I’m 74 and in the retirement trap – my pension is too small but I can’t get a job
https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/retirement-trap-pension-too-small-no-job-2996586/
by Organic-Ad6439
I’m 74 and in the retirement trap – my pension is too small but I can’t get a job
https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/retirement-trap-pension-too-small-no-job-2996586/
by Organic-Ad6439
27 comments
So she says she’s paid off her mortgage, removing one of biggest financial concerns anyone has, has “ saved all her life” yet where’s it all gone?
Also “feels her generation deserves better in old age” yet are that generation is the most protected, the one that politicians try to keep happy and had the best chance on home ownership ( she literally owns her home)
She’s better off than 90% of people just by owning her home
“I did everything except save into one of the most lucrative and generous pension schemes this work will ever see… Now I don’t have a pension this isn’t fair”
Fuck off.
“They also see us as ‘house blockers’ even though many of us have downsized or are only living in the more decent-sized homes we bought many years ago so that our children and grandchildren, who are living in tiny places they can barely afford, can come and stay with us.”
…so close. So close to realising that their grandchildren being raised in squalor is a problem.
She should sell her house and move into a smaller place. That would unlock the money she needs for living ad shed like.
This is a warning to us all…unfortunately ‘nice’ but low paying jobs like librarian wont really sey you up for a chilled retirement. Teaching foe less than 10 years won’t either…some may say it never will. But 2 low paying careers…she’s lucky she paid off her mortgage tbh.
I hate this but…while you’re young you gotta earn that money
…as much as you can…cause the amounts that you and I need to put in our pensions is likely more than the price ofnyour house.
>feels her generation deserves better in old age
Her generation of free university tuition, being able to buy a house for 2/3 times your annual salary and triple locked state benefits while everything else is slashed to the bone.
Most entitled / spoilt generation in history who used all the ladders of upward social mobility then pulled them away for their kids and grandkids coming after them.
Fuck offfff
It sounds like she’s made a series of poor financial decisions which have now come back to haunt her. She was a librarian and retrained as a teacher at 47 then retired at 54 – why? Where is her public sector pension and why did she pay for her daughter’s tuition fees when she clearly couldn’t afford to do so?
The state pension should be much better than it is, no questions there, but these days everyone knows it’s really more of a buffer than a single income and additional measures need to be taken to ensure financial security in later life. Maybe that’s not how it should be but it’s a fact to be ignored at your peril.
As a leftie I hate to say so but this is a tale of individual financial irresponsibility rather than a failure of the state to provide for her retirement.
Bet she started eating avocado on toast. That’s why she got no money.
Pull yourself up by those bootstraps and eat less avocado on toast boomer.
The state pension is enough to scrape by on. Should society fund a more comfortable retirement for those who can’t afford it themselves? Make sure there’s enough for holidays, meals out, luxuries in the home? Maybe start it early so people can start their comfortable retirement in their 50s?
Don’t think anyone is down for that. If you don’t save enough to make a comfortable retirement arrangement for yourself, you are supported to scrape along but no more. I don’t think that’s unreasonable to be honest, not really sure what this person is complaining about.
Lived through 40 years of economic incline, owns home and cleared mortgage, cry me a fking river
Maybe she can do some house hacking asking poor young people to pay 1200 pound a month for a bedroom
Something doesn’t quite add up here – she was in Local Government Employment in one form or another until she was in her mid-50s. So her pension should be reasonable – not vast, as she didn’t quite hit the retirement age, but to give an idea my father who was also in Local Government/Education for his entire career and is the same age as her, his pension is 50% final salary, plus a significant lump sum that allowed for purchase of a reasonable annuity. Given her role as a teacher I would hazard she should have a pension of around 10-15k ontop of the state pension, or £26k a year.
I am guessing from the figures given in the article she isn’t on the full state pension (which is £220 a week), at the £155 mentioned in the article and knock off a bit for the teachers salary she probably falls back to £20k a year.
If she wasn’t making full NI contributions up till 65, that means her tutoring work really wasn’t particularly fulsome and suggests she essentially semi-retired at 54.
Which would explain why she is not living a life of luxury – although that said with owning her own home, she shouldn’t be in utter penury either.
This does annoy me. I’m 24. Probably won’t get to buy until my mid thirties, meaning I’ve missed at least a decade of mortgage payments.
