn't in any recipe, trouble is I can't remember what.

dealyboy

@pseudodox said:

Pollycat said:

pseudodox said:

I do more than survive on SP.  With careful budgeting & no requirement for friperaries that eat money I am quite content.  If I had £30,000 per annum I would be more than fairly comfortable & would not know what to spend it on!  I have all the things money cannot buy - good health, good friends, a view to die for from my edge of the countryside house.

I'm quite interested in what your food budget is and what sort of things you eat on that budget.

Including toiletries, cleaning stuff etc around £30 per week.  Last week I had a £4 off if you spend £40 coupon so I stocked up on loo rolls & tinned/packet staples etc. This week will spend around £25, mainly on veg & chicken for some curries/casseroles.  I eat a lot of vegetables, salads, fruit, pulses etc & lots of vegetarian dishes.  The only meats I eat regularly are chicken, bacon, sausages, corned beef & I batch cook curries, casseroles, pasta bakes, nut roasts etc, also make my own soups & bread.  All very wholesome & fairly healthy food I grew up on.  Just wish I could make the fluffy dumplings like my Mum made - no matter how long I cook them they never rise to the same lightness!

I can name that shop in one ... every little helps ?  

pseudodox

dealyboy said:

@pseudodox said:

Pollycat said:

pseudodox said:

I do more than survive on SP.  With careful budgeting & no requirement for friperaries that eat money I am quite content.  If I had £30,000 per annum I would be more than fairly comfortable & would not know what to spend it on!  I have all the things money cannot buy - good health, good friends, a view to die for from my edge of the countryside house.

I'm quite interested in what your food budget is and what sort of things you eat on that budget.

Including toiletries, cleaning stuff etc around £30 per week.  Last week I had a £4 off if you spend £40 coupon so I stocked up on loo rolls & tinned/packet staples etc. This week will spend around £25, mainly on veg & chicken for some curries/casseroles.  I eat a lot of vegetables, salads, fruit, pulses etc & lots of vegetarian dishes.  The only meats I eat regularly are chicken, bacon, sausages, corned beef & I batch cook curries, casseroles, pasta bakes, nut roasts etc, also make my own soups & bread.  All very wholesome & fairly healthy food I grew up on.  Just wish I could make the fluffy dumplings like my Mum made - no matter how long I cook them they never rise to the same lightness!

I can name that shop in one ... every little helps ?  

Indeed.  I am a terrible customer because they never fool me into buying anything I don't need/usually buy.  With the CC points I get I always spend them on a Senior Railcard which comes in handy for cheap days out.  Last week did a return trip Manchester to Chester - a bargain day out for £8 with my own packed lunch eaten in the tranquil cathedral gardens.  Mind you last year I got a day return for £1.90 after Railcard discount!  One of my retired friends regularly finds £1 tickets.

This week if I do spend £20 in one shop I will get an extra 200 points, which will buy a £2 voucher, worth £4 reward against my next Railcard.  The best things in life are often free!  Or maybe I am paying for a Railcard but getting free food!

barnstar2077

GibbsRule_No3. said:

My SP just about covers my HA rent, as I live in a London Borough, it does not cover my Council Tax, so I'd say no. I do have other pensions and am still working, nearly 70, my choice, for two days a week. Went to a Pension talk last week and they reckon to survive you need £14,000, fairly comfortable was £30,000 and very comfortable was over £40,000 this was based on one person, they did say you did not need to double those numbers for two people. At present with working pay I am just a bit over fairly comfortable and when I stop I won't be as low as surviving, thanks to the other pensions already in payment.

Could you retire to a cheaper area?  Where I work we have two offices, one in the south and one in the north.  Our pay is the same, but I can assure you it goes a lot further in the north!

I'm not suggesting you move to Scotland, but would outside London be cheaper?

barnstar2077

pseudodox said:

barnstar2077 said:

pseudodox said:

I enjoy a comfortable, busy & interesting life with just the SP as income.  Single household, nice house with large garden, small old car.  I do have a savings pot for emergencies, but any drawing from that cannot be replaced so I spend carefully.  I don't need latest gadgets & have done the travelling I wanted before retiring.  Never had a well paid job so was used to budgeting & never been so well off as I feel now.  Every 4 weeks a chunk of money hits my bank & there always seems to be some of the previous chunk still unused.  I do an annual review of income & expenditure from that income & it seems I am always in surplus.  So I enjoy the Mr Micawber state of happiness.  Savings pot went down last year as I had a new roof, but I already am saving on the previous regular repair outlay & with the rise in interest rates some of the capital outlay is being recouped.  If the Micawber misery looms I will downsize the house.

Can I ask how long you have been retired for please?

Do you feel the last few years of increased inflation has affected you at all?

