Last year a neighbour's mother, in her 70s, got a £200 winter heating payment. She queried this with the department as it should have been £100 (& £100 to her husband) - they said it was £200 since her husband had died................DIED - well he is sitting here drinking a cup of tea!
For the previous 5 years approx. they had him down as dead, his OAP had stopped and he had not noticed. After about 1 month, a small investigation, and a visit to prove he was, who he said he was they paid up - about £18,000 + interest less tax.
Would you notice £5,000 a year was missing?
PS My heating allowance hit the bank today, just in time to help pay some of the MiL's bills. If you are a poor pensioner in your 90s and all your savings gone many moons ago there is definitely little to go around on a basic state pension.
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I would notice if £5 was missing! However I am online banker and check the account daily so I would notice, but older maybe may never bother checking statements.
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Oy Rattle - I'm 7 blooming 6 and I check our bank at least once (and sometimes twice) a day!
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I have lost maybe £15,000 in stock market drops.
I have lost maybe £20,000 in pension fund and lost a further significant future income due to annuity rates dropping.
SWMBO has lost maybe £30,000 by the government delaying her pension payment date by 5 years.
I bet that they drop the over 60's free bus travel pretty soon too.
Yes, this pensioner has and would notice and is livid.
Rant over.
Last edited by: VxFan on Fri 2 Dec 11 at 01:07
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>>Yes, this pensioner has and would notice and is livid.
I'll not mention the likely two-tier state pension that those of us of a certain age will be on the wrong end of, then...
Last edited by: VxFan on Fri 2 Dec 11 at 01:06
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>>I bet that they drop the over 60's free bus travel pretty soon too.
You don't get it on your sixtieth birthday any more. It's on the same sliding scale as a woman's state pension. Sixty in Jan this year, bus pass and pension Nov.
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>> However I am online banker
Hmm? yeah I am sure you are.
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I would expect most would miss this amount very quickly. But I know of someone relatively elderly with several hundred thousand in the current account. It's there in case they needed it at short notice! What a waste.
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...What a waste...
And a risk, albeit a fairly small one.
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It must be an age thing. Although at a much smaller scale, my elderly mum isn't at ease without ready access to cash - there's maybe £5000 in the current account at any one time despite my pleading with her - I'm told it's for "emergencies". Just like the tanker load of milk cartons, 3 tons of pasta and rice and half the pacific ocean's stock of tinned fish, all "in case I'm snowed in or can't get to the shops."
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surely £5,000 not an overly huge sum to keep in a current account. With current interest rates perhaps losing £50 or so year in interest.
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>> surely £5,000 not an overly huge sum to keep in a current account.
>>
Lloyds current account with Vantage pays 3% up to £5,000. It was 4% up to £7,000 until recently.
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>> It must be an age thing. Although at a much smaller scale, my elderly mum
>> isn't at ease without ready access to cash - there's maybe £5000 in the current
>> account at any one time despite my pleading with her - I'm told it's for
>> "emergencies". Just like the tanker load of milk cartons, 3 tons of pasta and rice
>> and half the pacific ocean's stock of tinned fish, all "in case I'm snowed in
>> or can't get to the shops."
>>
It's certainly something you learn from your parents. I dislike being without cash; normally got between £20 and £50 in my wallet plus a bit of scrap. Our larder (including deep freeze) will keep us for at least a fortnight yet we still shop every week.
The cash thing stems from my long-distance lorry driving days, when I needed money to pay for parking, breakfast, evening meal etc. This before ATM's and Visa cards of course. The food thing was learned from my mother, a rural child of the Thirties; it's not hoarding, it's just common sense (especially for older people) provided you don't end up throwing the stuff away because it's spoiled.
Used to dread staying at one friend's house because he was the total opposite, you were lucky if he'd even got the makings of a cuppa in the kitchen never mind a meal. Dunno how anyone can live like that.
