General Chat

Angelsong,

I receive something every so often from the pensions people to tell me how much I could pay to boost my pension to full amount as I too work part time. Everyone I work with gets this too. It also tells me all the years that I can count as paid in full for bringing up children.

As my 2 children have a big age gap I was actually counted as childraising - getting family allowance, for 34 years!

Jacky

Jessie, these amounts rise in April I think it is, by £6 a week, and there will be a one off payment of £60 each pensioner this month, to bring the rise forward to the beginning of the year.

Lizx

Right here it is .....................


Pension Credit is an entitlement for people aged 60 or over living in Great Britain. This could mean extra money for you every week. Pension Credit guarantees everyone aged 60 and over an income of at least:

£124.05 a week if you are single
£189.35 a week if you have a partner
Also, if you or your partner are 65 or over you may be rewarded for saving for your retirement, up to:

£19.71 if you are single
£26.13 a week if you have a partner
If you apply for Pension Credit and are eligible, you may receive a payment backdated for up to 3 months from the day you were first entitled to the date you first applied.

To apply for Pension Credit, you must be at least 60 or within four months of your 60th birthday. It does not matter if your partner is under 60.



Aged 60 or over and under 65?
You are likely to be entitled to Pension Credit if your weekly income is less than:

£124.05 if you are single
£189.35 if you have a partner
You may still be able to get Pension Credit if your weekly income is more than these amounts if, for example, you or your partner:

are a severely disabled person
look after a person who is severely disabled
have certain housing costs – for example, mortgage interest payments
Remember, you must be at least 60 to get Pension Credit but your partner can be under 60.


Aged 65 or over?
If you or your partner are aged 65 or over, Pension Credit guarantees an income of at least:

£124.05 a week if you are single or
£189.35 a week if you have a partner
If either you or your partner are aged 65 or over and have modest savings, investments or income – such as a second pension or annuity – you could get extra money. This could be up to £19.71 a week if you are single, or £26.13 a week if you have a partner. This means that you may still qualify for Pension Credit even if your income is up to:

£174 if you are single or
£255 if you have a partner
You may still be able to get Pension Credit if your weekly income is more than these amounts if, for example, you or your partner:

are a severely disabled person
look after a person who is severely disabled or
have certain housing costs – for example mortgage interest payments


Hope this helps
Jessie

Check out if you can top up your state pensions with Pension credit - forgot how it works but I'm sure if the only income you have coming in is the state pension and you have savings below a certain amount your pension gets topped up by Pension credit - My Dad gets it, but it is over three years ago that I sorted it out for him so I'm not fully up to speed on it...............

But according to press reports this weeks millions is going unclaimed in pension credits and people are unaware of the entitlement to it..........


*** runs off to google it *****

Betty Boo ..... I live in Fife. Phone D.W.P. in Dundee (they sort my pensions out) they are very helpful and friendly and will give you a quote.

LW

all sorts of things come into play with your pension - for instance, I worked past the age of sixty and delayed claiming my pension by two years - that seems to have had a major effect in bumping it up - also there were things like graduated pension and various other schemes that were brought in - my pension is about £700 every four weeks

If you claim the pension from Canada it never increases from the day you get your first payment and is calculated on the basis of the number of stamps on your card while employed in England.

Hi Everyone,

Sorry I didn't notice more people had posted messages and added to the thread, sorry for not coming back until now but thanks everyone for you input and information on pensions too.

Betty

But Rosalind you will stil get as much as me because living in that lovely warm climate you will live longer!!

Jacky :-)

You are lucky Jacky, I will be 68 when I get mine. They are going to push both up to 70. Mind there won't be any left when I get there!!

Rosalind.

I have just been onto the site given in a reply and used the pension age calculator.

I have to say I was a bit surprised as I had always thought I would be 60 before the changes came into force but appently not! I can get my pension when I am 64 years and 5 months. This will be 5 months after my husband who is a year older than me!! I know it won't work like that as we will get a joint pension.

Could be worth checking though for anyone in their 50's.

Jacky

How true is that Rosalind

Same here Illegal Immigrants get Full Benefits and Accomodation.

When we came to Oz if you didnt have relatives here then you either stayed in a Hostel or paid through the nose for Accomodation. Luckily for us we did have relatives to stay with.

I remember My Mothers sister (My Aunt) lost her hubby and wanted to come out to Australia to live and be closer to my Mum. Happy to pay her own Fare and everything. Not a £10 Pom
She didn't want the Aussie Government to pay her a pension. She was comfortably off and could pay her own way. They wouldn't let her into he Country as a Resident.

Sadly they have both passed away now. It would have been nice for them to spend some years together before their deaths though

Makes me so angry when you see the Boat People and Illegal Immigrants allowing to stay with all the benefits

Regards
Jackie

Jackie, it always seems so mean that when you have paid your contributions they don't alter when you move to Australia, NZ, Canada and SA, but they do if you move to USA, EU and one or two others as you are not taking anything that you wouldn't have got if you had stayed here. Same with being kicked off the NHS, even though you have paid in full and are still paying tax and NI contributions into the system.
If you are an illegal immigrant, you get everything.

Rosalind

Hi ฿µdğîé,

I have coped and pasted that address http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/index.htm
and added to my favourits thanks for the link!!

Chris,

I am sure you will get full pension when your hubby is 65 but best to check the link ฿µdğîé has listed just to be sure!!

Betty

I get about £34 a week based on my national insurance
contributions., im 60 and mostly worked part time
My husbands retires in two years age 65 so i may be able to claim a bit more ..
I use to think you could claim a full pension on your husbands contributions when he retired, but now im not sure

Chris

Hi Jackie,

Pension's sound ok in Australia then!!

Elizabeth I have never had a letter saying what my pension is in the past 2 years. You are lucky if you get that, you must be in England I think not Scotland.

Betty

I get a letter from the "Pension Service" at the end of January every year telling me what my pension will be from the following April and it shows how it is made up.

Surely I am not the only one !!

Elizabeth

Hi Betty
Hubby and I are both on Full Aged Pensions in Australia
We both get the same amount each fortnight.

I think you have to have savings of quite a lot before they lower it.
If you rent a property you also get Rent Allowance each on top of that. If you own your own home you don't get that

You are also allowed to earn a little each fortnight but because we have an Allocated Pension that makes up the amount we can earn. Allocated Pension is what we took out with our Super when we retired.We put the money into a Low Risk Scheme which makes us money as well as paying us a sum each month which helps with our Pensions. We are only allowed to take a certain amount out of it. If we want a lump Sum say to go on Holidays then we are Taxed on it.

Hubby also gets a small amount each month from U K as he worked there for quite a few years before we Emigrated. I don't get that I didn't work there long enough.

The Uk Pension always stays the same so Betty you are correct in saying it doesn't change as the Pensions are adjusted in other countries other than UK.

We have a reasonably comfortable income but we naturally can't buy the things we did when working. Have to tighten the belt on some things lol
I know it doesn't help you Betty just thought you would like to know how it is in Australia
Regards
Jackie

Thanks Rosalind,

I receved mine last year but not sure what basic state pension is, it states differnt amounts. Oh well just have to phone and ask how mine is broken down into Pension and superanuation etc.

Betty

My OH should be getting his now, he hasn't checked yet!! They sent all his documents back to him, but has heard nothing more.

State pension is not reduced if you have savings, it is only reduced if you haven't paid the full amount of years into it.

Rosalind