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My tax and NHI went into the same pot in the system (a fact that many people do not realise) and I paid loads of tax as well as NI and I was also paying in for private pensions but Gordon Brown did a wonderful job of destroying all of that dream. Therefore at the end of the day I was left virtually penniless so I let the system that I supported for over 40 years now support me. If I were to work out my contributions over 40 years I have certainly paid in more than I could ever take out, of that I am 100% positive. So for me and perhaps many others (15million pensioners in UK) we are being well looked after in the UK and long may that last. I would never have the lifestyle I have here in the UK in Spain. Not to mention the health system, to which I have had to avail of their services on a few occasions.
Gordon Brown didnt wreck your private pension and make you penniless, i guess you are about 65 / 67 years of age and with the kind of wage you say you had you would have had a good cash lum sum and a monthly payment paid out a couple of years ago, you can top up private pensions yearly, and on over £180,000pa that could have been perhaps £18,000 pa....and not missed it.
Cash sum back, approx in the region of £75,000 - £100,000... Month about £500 - £600
I have two private pensions, brown never wrecked either of them, fact is i am more then happy with them both.
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of course i am entitled to benefits. Whay argue about this? Of course I didn't always earn £180k but I always earnt well. Paid loads of tax, spent lots of money and lived the good life, as I do now albeit cut down in expenditure. All through that time I felt I had a moral contract with the state that meant I paid into society when I had it and if I ever found I didn't I knew society would look after me. Simple.
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Thanks Bob. It was early and I was rushing off to my morning as a volunteer translator,
But, the remainder of the post true:- ....
Hey Met,
................................................
QUOTE I would never settle in Spain as a pensioner, life is waaaaaaaay too good here in the UK ............. with all prescriptions free, eye tests free and a whole host of other benefits, £200 DLA a month as I have a back problem. My rent is mostly paid by my local council in the private sector, as I have no savings left.
But he did not add:_ The funding for which is not spirited from some magical source but from people who are paying taxes in the UK now includig those who did not choose to spend all their savings and become a burden on others.
His argument that he has 'paid his share and loads of tax' applies to most of us, but most of us dios not blow it all so as be reliant on hadouts andmany of us are continuing to pay and cannot not claim any those extra benefits which allow Met to continue having a lavious lifestyle.
This message was last edited by johnzx on 28/05/2013.
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I am pleased your pension plans have worked out and have rewarded you as you had hoped. Unfortunately I wasn't so lucky. Though I am not about to divulge all my personal details. You are assuming that my pension agreements would have been the same as yours, and my employment contracts would have been the same as yours. Most of my career I was not employed by any companies other than my own contracted to other companies, I therefore benefitted zero from company pension schemes. My pension plans were purchased independently and relied on stock market profits. Not managed by myself I may add, and effectivey got demolished by taxation changes brought in by Gordon Brown which resulted in my policies ending up pretty much worthless. After having the goal posts moved on me once, I realised there was no point in striving to build up a new pension plan that could easily be wiped out again by future politicians. I gifted monies to my kids and the rest is history. Happy and content in the UK.
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And with many years left to claim benefits, I am certain you will reach your goal of getting out substantially more than you paid in. Why not sit down and work it out - remember though, you cannot claim that all of your tax payments went into benefits - tax is for everything else - roads, defence, schools - hospitals etc etc. You can really only consider your NI contributions - and trust me - they will not have been that great.
BTW - I have a range of pensions to draw from when the time comes, and apart from an unhappy incident with Equitable life - no one has destroyed any of them - though they may have changed in value.
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Wish my state pension was £143!
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hmmm I have sat down and worked it out, believe me. You say with many years left. Well that may not always be the case as many of us witness in life. Today is all we have, yesterday history and tomorrow a mystery. As a cancer survivor I have done a lot of working it out and this suits me just grand. I would prefer any extra monies went into my account rather than the coffers of whichever government is in power. After all they cannot be trusted to look after the nations money can they? I rely on many medications to sustain a "normal" day and I know for certain this would not be viable in Spain or anywhere else come to that. So as an optimist I get the best out of my life each day and the UK rocks in every aspect for me and my retired friends. It's not just the bankers that are laughing all the way hahahahahaha.
