Approaching 80 yrs - 25pper week extra - deducted

I always remember giving my MiL to be a lift to the DSS office. She was having ten slillings deducted from her assistance money as pensioners had just been given a ten shilling weekly increase. No increase for her then! Lots of people (me, for instance!) did not know this happened. Such a disgrace.....

Well, there we are, Our stories are remarkably similar in many ways.

Still, I would have been better to off not paying to maintain my contributions. Then I would have got Pension Credit and the additional benefits.

My Advantage!! What a strange idea you have. I spent over 15 years trying to look after my husband and care for my children on minimal benefits. Often went hungry so that they could all eat. Had no holiday at all during those years, just day after day, week after week trying cope. Watched my husband get more and more depressed and bitter as all his hard work to gain a professional qualification and a MA came nothing, as there was no companies that would employ him in a wheelchair and with the diagnosis of MS hanging over him. One organisation for which he had worked dismissed him as the President of it had a former wife who had died due to this disease and could not bear to come across anyone else with it. Another, major international company which offered him a job after several interviews withdrew that offer as their pension assessment of him was so bad (even though his own consultant wrote a letter disputing their doctors verdict). He was driven to a serious suicide attempt.

Such an easy life I had, I became seriously ill myself, refused an operation for years as had no-one to take over at my home. Only had this op. when my condition started to turn cancerous. Then due to mistakes in the op. was really unwell for the next year.

Yes, I survived - and my children somehow managed to rise above the problems - all went to Uni and have good professional (albeit all caring) careers these days. When I did recover from my illness and was able I went back to work.

There was no choice about whether or not I stayed at home to care for the children and my husband. He was unable to manage without 24 hours attendance - we had virtually no input from social services at any time. I will not go into the dreadful time it was and I was so keen to try to protect, as far as possible, our children from also becoming his carers.

I am certain I saved the system far more money than you paid into it.

I cared for my disabled mother and then later for my disabled husband. The job I eventually did was no less “caring and worthy” than the choice you made.

The difference is that throughout and at some sacrifice I paid into the system and you did not.

Now I find that I am worse off than you because with Pension Credit comes other benefits that I cannot access. I really would have been better off not paying it seems.

You win, I lose. But yes, I do resent you moaning about a system that has worked to your advantage.

Peasblossom -I must say I really resent the idea that you feel hard done by because you were able to earn money and therefore pay into taxes etc.

I would have loved to have been able to do so. I saved the state a fortune over the years firstly in caring for my increasingly disabled and increasingly difficult husband and also cared for many small children who required foster care.

These days Foster parents are paid a salary and their stamps are paid. Back in my day, we received a tiny sum towards (not even expected to cover) expenses and were considered 'unemployed'

As soon as I could I did go back to work in my local NHS trust from which I retired just a few months prior to my 70th birthday.

I have no feelings of guilt at all that I now require pension credit in order to bring my pension in line with the minimum given for pensioners.

pensionpat I understand how P.Credit works, however if it is considered that once I turn 80 years of age I need an extra 25p per week, I do not understand how that can then be deducted from my P.Credit.

I strongly agree that 25p per week is paltry. Wouldn’t even pay for a stamp. With any means-tested benefit e.g. Pension Credit. If income goes up, the benefit is reduced by the same amount. And if income goes down, the benefit is increased by that amount.

Well, I suppose I do wonder why I paid all those years when people who didn’t get the same as me. I would have done better to save that money or pay the mortgage or something.

But there we are. I don’t usually begrudge it, except when people who get the top up moan.

Charleygirl I received an envelope with eight pages of printed information. The first four being the changes to pension and pension credit in April - then the following four the change (re. this 25p) on my birthday in June.

It was first started in 1971 and the amount frozen since then. This £13 pound per year is a real insult.

Peasblossom - no sure about your first response. The reason I do not get a full pension is that for some twenty years I was a foster parent (back in the days when we barely got expenses, definitely no pay), and a carer for my husband who had MS. Yes, I worked, extremely hard with a houseful of children during these years. No Carers Allowance back then either.

My comment was not yet another one, on this very silly extra 25p per week to 'help older people', but on the fact that it is then being deducted from the top-up Pension Credit I receive. I will obviously query in due course.

In UK we have one of the lowest old age pensions in Europe (might be THE LOWEST).

I really would like to see this increased for all (anyway, there are a lot fewer of us after the Pandemic), and all the 'extras' incorporated into that and not paid out separately - £10 Xmas Allowance, Winter fuel payments, etc. etc.

I remember when Mum reached 80, she phoned me to say she is now getting an extra 25p a week she could hardly contain the excitement ! That was 11 years ago, it was a miserly amount then.

I agree OP, it is diabolical that someone on pension credit, isn't even allowed that tiny amount extra...shocking!

You mean everyone gets an extra 25p when they get to 80? Well in that case Franbern should get hers!

Wow. It’s something to look forward to.

(Not that I have any expectation of getting to 80?)

I have a full pension and I receive the very generous 25p per week! No reason given other than that I reached the majestic age of 80. Any suggestions as to what 25p can purchase weekly?

Maybe I got to hang on to mine because I was a week short of the £300 winter payment---to which they might have felt sorry for me

Oooooh, I got my 25p last year

How insane! I always get hopping mad about the £10 Christmas bonus. I do wish 'they' wouldn't bother!

Then I would post to say that it wasn’t fair that you were getting 25p more than me, whose pension isn’t topped up because I paid to get the full level ?

How much did it cost to convey that information to you?