Recently i received my council refund of £150 and i assume possibly that it could be paid out alphabetically . well my surname beginning with A most likely put me at the front of the queue, its good to know the councils are responding t the chancellors wishes,
and of course it would have been that better if we had got the 8.1 not 3.1 pension increase which for many people it will mean a bad time simply trying to survive all the many increases which are coming from just about everywhere , its noticeable as to just before all this started that all the M.Ps in parliament got a £2,000 a year pay increase where as pensioners got the minimum amount ,
Q; do you think that this or any government be it labour , conservative , will give pensioners a better pension , as it is smaller nations seem to look after their pensioners, where as ours couldn't care less so it seems,
Quote from: alfred on May 06, 2022, 08:40:00 AM
Of course it would have been that better if we had got the 8.1 not 3.1 pension increase which for many people it will mean a bad time simply trying to survive all the many increases which are coming from just about everywhere , its noticeable as to just before all this started that all the M.Ps in parliament got a £2,000 a year pay increase where as pensioners got the minimum amount ,
Q; do you think that this or any government be it labour , conservative , will give pensioners a better pension , as it is smaller nations seem to look after their pensioners, where as ours couldn't care less so it seems,
This was discussed a while back.
The MPs had an increase of 2.1% while we had an increase of 3.1%.
Also those with the New State Pension got a bigger increase that those of us on the Old State Pension.
By publicising percentage increases they are using a good way to disguise very low pension rises because the pension is a pittance to start with.
MPs got a £2,212 increase. Second class pensioners £4.25 a week or about 10% of the MP's increase.
We may not have a good pension like other European countries, but I believe the contributions in Germany and France were more than in UK. I may be wrong but remember discussing this years ago, maybe someone can put me right ?
Did the folks who were born a year after me make considerably larger payments that I did?
I think not.
No, but I think taxpayers in Europe paid more for their pensions than UK taxpayers did, as I said that may be incorrect.
My comment was suggesting that what we get bears little relation to what we paid.
Maybe the Europeans did pay more I don't know but what we paid in the past is irrelevant as pensions are paid from current government income. Our money was never put into a personal pension pot for us as private pensions are. If a private pension scheme operated the same way as the state scheme those running it would all be in the slammer.
" My comment was suggesting that what we get bears little relation to what we paid. "
I have no idea how much I've paid in over the years but you must have ?
I do know that I have ten years contributions missing, and therefore receive a much lower pension than my friend who has never worked, apart from leaving school until getting married at 19 ! Her pension comes from her ex husband's contributions, plus she was born in 1953 :grin:
In detail no but I do know that I made enough contributions to get a full pension despite retiring at 62. I also know that had I been born a year later I would have got the new state pension which is £30 or maybe £40 more a week. Had I deferred receipt for that year it would still have been at the old rate plus a tiny amount more that would take probably 30 years to amount to the loss of a years pension.
klondike, the two tier pension is a con played on older pensioners. Even worse for you missing it by a year!
Quote from: GrannyMac on May 06, 2022, 01:01:45 PM
klondike, the two tier pension is a con played on older pensioners. Even worse for you missing it by a year!
It's the sudden changing of any of the qualifying entitlement rules that's the con, if we'd got married a few months earlier we'd have got the £50 per week adult dependent allowance.
An extra £50 per week, less income tax of course, would have been very welcome.
I checked.
Eligibility. You will be able to claim the new State Pension if you're: A man born on or after 6 April 1951.
If my father had tied a knot in it for just over a year I'd be over £40 a week better off. :angry:
No matter which party gains power, we are not going to get a pension we would like. Each one of us going to have to learn how to make ends meet with the pension we do get. Many of us have paid in tax all our working lives but that as gone on pensions for our parents. We all seem to be living much longer in years, and we are now becoming a burden for tax payers.
I could survive with no state pension. I wouldn't mind doing so at all if they refunded all my payments towards getting one.
Just scared myself. I have paid income tax - so far - on something like £1.65 million. For most of my working life I paid income tax at the higher rate so - rather wild guess, probably paid round £450-£460k. I would happily forego the state pension to have that refunded!
Mike
I could survive better without a state pension..
I would apply for all the added extras that some get..
I've just had a mystery £150 credit appear in my bank account. No idea if this is the council rebate as I've had no notification and the reference on the credit is just gobbledegook to me. Did others just get theirs appear unannounced and unidentifiable too?
Reference on it - WESTNA6G1-DIRECTDE
A google search doesn't give a match but a guessed result is to Ofgem. When I checked the council website it said direct debit payers would be the first to get theirs and the reference does contain DIRECTDE and was probably truncated.
I'm pretty sure it is the rebate as my payments for being a Russian troll and Amazon review faker are always in cash and just get put through the letterbox.
Quote from: klondike on May 16, 2022, 08:47:28 AM
I've just had a mystery £150 credit appear in my bank account. No idea if this is the council rebate as I've had no notification and the reference on the credit is just gobbledegook to me. Did others just get theirs appear unannounced and unidentifiable too?
Yep - appeared a few weeks ago!
With notification or identifiable source?
I thought at first I'd been playing monopoly and had a bank error in my favour.
Quote from: klondike on May 16, 2022, 09:31:42 AM
With notification or identifiable source?
I thought at first I'd been playing monopoly and had a bank error in my favour.
No notification but appeared on my banking as our local council and CTREBATE.
My 150 appeared without notification.. a few weeks back.. I pay by DD.
I had a letter from the council to say mine had been paid, they could have saved on postage though. :rolleyes:
Our council are paying from this week I'm led to believe. 🤔 We'll see.