I am pleased your pensions worked out good, but for many this has not been the case.
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Actually camposol it's £147, iI got it wrong lol. But pretty soon they are bringing it in line to £140 for everyone in the UK.
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Not everyone will be getting it-the ones on the present state pension will continue to receive it. The new one is for those coming of age in ?2016.17. Th actual basic state pension is definitely NOT 147 now, more like 107!
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Unlike baz, I would never be able to have the lifestyle in UK that I have here in Spain. My money goes so much further, we also get free bus transport, free health care, no need to have free TV licenses as there's no such thing, reduced rates at water parks, theme parks, cinemas etc. SWMBO being a virtual prisoner in the house for weeks on end due to ice on the pavements and so on. Obviously we can't all be the same - at the risk of mixing metaphors - horses for courses and one man's meat and all that. Oh, and the great thing about retirement, no commuting. That is one thing I don't miss. At the mo, sitting in my garden, sipping freshly brewed coffee and having honeydew melon (biscuits are out due to my trousers shrinking in the wash -again) with the bouganvillea draping the patio and the jasmine smelling beautiful. So what if my income is below the €30, 000 mentioned earlier? Unless I started visiting the places rosetti frequents I would find it difficult to get through it all. Glad to see those on benefits can afford to go to India for 3 months of the year. Makes my spring cruise in the Caribbean for a fortnight seem paltry. Will just have to wait for the OAP to kick in.
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Are there any ordinary ex pats out there on state pensions, plus a small occupational one? It seems to me there are many fat cats ! No wonder they are all so happy-they're not going to worry about the state of the euro or a few cents on a pint!
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Hi Camposol, he is talking about the basic state pension plus all the benefits he is entitled to. It seems he has paid a hell of a lot more in NI contribution than anyone else - ever. People on the old system will stay the same i.e. if they are entitled to benefits then they will continue to get them on top of the state pension.
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Unlike baz, I would never be able to have the lifestyle in UK that I have here in Spain.
Woooow back a bit, i dont have the decent life style that you have in Spain, here in the UK, i only have it because i work 8 days a week 25 hours a day, and most of that is to support bloody English wasters....which by the way i am trying to get rid of, but all i get when i threaten them with the sack is " Please do...would get more on the benefits" that's just like sending a child to their bedroom because they were naughty, the bedroom is better equipped then the living room....needless to say to tell me about anyone getting benefits when they earned over £180,000pa, and are now bragging about how well of they are on benefits, and they have no savings..... is it any wonder you want to spit.....but not to much, because about the pay and work i didn't believe one bit of.
For what it's worth i cant wait to live full time in Spain, yes i would have to cut down on a lot of things in Spain i get in the UK, but to me what ever i have to lose is so well worth it just to get away from this benefit grasping bunch of tattooed metal faced drunken drugged up idiots we now have to call our "country men".
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Agree about the bragging baz1946 - my guess is just another WUM. We should not really bother to reply but sometimes it is just too tempting!!
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My salary quoted is absolutely geniuine for 18 years prior to retirement, before that it was about 20,000 lower but I took further exams to cover different fields in the industry. My pension is basic and made up with pension credits which actually does bring it up to £145 and change. It costs me nothing to go to India as I said, my son works for BA and rent in India is a whopping £80 a month, no bills and a pool and a beautiful beach 2 mins walk. I actually save money leaving the UK for 3 months as I have no utility bills to pay and none in India either. Electricity is very cheap. Food is a whopping £5 You can easily live in Goa on £60 a week easily. All meds are over the counter so you do not need a prescription ie a mosquito cream was 15p and a doctors visit is very cheap too. Of course I do take certain medicines with me as not everything is readily available. The hospitals in Goa are brilliant too. I do like the winter sun and I used to use Spain a lot for that, but it's too expensive compared to India. I live in the south east in the UK and we don't have a " bunch of tattooed metal faced drunken drugged up idiots we now have to call our "country men". In fact I am tea total and don't smoke and wouldn't like to live in that environment. I think most of that ilk come from fdifferent parts of the UK to be frank. I do get free transport if I need to use it and no congestion charge if I need to use the car or bike. No TV licence as I stream all tv and movies to my liking through my media centre. I stand corrected, my pension is made up of 2 components, the first is state pension of £76.46 and the second is pension credits £68.94 - I will let you do the maths. That is a FACT. I am not a scrounger and never have been, having worked my entire professional life in a very lucrative industry but things didn't work out as I had planned. But there again when does life work out exactly as we plan it? I visit this site often and see that there have been various trolls on here, of which I am not. I have been visiting this site for a long time now and do not usually contribute much, but this is a subject I felt I had to join in on. It is horses for course and for now my horse is stabled in the UK and very happily so. I am not bragging as has been stated, just stating how I live and if some of you want to split hairs carry on with your sour grapes attitude. Goodness knows, there are enough people on here who do brag and I am certainly not one of them, just telling it how it is.. I am fortunate enough to live in a country which isn't perfect but right now being a pensioner in the UK rocks.