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>> Hmm? yeah I am sure you are.
>>
I bet you would and you did. I think I'll go in to forecasting...........
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I certainly intend to be a poor pensioner.
Stopped paying into my private pension 10+ years ago, and used my 25% tax free lump sum from my pension 2 years ago to buy the beemer. Best things I ever did.
The way annuity rates are going I will probably get about £400pa when I eventually reach 60, if I live that long! My plan is to sell the house when I'm 60, travel as much as poss and rent something small. Not everyone's lifestyle plan, but it would be nice to croak having spent your last £20 in the pub after blowing your savings whilst you have your health.
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I never carry cash. I do not have a credit card and my debit card has moss on it!
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"but it would be nice to croak having spent your last £20 in the pub after blowing your savings whilst you have your health."
An idea that sounds attractive but unless you are prepared to end it all when the money runs out I fear you just might end your days sitting in a poorly heated bedsit warming a can of soup over a primus.
Still you can always look at the pictures of the beemer. :-)
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Britain is in dire straits. The universal heating allowance and universal child benefit need to end but it will take a brave politician to do so.
Take a look at the graph here.
www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/balance-of-trade
Set the start date to January 1995 and you can see how since 1998 Brown and Blair have allowed a spend spend spend mentality to grow. It will take ten years of massive trade surpluses to return to a net healthy trade balance.
"The UK’s deficit on seasonally adjusted trade in goods and services was £3.9 billion in September compared with the deficit of £2.7 billion in August.
The deficit on seasonally adjusted trade in goods was £9.8 billion in September, compared with the deficit of £8.6 billion in August.
The surplus on seasonally adjusted trade in services was estimated at £5.9 billion in September, unchanged compared with August."
So without the surplus from the service sector (i.e. mainly earned by the Bankers in the City) we would be in deeper doodah.
Every time you buy a product made abroad, you are contributing to our demise.
Every time you spend money abroad, go on a foreign holiday or live in a foreign country, you are contributing to our demise.
Every civil servant who thinks he/she deserves to be kept in his/her job should ask "am I doing/contributing something in my job that helps Britain's trade balance turn in to surplus" or "am I a drain on the taxpayer"?
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You’re right of course Johnno – I’ve spent £1000’s on gadgets in the last 6 months, all made in China, even my new Panasonic G2 camera Made in China,
The car I choose to drive - Made in Japan which is a shame because there is quite a choice of cars that are Made in England,
What with WW3 coming up and the quite awful financial mess of the UK/€urope/U$ I don’t hold out much hope for the coming months/years I’m afraid,
But at least the old Dog has his own private water supply, private drainage, a plentiful supply of logs nearby and a patch of land to grow some tatters and rear some hens, if required,
When the dust settles, they’ll need people like me to help repopulate the world, so, I’d better get some practice in.
Adam.
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Eve might have a different agenda!
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Bring em on, I'm up for it :D
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Nah - it'll be time to see what the chimpanzees can make of the Earth after we're gone.
I'm sure the Houses of Parliament will have a bunker so they survive WW3 :-)
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When I started to work I was promised my state pension at 65. Then they changed it recently to 66. As of yesterday lunchtime it will now be 67.
At this rate I'm never going to get there. My private pension is a good 'un but if you retire early you lose 0.5% per month you are early, apparently, so each year costs you 6%. It doesn't kick in until 65 so I'd lose 30% of it if I left at 60. I don't get a lump sum of any worth as far as I can see though.
Looks like another 18 years of drudgery then. I'd retire tomorrow if I could.
Shouldn't complain though, there's a hell of a lot of people who'd give their eye teeth for a job at all, I know.
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>> It doesn't kick in until 65 so I'd lose
>> 30% of it if I left at 60. I don't get a lump sum of
>> any worth as far as I can see though.
>>
>> Looks like another 18 years of drudgery then. I'd retire tomorrow if I could.
