Can you manage on just a state pension ?

The date at which the pension age changes were announced (with little or no fanfare, and no letters to the affected women) was many years before the first women were affected. Women were not retiring at 66 in the 90s - that is a much more recent state of affairs.

I left work at 55 but must admit changes in my workplace were making me very unhappy. I used part of my private pension to clear mortgage and I have never been happier I love it!
After 6 years I still feel massive relief that I don't have to set alarm and join the rat race each morning. I still have nearly 5yrs until I get State Pension, my partner worked for 2 more years after I left which helped finances but now both at home full time.
We manage fine day to day and can afford to replace worn out appliances etc but my only concern is living in an old property maintenance can be expensive, if bigger jobs needed not sure how we will manage. We replaced roof and double glazing before I left but always something needs doing. Kitchen and bathroom looking tired Not in a position to downsize any further. Still wake up with a smile on my face each day. Worth it for me.

I couldn't live off our New Zealand pension. Especially when you own a house. Theres always going to be unexpected car costs and maintenance. We had always saved for our retirement. I think the idea of living lean as a trial makes a lot of sense. We retired two years early and then I got sick. You do need to enjoy your life together while you have good health because you just don't know what's around the corner. Covid threw us all didn't it?

You appear to have researched this carefully Sandytoes so yes I think you should go for it.
Myself and husband did the same at 60, partly due to fact that retirement at 60 was compulsory in husbands employment. We have recently begun receiving our state pensions, and have never regretted our decision. Yes we had a tighter budget and were conscious that money spent from savings could not be replaced but quite enjoyed the challenge!

Many of us changed to the reduced rate for married women when we got married. Our generation married young by today's standards and on the whole women stayed home and had children. We had no concept of retirement when we were in out twenties. I believe that there is some sort of top up by the state if our total income comes below a certain figure so it would be worth finding out about this.

Sandytoes My father died at 55 and my mother at 65 and I'm still here, having outlived them both. There's no reason to assume that because your family had an history of ill health that you will follow the same route.

It's not much fun struggling on a small amount of money but I suppose it can be done if there is no alternative. If you are currently working full time, would it be possible to both get a stress-free part time job for a bit of extra cash?

Just reading about the pension blunder involving those of us 80 and over, widows too. Going back to 1992 there has been underpayments amounting to millions/ 3billion.

When H died in 1994 I was never paid 60% of his pension, as all I received, being younger than he was, was £54 a week widows pension along with my wages from the hospital. Nor did I receive it with my retirement pension either.
So since 1994 to date, I've dipped out
Must get cracking on that while I'm able before I snuff it.

When we were in our early thirties we bought a house that had closing orders on it. This means that it was about to be condemned. It was an absolute wreck. Although we had a mortgage, they wouldn't pay it out and so we had to have a bank loan. This meant we were repaying a mortgage and also the bank loan. The mortgage repayments were put in a separate account which we received to pay off the bank loan once the building society were happy with the work. My OH worked 7 days a week, on his work or on the house. Any surplus money was spent on materials for the house. We had no money whatsoever for "extras". This was our choice and we knew it would benefit us in the long term but it was very hard.

We had another period of virtually no income when, after we moved to Suffolk, my OH's main client (who had moved from London to Gloucestershire) decided that it was impractical to continue to use him and my job in London moved to Milton Keynes, unexpectedly. I got a new job fairly quickly but cried all the way home, because I didn't like it or want it. But needs must.

We liked to potter around - going Up West when we lived in London or out for the day somewhere. Lunch at a pub, look in a few junk shops, visit a NT property. We had no money for any of that.

When we had money we had a few extravagances. I liked to sit in the Grand Tier at Covent Garden. I remember going to shop in South Molton Street to find that the shoes I wanted in a particular were sold out but there was another colour (green) and there were other shoes in red. I came with two expensive pairs without batting an eyelid.

On other occasions we stood at the back of the stalls at the ROH and took sandwiches from home which we ate sitting outside.

My point is that when you are young you can do without because you hope that something better will come along. But, when you're past retirement age you might not be able to earn extra money and you have to do without. So, please think very carefully about giving up full time work.

Could you reduce your working weeks to 4 days instead of 5 so that you have a longer weekend?

£1400 a month every month, tax free is a good income. We live on less than this. It’s just a different lifestyle. Look at what you don’t spend - travelling to work, lunches out, work clothes, If you have doubts at all don’t retire. Liking work! Thats unusual and a privilege but when you retire, belts have to be tightened. Harsh words but that’s life. If you think you can have coffees out, lunches out, hair done etc. Then possibly not for you.
Sorry x

@LovelyLady £1400 a month net isn't a good income by any stretch.
Lots of people live on that, and less, but it allows for few luxuries and makes you vulnerable when unexpected essential expenses arise.
The survey below suggests £25,000 a year (2083/month) is the minimum to be comfortable, £40,000 if you want a few luxuries:
www.which.co.uk/money/pensions-and-retirement/starting-to-plan-your-retirement/how-much-will-you-need-to-retire-atu0z9k0lw3p

£25,000 for a single person or a couple?

£40,000 for a few luxuries ?

Goodness. How the other half expect to live. ?

Classroom teachers and nurses earn an average of £30,000 and bring up families.

Who are these retired people who think they need £40,000?