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Quite frankly MetGB I would be embarrassed to admit that although for the last 18 years of my working life I had earned in excess of £ 3 million ,a third of which most people wouldn't earn in 10 liferimes , and was now so impoverished that I needed pension credits . Considering you state you neither drink nor smoke one has to wonder just what you did with your money and why , for an intelligent person, having savings or assets is beyond your comprehension. Sorry but I think there is something very wrong with this posting.
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yawn - use some imagination. It could be said there is something wrong with someone who cannot imagine spending lots over many years and ending up broke. It is fairly common you know. You must live a very sheltered life lol.
This message was last edited by MetGB on 28/05/2013.
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I am with floella on this. I know a lot of very high earners and none of them will be living on benefits. Someone used the Bard's quotation 'the lady doth protest too much......' on another thread - and I think it is very appropriate to this one.
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Just a little thought ... didn't Simon Cowell lose all his hard earned cash and then build it all back up plus more besides, through hard work and tenacity? ... the point being that there are people who make lots of money and then lose it all.
Edited second thought - if money hadn't been gifted to family members, would you be in receipt of all the benefits you now enjoy (ie rent paid etc etc)?
This message was last edited by wend691 on 28/05/2013.
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you guys are too strange for words - no protesting from me but a lot of suspicion and argumentative behaviour on here from people who obviously are having a crap time in their lives sun or no sun, and an awful lot of resentfulness towards someone whose life is content. I hear about people like you all the time ie you wouldn't wish anyone well and without knowing a persons full story you are willing to shoot them down in flames. This dreadful behaviour has been observed by myself and some friends here in the UK on this site in the past, and it appears to be the same old crew directing their resentments and covetous behaviour towards a complete stranger who is merely stating that life in the UK is great. A notion that some of you seem adverse to hearing. I think that tho doth protest too much is now a more fitting phrase to use. . That's me out for now so don't bother with anymore offensive comments. You sit in the sun and enjoy yourselves, if you can. And you'd better save those paltry few euros you have for a rainy day, as it seems some of yuo will definitely need to for your future. I am now off to enjoy my hot tub on a nice starry night with friends.
Yes Wendy that is true and I know these people find this hard to believe, but it happens as I can attest to. Not only with bad pension investments but also other stuff that life throws at you and to be honest yes, overspending when times were good which is obviously a crime to admit to.
The welfare state is a lottery, after all many people contribute into this lottery to never reach old age and claim a pension. I am lucky and proud to have reached the age I am and to have a state that looks after me very well. It's a privilege in fact. And the person who made a point of saying I earned more than £3m in those years is correct, but work out the contributions I made as well. I have been collecting my pension now for 1 year so do the maths if I get to live another 20 years! And one has to remember I paid in prior to those 18 years as well. Also, I would validly point out I had to quit work when I was diagnosed with cancer. Maybe that satisfies you ** EDITED ** This could be an endless subject for debate and not argumentative bias.
This message was last edited by MetGB on 28/05/2013.
This message was last edited by MetGB on 28/05/2013.
This message was last edited by eos_moderators on 29/05/2013.
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