Latest Moan From You and Me 2024

Dream on, @pete. That would be way too sensible.

 

You could always amend your copy of the pie chart with an extra line.

 

Since when was the state pension deemed a "benefit" ? A benefit is something you receive towards which you have not contributed in actual monetary terms as such. People who were/are in employment paid a NI contribution on every salary received throughout your working life and the pension you receive upon retirement is dependant on your contributions over the years. The rates were set by the govts of the time. Not everyone receives the full state pension by any means.
Various factors mean that the money collected in this way has proved insufficient to cater for everyone's needs/expectations in today's world but where does the blame lie for this - if anywhere ? Every govt. has made sure that their members are always in pocket whether via their salaries, expenses, freebies and so on and gov. overspending is legendary whichever party was in power. They have yet to accept that there are people who........wait for it.........have actually lived within their means and saved for their future only to find they are now the villains of the piece.

 

I can read between the lines of the pie chart! I just object to the way it is presented to the public, so that people receiving the state pension can be presented as a burden on the Exchequer by those in the media who wish to stir inter-generational dissatisfaction.

 

Many years ago I was advised, by the government of the day, to opt out of Serps and put that money into a private pension, which I did.
Come retirement they calculate how much pension that money will give you and knock it off your state pension, so the whole process was a complete waste of time.

 

The amount of capital people have certainly wasn't routinely checked when I worked for DWP. As I have said before, there simply aren't the resources to do so. Bank statements would be requested in some cases, but not all.
What concerns me is the ability to claw back without necessarily being right about money being owed. When I was working at DWP a whole team was set up in our office to check the accuracy of the demands made by a central 'recover team' for alleged overpayment years previously. In many, many cases DWP could not provide any actual evidence to support the demands and they were eventually cancelled. What a ridiculous waste of money to have one team demanding repayment and another actually checking properly and determining there was no overpayment.
The upper limit for savings used to be £16k unless you are referring to pension entitlement.
I totally agree with your sentiments about savers being penalised and those who peed it up against the wall being supported.
My parents always saved a bit so would never have been able to get any support. My in-laws lived in a rented house, he literally peed his money away at weekends. The in-laws ended up having their rent and council tax paid, etc, etc.....

 

Plusnet have just put up our broadband price by 25% without telling us. Had to speak to 3 different people when we rang them. Nothing we can do. But we did finally find out that you will not be able to have Plusnet BB and BT landline when DV comes in.

 

That deduction sounds like the COPE figure. Mine was £32 per week so I spent 8 years buying that back with Class 3 NI contributions.

 

Never heard of COPE, they just sent me a letter when I retired saying We expect you to get X amount per month from Aviva, so that is deducted from the state pension amount you will get.
That meant that serps, ( state earnings related pension), never did give you a higher pension as was stated at the time.

 

Yes, when I renewed recently, PN told me they won't be doing landlines when my contract ends.

 

No I don't think your situation is the COPE deduction @pete . But I have heard of your situation with other firms. Bit of a stitch up.

 

Well they told us to move our BB to BT if we want a landline with BT. Apparently alot of people are ringing them to complain about the unannounced price hike too. So it will be Bye Bye Plusnet.