How much pension for a comfortable life?

We manage on about £14000 a year. We have some savings but nothing like the amount you and your husband seem to have. We have no mortgage, run 2 cars, eat pretty well, have the odd few days away or a holiday if we feel like it and enjoy regular days out and trips to the theatre.
I totally agree with other posters, retire and enjoy your life.

I suspect most of us know someone who, like your husband, worried about having enough money for their old age. In my case it was a work colleague. He would boast about how much he had (owned 3 rental properties) and regularly counted out the money in his wallet in front of we junior staff. He never had less than £250 and this was 40 years ago. Three days before he was due to retire, he dropped dead on the shop floor. We had even organised his retirement party and bought his present!
Nobody knows what he future holds. You might both have another 20 good years ahead of you, I hope you do! On the other hand, one or other of you could be gone tomorrow.
That's my opinion for what it's worth.

Can you still buy years if you took time off for having children? I know I did.
I would make an appointment with a pensions advisor ,perhaps asking the Cab for a recommendation and both of you go. I think it's worth remembering that you could both go under a bus tomorrow and neither of you would benefit from your savings. I would make a big effort to do a list of expenses before you saw anyone remembering that heating costs more when you are home and days out are more frequent.

Thanks for the advice. However, I cannot retire.Part of the problem lies with the changes to the state pension.

I have only ever worked part time. Hubby worked full time. He was forced to retire early because his firm wanted to shed staff in 2008 ( just as the banks skint the country but not related) and made him retire rather than lose younger staff. Consequently he took a slightly reduced work pension.

As he was only 58, he had to sign on the dole ( first time ever in his life and he left school at 15 and went straight to work) and they humiliated him. One even told him he was "sacked" from the job centre" when he was three minutes late to sign ( bus issues - there are only two buses a day from here to the job centre and the afternoon one was late that day - he got a car after) and his benefits would be stopped - even though he was not claiming benefits and was only signing for NI contributions because he only had 42 years and needed 44 . This was under the old pension scheme of course.

Then he reached 60 and the gave him NI credits which more than met his 44 years, only for things to be changed in 2011 when he then required 30 years.

He was caught in the old pension trap where NI was changed from 44 years for a man to 30 years when he was early 60's.

We had always planned that he would retire at 65 and would get his work pension and married mans state pension which was about £170 a week(? forgot now). When it came he retired under revised rules with a state pension of £123 which he was told by the DWP was "£HIS" pension and was a single mans pension and me, as his wife, would have to work for a pension in my own right.

Then the rules changed again and instead of 30 years NI, I had to get 35 years NI to get a state pension. I wont have that unless I work until I am 66 ( my retirement age now).

This is where the shortfall and the problems lie. I now have to work to make up the shortfall because he his single mans pension and I have to get my single womans pension. There is no married couples pension anymore.

If I retire now I wont have enough NI contributions for my state pension. I was at college and didnt make contributions until in my 20's and my earliest jobs were below NI contribution level so I lost out on them( college years do not count for NI contributions for pension). But since I married and the rules were hubby got a married mans allowance my early missing years didn't matter (the DWP actually told me this in the 1990's when we were looking at pension arrangements for the first time. I was in my 30's still then)

Savings and inheritance do not count in any of this working out for my hubby.

He is also terrified I will lose my job before I am 66 and I wont have my income and will lose out on the state pension.

Therefore I cannot retire. I would have been retired last year had the rules remained with a married mans allowance, even though overall we would have actually had less money.

In his calculations hubby will not countenance any savings, monies for his works pension even.

I just want to know how much is enough to live on generally because his attitude is nothing is enough.

Savings and money in banks do not count. That is for "old age" according to hubby as we will need it to pay for care and medical bills then as there wont be any and there wont be an NHS - and even,there may not be any pension either.

So, I am stuck working, but would like to know what is comfortable as an income in retirement for two people with no debts and all paid up. I cant imagine it is £30K as most people working do not earn that.

Now I am Really Depressed !

This thread has me very

OMG, If I had that much in savings, I would not be working. Only ever had enough to cover emergencies.

Enough is never enough for some
River . I mean having that £13k a year might make all the difference to the amount of 000000's in the bank book.

Don't buy into your husband's worries abbey, sounds like this has been a lifetime concern for him and he is unlikely to change now. Retire now and enjoy your life, you are more than financially secure.

