Could you survive on state pension with ill health?

On not in

No definitely not with my state pension and my husbands we could survive but on mine alone it would hardly cover the costs of running our house.

It depends on what the medical needs are. Some people are eligible for attendance allowance amongst other things. Have a word with Citizens advice, they will head you in the right direction.

Ok so for someone in their own it would mean living in a small, cheap to run home. And I know bills aren’t cheap generally. Does anyone manage it?

I’m just thinking ahead to if anything happened to OH although I sometimes think I’d be happier on my own as things aren’t great.

gentleshores and a (((hug)))

How long is a piece of string? Sit with a large piece of paper and list every expense you have. Miss nothing out - shampoo, those little treats you know you'll pick up in the shops, every magazine and every impulsive stop at a cafe because you're tired of tramping around and your bus isn't due yet (no cheating or it will bite you on the derriere later). Add them all up, then add on 10% to cover unforeseen emergency spending (which probably still won't be enough, but it's a start).
Then list all the medical expenses you know you will have. Add on 10%, etc etc. Add that total onto your outgoings total. Bear in mind that nothing gets significantly cheaper, so this figure will be a mere snapshot it time. It WILL get dearer as you grow older.
Then list every scrap of money you have coming in - pension, heating allowance if applicable, Christmas £10 bonus (ha ha), interest on savings, etc etc. This total you CAN'T add 10% to - although it should rise every so often, you can't predict the increase accurately.
Look at the difference between incomings and outgoings (no cheating, I said!) and you'll know whether you can manage to live on your pension and have money left over each month to pay for your medical expenses.
But that is just today. In a few months' time, the calculations will probably be useless as most things will have changed by then. We should think of these things when we're young a earning money, but so many of us don't bother because we think we have no control over it all, so what the heck, let's just live for today!

As others have said, there are many variables. Do you live near to wherever you need medical care, or do you have to pay for taxis? Are you a homeowner or do you rent? If you are over retirement age you will likely be eligible for Attendance Allowance if you have health issues which make every day life difficult, this is not means tested. I too would suggest you contact Citizens Advice or Age Concern. Sorry that life is challenging for you.

Oops! I meant "young AND earning money"....

It depends on what pension you earned in your own right and what pension you could inherit from a late spouse.

This explains more:

www.gov.uk/state-pension/inheritance-spouse-civil-partner

This is good too:

www.lcp.com/en/our-impact/inherited-state-pensions-for-widows-and-widowers

Pension credit will top up income to £218.15 for a single person depending on what savings they have. Someone born before 6 April 2016 can claim Savings Credit of £17.01.

Someone with particular health needs would be able to claim other allowances which are designed to help with additional costs.

www.gov.uk/browse/benefits/disability

People on low incomes may also be able to claim housing benefit (if they rent) and or council tax reduction.

I tried an online calculator to see what help a home owner with only £218 a week and no savings might be able get. Almost all my council tax would be paid.

I don’t know what you mean by ‘medical expenses’ - we have an enviable National Health Service. I’ll be interested to know.

Depends on whether you were receiving Attendance Allowance or not, and if your health circumstances are bad enough to make life very hard to manage, you should. This stands at either £78 or £105 a week, plus, if you were on Pension only, and had AA, you would qualify for Pension Credit, plus the Severe disablement premium worth £ 80 a week. Get AA and your income could go up by between £150 and nearly £ 200 a week.

If you are not getting AA, talk to Age UK about it, get the forms and speak to Age UK to help you fill it in correctly, you need to know what they are looking for and what words to use and how to describe disabilities.

crazyH

I don’t know what you mean by ‘medical expenses’ - we have an enviable National Health Service. I’ll be interested to know.

Chronic or poor health can get expensive.
Needing the heating on if you are stuck at home with poor mobility, needing help in the house, getting to hospital appointments which may be miles away, perhaps you are not able to stand or cook, so good quality ready meals, all spring to mind.
We often had 4 or more clinic appointments a month in London, a taxi to the station (or car parking) and then the train for both of us plus a taxi at the other end regularly came in at £60-70.
When DH was in hospital it often cost me half that or more to visit him.
Poor health doesn’t come cheap.

