Small Pension

You could just bring home enough food for yourself.

Does your DH pay all the other bills eg gas, electricity, rates, water etc?
Can you suggest combining your pensions, working out the bills then each taking out some 'pocket money'?

Many of us were persuaded not to pay the full stamp and paid a married woman's stamp, being told that we would get a 'full pension' on our husband's contributions.

Luckily, when I went back to work when the DC were at school and I paid a full stamp for the rest of my working life, although I still don't get a full pension.

I think you need a conversation with your husband as to why you are buying all the food/petrol and why he thinks he can keep his pension when you are sharing yours.
Have you checked whether you can claim any benefits? Someone will be along who knows more about your benefit rights..

good grief , that doesn't sound fair , Does you Husband pay rent rates electric etc ?

seasidelady, on the face of it your husband is being unfair. It seems obvious that you'll have nothing left for yourself if you are buying all the food and petrol out of your small pension. How much does he have left after paying the bills he is responsible for? If it's more than you have at your disposal, you need to speak to him about sharing some of it, or if that is difficult, enlist someone to speak to him on your behalf.

will the new £150 pension for all apply to you? You really should check again with the DWP - do you get winter heating £100? - do you have family who could help or encourage yr husband to stump up. This sounds awful.

The new pension only applies to people who reach retirement age from April of this year onwards, Granarchist. seasidelady has been eligible for over ten years, so it won't apply to her.

No problem seasidelady just pay your dental bill and don't bother with buying any food at all this week. That should concentrate your minds!
All your income should be paid into the one account and the bills should all come out of it as well as pocket money for each of you. I do not understand how you have lasted out for 45 years with that kind of mind set.
You clearly need some marriage counselling!

I brought up a family too! But my State Pension is more than that. Did you perhaps pay a reduced stamp?

Agree that your husband doesn't deserve feeding. Let him starve and just feed yourself.

Anya

Anyway, you will only want soup after you've had your tooth out!

If you were bringing up a family from 1974? onwards you should have had a stamp paid for the years you were in receipt of Family Allowance.
I am not sure of the rules if you were working and paying a married woman' stamp (that was a big con trick - my SIL worked all her life, never paid the full stamp - consequently no pension in her own right.).

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Oh my goodness, at 63 I have no pension/income at all, we live on H's private and old age pension plus the money he gets for seasonal p/t gardening . However, I hold the purse strings and H is happy to leave me too it. Your H seems a bit mean.
I don't think I will be entitled to a pension of any kind as although I worked for several years after the children it was only ever part time and I didn't earn enough to pay tax or NI.

nina get a pension forecast/ statement either by phone or online then at least you will know!

I suppose the question here is do you have a money problem or do you have a husband problem? If your husband also has little to spare after the bills are paid you have a money problem. if he has plenty left to spend on his own treats then you have a husband problem.
If it is a money problem you need to ask about any benefits, pension credit etc. that you might be entitled to as a couple, or you need to rethink your lifestyle. E.g. if you are homeowners, could you release some capital, if you are renting could you move to somewhere cheaper. If you have any wealthy children could they help out - that sort of thing.
If it is a husband problem, I am assuming that you have already spoken to him about this and he is refusing to share. In that case you can take up some of the suggestions above, like not buying any food etc. Or, if your husband carries cash, you could take some of it when he is in the shower or something and when he wonders where it has gone you say "I needed it to buy X" and stand firm. Or if you are afraid of him and are a good liar, you could say you don't know where it went. This would not be stealing, you are married and this is as much your money as his.
Best of luck

OP - you can't be critical of the system when it's your husband who is the problem here. There are several things you need to do - some have been mentioned upthread

1. Check that your pension is correct - but did you pay the reduced married woman's rate? The figures you give sound as though that's what's happening
2. Have you less than £16000 in savings? If so, based on your pensions you are almost certainly entitled to pension credit, help with council tax, help with rent ( if you are renting) help with optical and dental costs. Go to CAB for detailed advice
3. Are you having private dental treatment? You should be having NHS treatment and you then shouldn't be paying £100 for an extraction

The real problem here though is the way your DH behaves with 'his' pension and you allowing him to get away with it. If you are entitled to some help, no doudt he'll pocket the lot and you'll let him. It's simply not true or fair that 'oldies' don't get help - there's lots out there for you but your financial arrangements with your dh are the root cause of the problem. If you posted this on MN there would say in chorus LTB but this is not realistic clearly. I do agree though that you should at least stop buying food for both of you - and then tell him that you need to revisit your financial arrangements . He just sounds truly horrible

Why was married woman's stamp a con trick? You paid less and got less - sounds fair to me

Not that I think it should ever have been an option

The problem lies not with the state and the pension system but how you manage money within your own household.

How you and your husband manage your money is something only you and he can agree on, but since he gets very nearly three times what you get, there seems to be a lot of leeway for negotiation.

You could try visiting Age UK and getting a benefit check done. Your joint income is above the basic pension credit level but you may qualify for a small quantity of top-up pension credit

I worked for seven years before I married in the late 1960s and I can remember clearly the debate that went on at work about whether to pay the married women's stamp every time someone got married. The number of women who were quite happy to relie on their husband's stamp for their retirement income.

Personally, I never understood those opting for the married women's stamp. I always wanted to be independent and did not want to live off my husband's income, so for me the choice was a no-brainer.

If you were bringing up a family from 1974? onwards you should have had a stamp paid for the years you were in receipt of Family Allowance.

I think it was later than that. I returned to work in January 1979 and only qualified for about a year of automatic NI payments.

I think it depends when you started getting your pension. If before 2010 Home Resposibilities Protection applied which was not the same as a credit. HRP reduced the number of qualifying years required for a full pension (I think)

It was 1978. You still had to have 20 qualifying years for a full pension.

At the risk of sounding harsh, if you don't pay in you can't expect to get a pay out. It is all very well moaning about reduced pensions now, but the women who were happy to pay a reduced rate of NIC made the decision and so have to expect less than those women who chose to pay extra for pension independence. On a personal note OP you need to listen to the very sound advice given on here, the problem is not the mean pension, it is the mean husband. Go to AgeUk and ask for advice.

chelseababy I have ostrich syndrome

The 'married woman's stamp' came from a time (which if Gransnetters don't remember, they should remember their mothers & grandmothers talking about it) when the National Insurance system assumed that a married woman would share her husband's 'married couple's pension'.
I came from a family of independent-minded women and was told to 'pay my stamp' independently. Others just didn't enquire, weren't told, didn't take an interest, or, sadly, felt they needed the money for the family rather than themselves; but for whatever reason, just didn't pay the full stamp. I think they sometimes feel they were 'conned' because they didn't realise the consequences when they were younger: I knew one woman who assumed that she & her husband would be paid the Couples' Pension when she reached State Pension Age, and was very angry when she had to wait a good many years (as her husband was younger than her)

I think that the 'married woman's stamp' was abolished in 1978, the same year that 'home responsibility credits' were introduced. Many women of OP's generation have State Pensions made up from a patchwork of payments over the course of a chequered employment history.

And OP, I'm afraid that I agree that you need to discuss this carefully with your husband. If this is not an option, then can I respectfully, and as gently as I can on a forum, suggest that you seek help in considering whether there is financial abuse. It is unclear from your post how reasonably the income and bills are divided, but it is clear that you feel it unfair.