Take a look at that link - that's per couple. So, if 2 teachers/nurses on £30k each retired on 2/3 of their salary, they'd have £40,000 gross, potentially with the state pension on top.

The average actual single pensioner income is here: www.unbiased.co.uk/life/pensions-retirement/what-is-the-average-uk-retirement-income
It depends what you want to do in your retirement as to whether you would be content to live on that amount or not - what it does illustrate though is that even on a full state pension you would be living on a lot less than the average person.

Teachers don’t get two thirds of their salary. Nothing like. Half of your average salary if you work 40 years.

Who gets a package like two thirds? !

But there are loads and loads of people who earn even less than that and raise families.

I really think people on high salaries have no idea.

@Peasblossom I think you'd be surprised by the finances of many older people, once you factor in inheritances and other investments they may have made which would be in addition to a workplace pension.
That doesn't detract from the fact that so many others manage/struggle on much less and have to bring up a family on a lower income.

Olderthanyouthink The maximum teacher pension is half salary after 40 years of service and very few teachers, especially female, ones have that.

I do agree with you that many pensioners are much wealthier than people think. They're actually the richest cohort of people in the UK after housing costs.

Nevertheless, they're not a homogenous group and there are poor pensioners, but they still have more than poor people of working age.

OlderthanIthink

@LovelyLady £1400 a month net isn't a good income by any stretch.
Lots of people live on that, and less, but it allows for few luxuries and makes you vulnerable when unexpected essential expenses arise.
The survey below suggests £25,000 a year (2083/month) is the minimum to be comfortable, £40,000 if you want a few luxuries:
www.which.co.uk/money/pensions-and-retirement/starting-to-plan-your-retirement/how-much-will-you-need-to-retire-atu0z9k0lw3p

I will be living on about £13,000 gross - and that's more than I've had for the last few years - even before the pandemic. It will cover my outgoings without having to worry.

Doodledog

The date at which the pension age changes were announced (with little or no fanfare, and no letters to the affected women) was many years before the first women were affected. Women were not retiring at 66 in the 90s - that is a much more recent state of affairs.

But you had to be living with your head permanently in the sand not to have heard/read about them. I honestly despair if people are so unaware of what's going on around them, especially as the changes affected them. It makes me wonder how much/little people are aware of a world outside their bubble.

kwest

Many of us changed to the reduced rate for married women when we got married. Our generation married young by today's standards and on the whole women stayed home and had children. We had no concept of retirement when we were in out twenties. I believe that there is some sort of top up by the state if our total income comes below a certain figure so it would be worth finding out about this.

Speak for yourself! Women of my age generally didn't stay at home for more than a few years and weren't quite so naive about their own finances, unless they chose to be.

growstuff

Doodledog

The date at which the pension age changes were announced (with little or no fanfare, and no letters to the affected women) was many years before the first women were affected. Women were not retiring at 66 in the 90s - that is a much more recent state of affairs.

But you had to be living with your head permanently in the sand not to have heard/read about them. I honestly despair if people are so unaware of what's going on around them, especially as the changes affected them. It makes me wonder how much/little people are aware of a world outside their bubble.

No need to despair on my account, honestly.

My post was not about my personal situation, but was in response to your comment that pension age changed in the 90s, which I think is disingenuous.

As anyone who is not in their own little bubble will be aware, millions of women did not receive letters or any other form of notice that their pension age had moved forward, first by 5 years and then crept up after that.

I didn't have my head in the sand, but that does not alter the fact that a whole generation of women have been very badly treated as far as pensions are concerned. I know that you feel that benefits are more important than pensions - that is your opinion, to which you are entitled, but that does not alter the fact that people made plans which were, in many cases, snatched from under them.

In my opinion the two things are separate issues and to suggest that one injustice is irrelevant because there are other injustices helps victims of neither.

FWIW, I was fortunate enough to be able to pay into an occupational pension, which I did as soon as I was allowed, but one of the reasons that so many women feel aggrieved about the claim that pension ages were 'equalised' is that for many of us (me included) it was not possible to pay into occupational pensions in the earlier part of our careers - I was 37 before I could start paying into mine, and I lost years which were impossible to make up.

Being aware of the change does not mean that the plans we had made were unaffected, though - there was no way that I could make up the missing years of state pension on top of the ones I had missed from an occupational one, and I think that will have been true for the majority of people.

None of that is relevant to this thread, however, (I only mentioned it for context in my earlier post) so I'll leave it there.

£40,000 in retirement! You must be joking. What would all that money be spent on I wonder. We will be living quite well on nothing like that much.

Sorry OlderthanIthink but inheritance and investments? As well as two thirds pensions.

We obviously inhabit parallel worlds?

A classroom teachers pension for 40 years would be about 14,000. I think I could live really well on that. Coming later to the profession I get about 8,000 plus state pension and honestly there’s nothing I want that I can’t have.

A few luxuries on 40,000 just seems laughable. Sorry.

@Peasblossom You realise I'm quoting from that survey, those aren't my calculations and the figures are per couple?
I don't have an opinion on how people choose (or are forced) to live in retirement, but the OP wants to know if her figures are manageable. £14000 a year for a couple is low, not 'good' and, according to the survey, certainly not comfortable.

£40,000 per couple is classed as being able to live without money worries and with a number of luxuries. £25,000 per couple is comfortable, again, according to that survey.

For those of us approaching retirement, that's useful information.