I'm not really sure

All I can say is my husband is due to get his state pension in May, he received a letter on Friday explaining how much he will receive from the middle of May. He doesn't have a private pension. He's fit and well and loves his job so decided some time ago to continue working. I have a small private pension and I am working part time (self employed)

We still have 3 years to pay on our mortgage

However, I was rather shocked when I saw how much pension he's due to receive and did say, how on earth would we survive on that, if he gave up work. Well we wouldn't

Depends on whether you mean 'survive' or 'live as I expect to'. Either way there are so many variables there is no way to quantify it.

There are lots of quite debilitating ailments that won't require many visits to hospital but may need extra care at home or transport or special diet plus the cost of medication or prescriptions. Some of which you may get help for and some you won't.

As RosieandherMaw said there can be loads of extra expenses on top of getting actual medical intervention in hospital. An awful lot depends on your environment, your general health, amount of support from family/friends, how close you are to GP and/or hospital, what your actual medical needs are.

A friend of mine went from just getting by when on state pension and Pension credit, to being a lot more comfortably off once she had Attendance Allowance, and automatically Severe Disability premium. It almost doubled her income.

Pension credit for someone with only a small amount of savings is: £218 + AA£73/£108 =£291/£326 + SDP £82 =£373/£410.

That is the equivalent of an annual income of £19,396/£21,320 tax free as neither AA or SDP are taxable.

Thee will be many pensioners with small occupational pensions who will be worse off because they will not qualify for SDP.

Definitely ‘piece of string’ situation.
There are benefits to be explored - Pension Credit, AA,
Carers Allowance too - my friend gets it for her son and gives him it for petrol money. Some benefits open the door to others. There are other ways to get to hospital appointments that using one’s own vehicle too - volunteer drivers/ambulance. My DWPension increased by £30 a month when DH died, but I’ve heard of people getting a lot more after their bereavement.

RosieandherMaw - thankyou for the breakdown. I didn’t take all that into account - sorry ..

I would speak to someone at Age.uk they can advise you on what your entitled to and help you to fill in the forms to get it.

No. It’s a rubbish amount and I’m so glad that we have other pensions.

I think at one time we may have thought 200 quid a week, not bad. Only now 200 is more like 50 because everything is so expensive.

OP sorry to hear you're struggling.

As the chart shows, depending on age, widows, widowers and surviving civil partners can inherit a good amount of a late spouse’s State Pension.

There are some limited exceptions so please do read all of the information in the link.

www.lcp.com/en/our-impact/inherited-state-pensions-for-widows-and-widowers

Inheritance rights are much poorer for younger pensioners. They cannot inherit State Pension and can only receive 50% of Additional State Pension if they were 55 or older when widowed. Young widow(er)s may receive little or nothing even if their spouse or partner had paid for a substantial aSP and never claimed it.

gentleshores hugs.

It depends a lot on whether money is still going out for mortgage - or rent. Also things like how much the home costs to heat (size/types of fuel used/etc). Add in if one lives in an area with poor public transport = money needed for a car or taxi fares at intervals. Very much a case of "How long is a piece of string?"

Then there's how much of one's own money is having to go out on what I call "subsidising the NHS" - as that's what it boils down to basically. Many people have to have a private dentist, rather than an NHS one and they don't come cheap I do know.

Then there's the "luck of the draw" aspect - as in according to how life goes, what illness one has and how good (or otherwise) any medical people one sees are. eg it should have cost £250 (bad enough) to see a podiatrist for an ingrown toenail. But I'm calling her the "butcher of 'insert name of town' - as she f&cked up and that's cost me another £30, then £40, then £40 and hopefully the last bit of £60 to pay other people to deal with her bodging on my toenail (and that doesnt include transport costs). Some people would put up/or financially have no alternative but to put up with mucked-up looking toenail and pain she has caused - and I'm spending that extra because I won't do so.

Glasses? Yep...that costs - even if one gets the cheapest possible for reading and computer work and only buys the ones you actually like etc for everyday/everyone will see you type purposes.

A lot is down to how lucky/unlucky one is healthwise, how far from any practitioners one might need and whether one is prepared to put up with less than optimum achievable health/looks.

Now - where's that piece of string?