Savings for Retirement

Ana

Most of the people I know have strange ideas if you include the mob who wanted his ex lady friend to have the house I inherited from Mum and Dad.
One of them said I had about £10,000,000 a little while ago.
I wish that was the case.

Frank

What a bloke here we go again!!!!!

glammanana

I have to admit that I seemed to spend about 20% of my time driving or walking when I worked for the council.
It was not my fault.
A lot of the services are now being put under the same roof to make things more efficient but it can not be done overnight.
I supose some of the car driving will be saved but there may be more walking within the buildings.

Frank

Yes glassortwo

You probably have £20,000,000.



Frank

Frank I am not retired yet.

Well, I'm not sure that I will be retiring, Frank, being as I stopped work to look after my children and didn't pay into a pension fund, and when they left home my husband did as well. Divorce soon followed.I think I'm a lot older than you but am still doing a job that [I think] contributes to society, but is not very well paid. I inherited nothing from my parents because they were very poor. I have a very small pension that my husband gave me which, along with the state pension that I will eventually get will just about enable me to survive. I apologise for being some sort of leech/scrounger on society .

Oh for gods sake HunterF you haven't got the faintest clue have you?

How the hell do you think someone on minimum wage can "save into a pension fund" ?

I wonder whether Frank posts these views just to get a rise out of everyone .

There will always be people who are able to save towards retirement and some that either can't or won't, but isn't a civilised society judged by the way it treats its sick and elderly? It makes no difference if someone couldn't save because of low pay or wouldn't save because they spent everything they earned, they still need a decent pension to live on.

Hi Barrow

They may need a decent pension to live on but I do not see why I should contribute to it as I paid for mine and should have the full benefit of it.
I help mt own daughters and granddaughters with money so I am doing my share in helping the young.

Frank

My comment re our Council workers was posted in jest,when ever you try to get them on the phone they are never available but there are many walking around the Town Hall grounds seemingly doing nothing,now that is a waste of my taxes if ever there was.
glass you kept the windfall quuiet mate!!*
BarrowThink this is done to set us all up for the week-end.

sorry slight stutter above ^^

Hi glammanana

I agree with what you are saying but this happened in the bank I worked for a lot.
As I have said Birmingham are trying to minimise this but it will take a few years to locate all offices in the optimum place.
I think you can bet something else will come along while this is happening which will upset the plans.
I could not be contacted a lot of the time as I was with service users or between offices.
When I worked for the bank I had to visit customers, other banks and offices. The bank provided me with a mobile phone and the council did not.
I could not use my phone when I was driving.
When I joined the council people took messages and I rang back at first but they later provided me with voice mail.
Occasionally if there was a very urgent call people would call me from the council on my personal mobile phone and I would call the service user.
In theory I could claim my expenses for doing this but these calls just tended to use my minutes included in my tarrif but 1 month I went over by about £1.50 due to council calls but I decided it was not worth claiming.

Frank

Well I saved for my retirement and am grateful for the fact that I am comfortably off.
However I have no objection to contributing towards those people who for one reason or another had no way to build up their own pension funds.
If I didn't have money I wouldn't be paying tax.

Hi Galen

I am not grateful for the fact I am reasonably well off as I sacrificed all my bonuses and paid the maximum AVC's when I was in banking.
I paid a large portion of my salary into the council pension fund and mainly lived on my bank pension at that point.

Frank

Well, IMHO. You should be grateful for the fact that you had the intelligence that enabled you to take job that allowed you to do all that and still have enough to live on!
Many people do not have those god given opportunities.
You should sympathise with them not condemn !

Well, at least you're honest, Frank. That's all there is to say, really...

And we all know about bank pensions and bonuses.

Well I'm afraid that we spent most of our married life in Cornwall, which meant subsistence wages, no sick pay, no holiday pay and certainly no pension schemes. At one point we did have our own business and started a private pension, but when the business went bust in the 1990's recession we lost all that we had saved. I would love to be sitting on a nice pension pot but to save for a pension you need something approaching a living wage.
The couple of years I spent working for the council were the worst of all, I was treated as casual labour and could have been sacked at any time on a whim.

Hi Deedaa

I presume you were agency staff.
As it happened I was the administrative staff member who did not start as agency staff at the time I was there.
Oddly enough all the agency staff who wanted to stay at the time I was there got a job either within the department or somewhere else within the council.
One lady who was made redundant / early pension by the bank I worked for got a job in another bank and is still working.
Another lady got a job with a neighbouring council nearer her home.

Frank

As long as you and your daughters and grandchildren are okay financially Frank that's all that matters. To hell with all those genuinely hard working people on minimum wage who have literally slogged themselves to death. But hey if they didn't contribute into a personal pension they deserve to starve and freeze !

Your opinions make me sick !

No HUNTERF I was employed direct by the council for all the good it did me. If I'd been working for an agency I suspect I wouldn't have had to claim Family Credit to survive.

Hi Deedaa

I don't think the council was bad until near the end when I had a manager who kept on repeating that it was totally wrong I had the best car and house in the department and that was wrong.
Voluntary redundancies and in my case an immediate pension was offered and I decided to take it and go.

Frank

Many hardworking people (such as those working in nursing homes or in nurseries) have stressful working conditions, no "perks" and very poor pay, and many women (and men) have been unable to work, or work part-time, because of family/caring commitments. Because of this, they cannot afford to pay into pension schemes.

I'm with Jane and Annodomini I don't want to live in a country where it's "every man for himself". I don't mind paying tax (even though my pension isn't that great) if it helps other people to have a better pension, though I do resent the money spent on military hardware.

Does Birmingham have an exceptionally high number of people who a) suffer from extreme envy of very ordinary things (house, car, etc.), b) blurt out stupid comments with no thought behind them and c) have absolutely no manners?

Hi absent

I am not sure of the situation in Birmingham overall but I am not sure if you are refering to the 20+ people who thought I should hand over the house which my father and mother willed to me to Dad's ex lady friend or the manager I had for a few months before I took retirement / redundancy from the council.
Unfortunately I have had this happen. The house is large and reasonably expensive for the area.
Oddly enough people do get things wrong and I don't think some realise I had a good job in London and was receiving a pension from it.
Another strange thing happened in London.
My parents found the second house my wife and myself purchased.
Two of the neighbours thought the house belonged to my parents and I just lived there. They were there a lot at the start helping to set it up and they only saw me walking down the road on my own.