>>
>> Shouldn't complain though, there's a hell of a lot of people who'd give their eye
>> teeth for a job at all, I know.
>>
>>
>>
>>
You can take up to a max of 25% as a tax free lump sum after you retire - normally from 55 y.o
Your pension of course shrinks by the same %. If you are a professional footballer I think it is 35/40 years old, after that you can draw your pension.
I retired at 60 and took the lump sum rather than the bigger pension - if I had waited I would have got a bigger pension / bigger lump sum @ 65 than at 60 but that was my choice.
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Don't think I can. It's a final salary scheme (cor blimey) and the lump sum in the projections is always about £1k, and no mention in the literature of any other option.
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Isn't "Made in XXXXX" a bit of an outdated concept - witness the short-time at Honda UK because they can't get parts from Thailand. Land Rover - "made" in Uk, but Indian-owned
Made in China usually means that the smallest component (the assembly labour) was Chinese. The design, marketing, transportation, distribution, financing, etc., were probably done in other countries.
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>>Isn't "Made in XXXXX" a bit of an outdated concept<<
Agreed but, if we don't do what we used to be good at in blighty i.e. producing goods that other countries want to buy, then the future for our young unemployed doesn't look too rosey.
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I've never understood why the heating allowance isn't paid directly to the energy provider of the person(s) who are entitled to it.
Many of the old dears in the village I live in either give it to their grandchildren or own children, use it for Christmas shopping, put it under the mattress for a rainy day, sqaunder it on beer and fags, etc.
Everything except use it for its intended purpose, then moan how cold it is and can't afford to turn the heating up and thus shiver all night long and pull their cardigan around them a bit tighter.
If it was paid directly to their energy provider then maybe they could afford to put their heating on and make use of the heating allowance.
I recall several well known celebrities saying they don't need it (Stringfellow, Wogan, to name a but a few). Anyone know if they, and anyone else refused it so someone more needy could make use of it?
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"Anyone know if they, and anyone else refused it so someone more needy could make use of it?"
There's a bit more to it than that. Refusing it would mean the DWP would just retain it - and I'm not even sure if there is a mechanism for refusing it. The only way to "redirect" it is to accept it and give it to charity or directly to some deserving person.
For example: www.nea.org.uk/donate/
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People are funny about eat though, I'm sitting here in my bikini bottoms and it's just 16.7c on the in and 7.9 (call it 8 m8 for cash) on the out, but I refuse to break-into my 60 bags o' Taybrite!
If I had a 'heating allowance I still wood knot put any heating on,
Tis something about being British I spose, But I'll 'crank' the eating up to 21c after dark.
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Much the same here Dog. 16 inside (which seems to be just about the optimum temp.) and a heady 5.6c outside......just been out with the dogs and got caught in a shower - won't power the heating up until darkness !
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>>Much the same here Dog. 16 inside<<
I'll wager that if Mr's P was at home that thermostat would be wound up to 22c :D
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>> I'm sitting here in my bikini bottoms
Too much information.
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Although called Winter Fuel Allowance in reality it's simply a seasonal addition to the Retirement Pension. RP is paid to all who've got the requisite contributions. Those receiving it are assumed to be adults and can make their own decisions about how to spend it. Frankly it would be patronising in the extreme to pay it directly to the fuel supplier and would certainly be one of those policies with extensive 'unforeseen' consequences.
The oddity is that while it's paid to all who get the Retirement Pension, an already relatively generous benefit. Those really on the breadline claiming Income Support don't get it.
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You get winter fuel allowance if you are over 60. It's got nothing to do with being retired.
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State Pension is not, actually, particularly generous, certainly for those of us currently in receipt of it.
The whole premise of "National Insurance" was sold on the basis that the compulsory deductions from one's income would finance, amongst other things, one's retirement pension.
Only in relatively recent times has it become glaringly obvious that it was a Government run Ponzi scheme.