You have hundreds of thousands in the bank but go out to work, and hate it, for £13,000 pa. I'm trying to get my head around that one.

If you enjoyed your job that would be different.

Good advice Nonnie.

Suggest you get on and enjoy your life, seems you have nothing to worry about. Just go off and have fun, you don't know how long you have left!

I think that the 30K is for people who are paying a mortgage or rent - with none of that to pay you can decrease the amount by about 6K I would think.
Has he ever said why you need to make up what he considers a shortfall and more importantly how he expects you to do it? I would say that if he were that worried he would get back out there and earn a bit more himself.
The 75K you mention is per person so for a couple it is twice that - but I think it went up to 85 a few years ago.

We have a very nice life on less than he is suggesting and rarely need to touch any savings - unless we wish to upgrade the car sort of thing.

Our circumstances sound similar to yours abbey we manage to run a car each have several UK holidays a year plus short trips to visit family, can't afford to give cash sums to family but do treat them all on occasions and our income is much less than yours in the lower 20K per year. We a bit of saving but that will dwindle over the next few years but we manage to live comfortably and enjoy life on it.
I agree with the others retire and enjoy it now while you reasonably healthy because non of us know what is round the corner and I know that only too well.

Stop work and get out and enjoy yourself!!!

£28K is more than enough to live on if you are mortgage free - we do it very happily on less than that. We dip into savings now and again for big items.

The issue here is not income but OH's anxiety I think!

If you have two substantial legacies to fall back on then you are laughing!

Forgive me abbey if I am going off in the completely wrong direction here, but it is a case of your husband not wanting you to retire and making the retirement fund the excuse to keep you working. I know it sounds mad, but maybe he is happy being at home alone and is worried that his life is going to change again once you retire too. Just a thought, you would be surprised how many partners have this problem when retirement looms, or happens

Regarding needing a car, we do more private mileage (about 12000/yr) now that we ever did when working, hence we need a reliable car. (our children both live a long way off)

All our income is pension, do not have any investments.

Abbey, it sounds as though our expectations are very similar to your own. Our combined pension is circa £30 after tax. That enables us to live very comfortably and be reasonably generous to our children and grand children. We do eat out a lot and we could reduce out outgoings considerably if we did so less, and were more careful with our daily spending. However, we don't have any savings (I have just spent 90% of them on a new car), but we have enough over most months to put a little by for holidays etc. We are in this position because I put a lot into my pension from early on, so it is not luck, I always planned to retire at 60, as it was I retired at 57.

Your £28 should be enough to give your a very pleasant life style, if you have a little savings to cover emergencies, that would give you peace of mind. Many live very well on much less, some live no better on very much more. Friends of ours complain that they have to pay high rate tax on their pension, I don't see them living any better than we do.

I could only dream of an income of 30k and both my husband and I work full time (or in my husbands case around 70 hours a week) .

I do hope your husband has many many years of counting his money (or studying his bank book) abbey but he should remember that no one knows when the time is up and you sure as hell can't take it with you.

Just tell him that the interest from your savings more than covers the shortfall, and your inheritances etc. will still be untouched. (Although if you are that rich, why not spend some of it while you can?)

This is a case of " we all should be so lucky".
I agree your husband has a problem and it needs sorting for both of your sakes

Frankly, you are far better off than most pensioners, both in terms of savings and income. Your husband is worrying needlessly. However, you say he lived in abject poverty and think this is why he worries. This is the real problem, not the actual money. It may sound daft, but would he consider talking to a counselor about his worries? He'd need to find one who understands the financial concerns older people can have. It seems such a shame that his retirement years could be spent worrying about a concern which really, in your and his case, doesn't exist.

Retire as soon as you can. It appears you have ample funds, so to be honest I can't see the dilemma. If you enjoy working carry on but if you have had enough of working, stop. If your pensions fall a little short of what you need why not use some of your savings? You can't take it with you.

I don't think you really need advice, abbey, you seem to know roughly how much you need to live on and obviously have plenty of savings.

It certainly doesn't sound as though your DH needs to worry about the extra £2,000 p.a. he's going on about!

Sorry Charliegirl. I dont mean to sound arrogant. I have money. It means little to me. Its just hubby and "daily living costs" I need to get around.

abbey If you have two 'substantial' inheritances it would probably be worth seeing an independent financial adviser.
They do charge, but in my experience they pay for themselves in terms of better returns on your investments.