Finally - I've had some good news

My pension statement came through today (after requesting it 6 months ago). Turns out it will be about 50% more than I thought it was going to be - wahooo - .


Still looking for redundancy next year - which is likely to be agreed thanks to George - so every cloud does have a silver lining after all.

 

Pleased for you! Now ... get the round in

 

Congratulations @clanless on finally getting your forecast through and hope you have a long and happy retirement if you get the redundancy next year

Mr Kandy only applied for his forecast two weeks ago after a conversation with a friend in the supermarket the other week.He thinks he is going to get the new flat rate pension that has been talked about by the goverment (minus the opted out bit) and didn't realise he still need to get a forecast to find out exactly how much he will get so by the looks of things he won't hear until later on in the year so that will please him ...not He has applied for his state pension so I would assume he will find out when he retires how much he is going to get a week

 

This was a statement for the local government pension - so fingers crossed the state pension statement should be much quicker

I attended a 'mid career financial planning' course in work a couple of weeks ago. We went through the state pension, the local government pension and investing.

A lady talked about the single rate pension - it was quite difficult to understand as there are mechanisms in place to protect existing payments and to ensure a minimum pension. She said if you would have been paid more under the old scheme you will be paid this higher amount.

It's now 35 years ni contributions before you get a full state pension - it was 30 years.

I could hear all the eyebrows in the room raise when she told us that the state pension age will be reviewed every 5 years (more that likely up). A review is going on at the moment.

Since April 2014 the local government pension retirement age has been linked to the state pension age. Imagine if you were just starting out in local government - you'd be looking to retire at around 75 - not good.

I've been working 30 years in local government - now is the best time to get out imho .

 

@clanless I will show Mr Kandy when he gets back home as he has gone with his sister this afternoon to do some legal and financial business.

My hubby is in local goverment and they haven't really been helpful at all leading up to his retirement.His boss told my hubby to go over and see HR and was told that the pension side of things are very slow at getting their act together.He hasn't been on any courses to talk about Pension planning and a friend of mine in the village who retired last November from her teaching job said they are very slow and I told him all this then but because he has had a lot on his plate with his dad's death and dealing with the house sale he has put the retirement part on the back burner.He has already applied for the state pension so hopefully that is going through ok.

All in all they don't want him to retire as they are going to be in the poo big time and his boss asks him every day if there is any way he could defer the date of leaving.Friends of ours have said that after he retires Mr Kandy ought to set up his own consultancy company and then charge them shed loads of money to sort out there problems but local governments don't like taking on consultants because it costs them too much

Mr Kandy has been working with the same people for 25+ years and got his long service award last year.

I would rather he didn't carry on working as I think he has done enough years as he has been at work full time since he was 18 and will soon be 65 so a long time as have we both

 

Good for you clanless.

Deviating slightly, I recently sent off for a state pension forecast.
I already have 46 yrs contributions and need to make another 5 yrs before I can claim, 51 yrs in all.
It appears anything you pay above 35yrs is lost and counts for nothing.

As I contracted out of SERPS for a few years they predict how much that will be as regards a pension and subtract it from the state pension.

I think somewhere along the line I've been cheated