Been retired 9 years.   Life is great.  I don't need expensive activities to fill my time as I enjoy walking, gardening, DIY,  and do 2 or 3 days a week volunteering with countryside & canal teams.  State Pension income has kept pace with my modest outgoings & I live within my means following the example of my parents. I don't have any family & even if I did I would spend their inheritance.  I did not expect my parents to stint on themselves to leave anything to me.  As said before if the pot starts to run dry I will downsize the house.  Otherwise sale of the house will fund care home.

I have never had a penny of credit card debt.  I was brought up with the discipline to not buy stuff I cannot afford. 

Thank you, 9 years is definitely long enough to prove that your budget works well for you.

I guess having cheap hobbies and frugal habits has meant that your personal inflation is very low.  I am the same.  I have said before that I will be happy to just be in the park with an ice cream while everyone else is stuck in traffic!  I can't wait to be free, with only the weather deciding what I will do each day!    

Mutton_Geoff

Why bother with a TV Licence? It's a waste of money as it's quite possible to watch plenty of TV without needing one.

Linton

BlackKnightMonty said:

Mustbeananswer?? said:

GibbsRule_No3. said:

My SP just about covers my HA rent, as I live in a London Borough, it does not cover my Council Tax, so I'd say no. I do have other pensions and am still working, nearly 70, my choice, for two days a week. Went to a Pension talk last week and they reckon to survive you need £14,000, fairly comfortable was £30,000 and very comfortable was over £40,000 this was based on one person, they did say you did not need to double those numbers for two people. At present with working pay I am just a bit over fairly comfortable and when I stop I won't be as low as surviving, thanks to the other pensions already in payment.

Disgrace....even after a good hike upwards .....In 2024-25, the full level of the new state pension is £221.20 a week or £11,502.40 a year.Pensioners are not given enough just to survive (If they have no other Occupational Pensions in place they are £2500 behind the eight ball) No wonder we have 1.5 million Pensioners in debt Come on England...give us a break ??

And a quarter of all pensioners are millionaires.

Maybe we should means test it and then only those with no other pension provision, or those whom have not been able to make any other retirement provision could obtain a higher SP; perhaps quadruple locked to the NMW/NLW?

Does that sound fair?

I am sure that you would not want to mislead your readers.  I cannot find a reference for the 1/4 of retired peope being millionaires you quote but it would seem that the figures are in wealth/household not per person.  However if your look at https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/savings-accounts/average-household-savings-uk you will get a clearer picture:

For people of age 65+:........
I) The statistics here are in wealth per person, not wealth per household.
2) The wealth includes net value of house.  Obviously people who have been paying off mortgages for perhaps  and 30 years are going to have much higher net worth of houses than those who have only being doing this for 10 years.
3) The wealth also includes the value of non-state pensions in payment. Clearly a pension that is going to last you say 25 years is going to amount to a large sum of money.
4) Also included is the value of assets such as cars, furniture, ornaments, jewelry etc etc.  But one accumulates stuff over the years so the older you are the greater value of stuff.
5) The average liquid wealth eg savings and non pension investments amounts to about £39,200. So hardly rolling in money.  Again this is after a lifetime of work.

Now looking at the median annual gross income for people aged 65+ given in: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/distribution-of-median-and-mean-income-and-tax-by-age-range-and-gender-2010-to-2011. This gives a figure of about £22K, similar to the minimim wage.  This is less than during any 5 year period in the age range 26-64.

Again your story about OAPs living in luxury at the expense of younger people is simply not demonstrated by the statistics.

GibbsRule_No3.

barnstar2077 said:

GibbsRule_No3. said:

My SP just about covers my HA rent, as I live in a London Borough, it does not cover my Council Tax, so I'd say no. I do have other pensions and am still working, nearly 70, my choice, for two days a week. Went to a Pension talk last week and they reckon to survive you need £14,000, fairly comfortable was £30,000 and very comfortable was over £40,000 this was based on one person, they did say you did not need to double those numbers for two people. At present with working pay I am just a bit over fairly comfortable and when I stop I won't be as low as surviving, thanks to the other pensions already in payment.

Could you retire to a cheaper area?  Where I work we have two offices, one in the south and one in the north.  Our pay is the same, but I can assure you it goes a lot further in the north!

I'm not suggesting you move to Scotland, but would outside London be cheaper?

I have only lived within four miles of where I was born almost 70 years ago, have an elder sibling living 3 miles away that I can visit weekly, for free with my Freedom Pass or cycle and friends of over 50 years, also living within walking distance, so a support network. As my abode is HA, I’m not sure the rent would be any cheaper, private rent possibly could be and if “Homes Under the Hammer” is true to life, there are indeed some properties in areas of the country where I could buy out right.   This might work for some people but I did say, even when I do stop my two days work I should still be just under the middle life living expectation. That might mean not going to visit my US friend or buying my electric gadgets, that I don’t really need, as often.  Where I work we do have Labs in Huddersfield and Scotland but I think I’m on borrowed time, age wise, where I work now, part of the furniture since 1971, I’ll just see out my time on this mortal coil where I am.  Certainly sorry for OAPs in Private rentals though.