Some of us, for reasons not necessarily self inflicted, have not been able to provide a pension pot of a size to keep us in our old age.
I, for one, feel no compunction in accepting ANY amount of money by way of benefits.
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>> I, for one, feel no compunction in accepting ANY amount of money by way of
>> benefits.
>>
+1,
Part of the governments problem is the current older generation who have access to information and are not "to proud" to claim all they are entitled to.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Tue 6 Dec 11 at 11:45
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Thanks for post mentionining of elegibilty criteria, I had not relaised it went to all currently over 60 rather than those actually receiving the State Retirement Pension.
>> State Pension is not, actually, particularly generous, certainly for those of us currently in receipt
>> of it.
Sorry Roger, I appreciate it doesn't go very far. The term I used was relatively generous - which it is compared with Job Seekers Allowance or the latest iteration of Invalidity Benefit.
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I've never understood why the heating allowance isn't paid directly to the energy provider of the person(s) who are entitled to it.
Because it would cause major grief if one switched providers for one thing!
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>> Because it would cause major grief if one switched providers for one thing!
No different to moving bank accounts. Just transfer any credit left with the old provider to the new one.
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>> No different to moving bank accounts. Just transfer any credit left with the old provider
>> to the new one.
Not really the same. The utility companies cannot get billing etc right even now, it would simply be something else for them to mess up. Not everybody is with one supplier; many will still be with the succesor to the regional gas and electricity boards. Dog might want to allocate his to whoever's cheapest on 'boilerjuice'.
To many admin problems/costs for any real mischief that's being done, even where the money's given away to the grandsprogs.
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You're right Bromp. Hideously over-complex arrangements would ensue and utter confusion. Winter fuel payments should be means-tested.
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Means testing is also quite complex and costly isn't it? Thinking aloud slightly, but I wonder if it could it just be tackled by amending or withdrawing part of the personal allowance. So if you're a higher rate tax payer and in receipt of winter fuel allowance your personal allowance is reduced by £500 so you pay an extra £200 in tax?
Peter
Last edited by: PeterS on Tue 6 Dec 11 at 16:49
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I think you're right Peter. A real means test is complex because it has to take account of people's circumstances if it's going to be meaningful. One could certainly use the onset of 40% tax or the point at which excess income eliminates the pensioner's allowance in income tax (if it still exists). Either of those would be relatively crude and the 40% tax one would make only small savings. Equally it could be cut for those over 60 and still in work.
To make real savings it would have to eliminate or at least reduce the payment from a point not much more than the average income. This would of course be deeply unpopular....
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Just used mine as a deposit on a fortnight in the Canaries in February. It's a lot warmer there so wisely spent I think.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Tue 6 Dec 11 at 13:40
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Los Cristianos in Tenerife was usually about 72 degrees in Feb when we lived there (wish I was there now!)
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Was in La Gomera last March. Got the ferry from Los Cristianos. Going to try La Palma this year.
In Bruges at the moment. Beer chocolate and chips. What a civilised place this is.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Tue 6 Dec 11 at 14:04
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>>Going to try La Palma this year<<
Lets hope it hasn't slipped into the sea by Febuary ;)
Jack Bruce (Cream) has got a place out there BTW!
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We're thinking of staying in Puerto de la Cruz (Tenerife) late February 2012.
I always think February is the most tedious month of the year, despite being the shortest. Apart from some spring flowers, it always seems by then that the winter will never end. Maybe a stay in the Canaries will make life more tolerable.
Dog, you keep going on about Tenerife!
Last edited by: FocalPoint on Tue 6 Dec 11 at 14:40
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>>Dog, you keep going on about Tenerife!<<
I luv Tenerife FP, I luv Cornwall as well (and the Cornish peops),
I've known Puerto to be snowbound in Febuary while I was soaking up the sun in Los Cristianos,
I may even go back to Tenerife (for good!) in a couple of years, I'll see how the property prices go here (and the €uro goes there)
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A mate I used to work with has a few appartments in Tenerife.Sounds a nice place to live.
