New pension Changes April 2015

"Which" have been advertising a free guide explaining the new pension system.

I'll PM you the number (because I don't know if I'm permitted to put it on the thread)

 

Although there's probably a great many people who would like that to be an option, being given a big cash lump sum in exchange to opt for a reduced state pension, and then having to make their make their own arrangements to support themselves.

Then the NHS, Job Seekers Allowance, Education, etc. might follow with similar schemes, again offering cash incentives to those who'd make their own arrangements for healthcare, support themselves whilst unemployed, pay for private education/higher education, etc. in return from never becoming eligible for those benefits.

I wouldn't put it past some politicians to suggest such schemes. There was something similar on offer for council tenants about 20 years ago called 'portable cash incentives' where they could get up to £20,000 for, rather than exercising their right to buy, giving up their local authority tenancy and buying housing in the private sector, although they would have been entitled to be re-housed if they lost their new home.

 

Hi Woo,there was a chap talking to Jeremy Vine on Radio Two this lunchtime around 12.30 ish (I missed the first ten minutes) and he was talking all about the changes that are coming in to play in 2015 for Private Pensions and people were phoning in to ask questions.

You should be able to catch up with it on Listen again?(Sorry can't remember what the radio version is actually called)and you might be able to get some info off of there.

I am a bit confused as well as I have a very tiny pension coming to me from aged sixty and I could do lots with the £1 a day I am going to get and wouldn't mind getting my mits on the pension pot I have built up as I can't see me living to a grand age

 

@Woo,I think your article is about your pensions but I might be wrong being blonde and all that.

As @shiney says it is nothing to do with the State Pension but Pensions you have built up with your employers over your working life.From what I can make out people were losing out big time when the pension companies were investing workers pension contributions and then when the people came to retire and buy their annuities which gave them the income to live on there was a big shortfall and people hadn't got enough to live on so now the go recent have changed the rules so now people can have their pension pots to do what they want with like buying a nice Porche or a Lotus etc,but I think if you take too much of it then you get taxed on it as a high tax payer

 

Woo, as I understand it, you can currently take up to 25% of your pension fund when you retire, tax free. You can't take the rest of it out in a lump sum unless it's classed as a 'small pot'. Under the new rules, you can take all the money out to do with as you please, but only the first 25% will be tax free. I don't know an awful lot about it, but have a look here and here for further information.

 

From what it currently pays out, my pot was probably worth in excess of £400K at current values, plus I received a lump sum, and I got (very) early retirement, plus it's an index linked pension.

Even if I'd been able to get loads of my pension pot out as a cash lump sum and invest in BTL housing, my current income wouldn't be very different, although the value of my estate would be considerably larger by 1 or 2 more properties.

And that was before QE destroyed the value of annuities.

 

Why does it say 55 inWoo's OP, when I cant draw my state pension until I'm 66?

Does this mean I can "blow" what little I've managed to put into pension schemes,( in spite of each successive government changing the rules every few years and making me start from scratch again), before I reach 66?

Could be worth buying premium bonds with it, or going to Las Vegas, after charges, my little bit I have put by, dwindles a bit every year.
It's making someone rich but it aint me.