I have to save a metric fuck ton of money to even hope I’ll retire before I’m 80. Realistically I’m relying on inheritances when I’m around 40 (hopefully!) to support my retirement. I probably won’t even get a state pension.
Yet these lot always want more and more, while telling my generation they “struggled” so we have to too.
I think less Netflix, avocado toast and expensive coffee should get her back on track
Key word here – if
If she had to live on the state pension she would struggle. So she isn’t living on just that.
Her daughter having crippling student debt and a mother that moans for herself is the real story here
Sounds like she needs to pull herself up by the bootstraps, cancel netflix and stop drinking coffee in coffee shops.
A lot of comments about her house so I was curious.
It wasn’t hard to do some OSINT and find her address.
Her house averages between £400-500k. I have to admit that even ‘downsizing’ wouldn’t play a part here. Nor even relocation. No doubt was content in her home and is now trapped in the equity price boom. The amount of times I fall in arguments with boomers who don’t understand the massive struggle we face with house prices. I always close it saying “you wouldn’t even be able to afford to buy your own home now, so what chance have we got”.
Especially if she has been spending, such as for her children’s education and not investing.
But I definitely agree with the majority of your comments here knowing the struggle we face in our generation.
You reckon you’re fucked, wait until all the people currently in their 20s and 30s get to retirement age.
Sounds a great deal like this lady needs to take social security advice at her local CAB or similar. If she’s genuinely struggling, she may be entitled to pension credit and other support.
However the fact is that the minimum level provided by the state pension will never be enough to have the kind of adventurous exciting retirement a lot of people want, which is why it’s so important to plan and save.
She is my generation. And she can go F herself. She owns her home, she has pensions from state jobs, she was doing tutoring on the side and I bet you she didn’t declare these. She can sell her facking home and downsize, or take a loan against the house. F her and F everyone else supporting this. And take down triple locks.
This doesn’t add up, she would have been 60 when fees went up
>I used to be a librarian, but then, when the Government put up university tuition fees from £3,290 to £9,000 a year in 2010, I realised the amount my daughter would be paying when she went to study, and felt I had do something more stable and better paid so that I could help her.
>So, at 47 years old, I retrained as a secondary school teacher. I was certainly the oldest one there, embarking on a new career. I loved teaching the children, and alongside doing that, I was also writing books. Once I stopped teaching at 54, I went on tutoring as long as I could, into my 60s.
It is very hard to get a job at 74. My parents still work because they never gave up working. When you are out of the loop, you are basically out for good. They always knew this. There’s no such thing as retirement as unless you have a pension pot of half a mil and no financial commitments. Or a cash flow positive business with a 5% yield equivalent to half a mil. And even then you have to be frugal.
Basically, you need to have your own business by then.
I would keep applying. See what assets you have to rent out. Maybe a room. Maybe a dog or cat there is an app renting out your dog. It’s popular, apparently. This will bring in some short term cash. They always need taxi drivers. Maybe door dash/ deliveroo is doable.
I would talk to a financial advisor and see your options.
Check the government website and what entitlements and breaks you could get. Citizens advise also. Winter fuel allowance, etc…
These people were all lied to by Wall Street in the 50’s and now genuinely think a jet-set lifestyle in retirement is normal.
It never has been and it never will be, until possibly post-capitalist automation.
If she’s paid her mortgage off and is getting the £950 per month state pension, what on earth is the problem?
The state pension for people will be 71 minimum by the time people under 35 get it. This lady at 74 worked until 3 years ago right? Oh no, just wants the state to fund a custy retirement for her that she didn’t work for while workers are drowning in taxes.
My nan and grandad were whinging and whining last weekend that their pensions have “only” gone up £17 per week last week. This whilst sat in their paid house, with savings.
It took everything I had to not say anything.
I can’t recall the last time I had a pay rise (salaried) that wasn’t tied to performance and even that was pre Covid. I’m definitely earning less now than I was 10yrs ago adjusted for inflation.
Ingrates.
FTT!
I’m pretty sure her generation was playing life on easy mode.
Her house probably costs less than my deposit and her teacher pension would have been final salary.
Uni would have been basically free.
How is it a trap, she just didn’t save enough.
What’s she’s experiencing now is what young people experience, the only different is that she had everything going for her when she was young. We don’t have that now.
Genuinely couldn’t care less – had their whole life to prepare for retirement, during arguably the easiest period to grow net worth