Latest Moan From You and Me 2024

I hadn't realised there was such a big difference between the old and the new pension.

 

People on the old pension eligible for pension credit get roughly the new amount, as I understand it.

If you want to ask their advice, Pete, book well in advance as the queue is months long. Don't leave it to the 3-month window before you reach qualifying age as that will be too late to get an appt in in time.

It really need not be this complex though.

 

It's too late already
I get the new pension and possibly a little bit more if @DiggersJo figures are correct.
You are right it really shouldn't be this complicated, they should just pay all those that qualify the same amount if they have to make up some with pension credit.

As I remember before I reached 66 they sent me a letter telling me how much I would be getting each month.
I never had to do anything.

 

Yes, I had a letter 3 months in advance and I just had to confirm I wanted to start receiving it. Delaying a yr used to work out quite well, but is less beneficial now, since the changes to the new system.

 

I don't even understand all this, why because i'm a think git

 

Yes, I won't be delaying it when the time comes. If you forgo it for a year, the "payback period" is about 17 years. i.e. it would take about 17 years of receiving your pension increased by 5.8% to make up for that first year when you didn't get it.

 

Most people don't understand it, because it's horrendously complicated. But should be much simpler for all the folk whose employment history is fully after 2016, unless they change it all again ....

 

This Hp 2800e just seems to have a mind of it own, it now prints half an A4 page on 2 sheets of paper ie top half on 1 page and bottom half on second page

it driving me mad

 

I don't understand the basic things and even the basic things have got to much for me, time to hang up the boots

 

Contracting out was really badly explained, it seems.

If you had a defined benefit (final salary) private pension - i.e one that guarantees to pay you a percentage of your final salary, typically 1/60 or 1/80, for every year served - you likely didn't get a choice and were automatically contracted out.

Contracting out means you don't get any state pension other than the basic, no SERPS or S2P. But in return for that sacrifice, you and the employer pay less national insurance.

That saving in national insurance would have been contributed into the pension fund, and should have kept your required contributions a little lower than they would have been.

Contracting out was ended across the board in 2016 when the new state pension started. At that time, I remember my monthly pension contributions went up. I am lucky enough to still be contributing to a final salary pension.

 

Could it be a paper feeding problem? Have you tried taking all the paper out and reloading it?

 

But the maximum you could receive on the old pension, when including SERPS/S2P, was much higher than the maximum you can get on the new one.

 

Possibly why I get a bit more than the figure quoted by DiggersJo for the new pension?