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There are far better Islands about Dutchie, but it's the climate mate - good for your elf see,
and under 4 hours from Broken Britain :)
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We are not broken Dog to much hype on the Telly.If people stick together help when you can If you wait for a politican it is never going to happen.Long live the revolution.>;)
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>>Long live the revolution.>;)<<
Power to the people!
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The problem Dog if we have the power we problaby have orgys in Tenerive.>)
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Yes, if y'all gonna have an orgy it wont be much fun if your house is only heated to 15.2c like it is here!
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Speaking from experience, I can say an orgy is much more fun if people take their clothes off first.
How's that for a conversation-stopper?
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>>Speaking from experience, I can say an orgy is much more fun if people take their clothes off first<<
We're getting there FP, I've managed to make it rise - to 15.5c ;)
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I'm due down in Cornwall in the spring - looks as if you might be ready for me then.
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>>I'm due down in Cornwall in the spring - looks as if you might be ready for me then<<
Who me? ... I'm ever ready (18.3c and rising!)
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The figures on balance of trade need to be read in the context of the total GDP. Which is a figure in the region of £2500 billion, variable. Therefore the "imbalance" for 2009/2010 is of the order of 1.2% of GDP. Whether such imbalances are important is a matter of dispute. The USA runs an even higher imbalance, IIRC.
Last edited by: NortonES2 on Tue 6 Dec 11 at 13:49
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I am in my early 40's and have paid into pensions since my 18th birthday but I firmly believe that when I get to "pension age" it won't exist anymore! It will be work till you drop!
My friend's dad died and 6 months later her mum died. dad had worked all his life. When he died, the pension halved for his widow. When she died, there was no provision for dependants pension so it stopped. They reckon there was still over £100k in that Pension Fund - all gone to Standard Life's coffers.
Their dream was always to go on the Orient Express together but they couldn't afford it - when winding up the estate they have found over £30k in bank accounts. So they could have had their trip, they could have had some luxuries. But instead they kept their monies for rainy days. And never got to enjoy it, dying at 66 and 65 respectively.
I work in a Hospice where I see and meet people in their 30s onwards who sadly pass away.
Fair puts a perspective on it!
So when I do get to claim my pension, I will take as much lump sum as I can get and try and enjoy it!
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I took the fullest wedge I could, which still left me with a decentish income.
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Wortwhile job Bobby not easy to see people pass on in early age.I did when I was in the cancer ward talking to people who where dying.I wasn't far off myself I keep battling on.>:)
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"Anyone know if they, and anyone else refused it so someone more needy could make use of it?"
I was getting it when working in Saudi Arabia (the DWP's knowledge of the EU borders are limited). I sent it back - no acknowlegement - and it was sent again the next year.
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It should be abolished except for those pensioners on benefits.
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No it shouldn't. My old Mum worked full time between the ages of 16 & 71.She was frugal and worked hard to build up some savings. Why should people who decided not to save and work less get it and not her.
The other side of the coin is that only people who contributed should get something out the other end. Exemptions of course being health issues.
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Would this not be very simple to administer and police based on income tax paid?
If you have a good income for pension etc. you get no heating allowance. And below a certain level you would get it. Or is that too simple?
And if you pay no income tax on the pension you get it of course.
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BobbyG, you DO NOT need to claim your pension to get access to the 25% (max) tax free lump sum.
I saw the writing on the wall 10 years ago and stopped paying into my private pension, funded only (he says bitterly) by yours truly. Now in my mid fifties, I took the max 25% tax free lump sum two years ago and blew it whilst I have my health. I shall shop around for an annuity with the remainder when I am 60, whilst continuing to work part time, and hopefully negotiating unpaid time off to travel!
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"Poor pensioner" and heating allowance! - RattleandSmoke
