UK economy.

[diamond lil]

For us personally, the husband's works pension was a waste of time & money. It's almost all taken up in rent and CT. We pay full rent and full CT, amounting to £105 a week, if we didn't have that extra pension then we'd get help but with it, we jump up to another income level and lose it all.

[jansman]

For us personally, the husband's works pension was a waste of time & money. It's almost all taken up in rent and CT. We pay full rent and full CT, amounting to £105 a week, if we didn't have that extra pension then we'd get help but with it, we jump up to another income level and lose it all.

Spot on.

[Frnc]

For us personally, the husband's works pension was a waste of time & money. It's almost all taken up in rent and CT. We pay full rent and full CT, amounting to £105 a week, if we didn't have that extra pension then we'd get help but with it, we jump up to another income level and lose it all.

That's a bummer. I got told similar by my bank when I was self employed, so I didn't bother with a pension. Couldn't afford it anyway. I just have a small pension from before I was self employed.

[Kiwififer]

I have a works pension, haven’t a clue if it will be worth it in the end. State pension will also probably go to 70 by the time I get up there.

The plan was for me to go do the trusted house sitters thing and go travel the world, I’m not sure this will be happening now which is a bummer, the rental from our house would certainly help with this but there’s little point if I can’t get to places longer term.

[Arzosah]

So sorry to hear everyone's experiences with pensions. I'm comparativey lucky. I went self employed in my early 30s, in conjunction with a business partner. He had **terrible** experiences with pensions - there was a firm went bust back in the day, he lost 95% of what he'd saved with them. And the same thing happened a few years later, just before I started pension saving. So I never trusted pensions - nobody in the family had had them, and I didn't like what I saw as giving away my power, even to the extent of not accessing my money when I wanted it.

I'd been self employed for a few years by that time - I still haven't drawn it down or done anything with it, its just sitting there, most of my money is in cash ISAs now, transferred from S&S ISAs. I haven't had the massive uplift from the stock market, but I've been partly protected from the various collapses, including this one.

I made a different sort of mistake I invested in the property market - what I *should* have done is bought a house like I grew up in, a lovely little red brick terrace in Liverpool like this one https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/ ... el=RES_BUY houses like that were going for £20-£30k 20 years ago when I was looking. But instead I bought an offplan holiday property in France which cost me £3,000 a year for 15 years, certainly equivalent to burning the cash or throwing it down the toilet The quoted price of property in France has also halved since those days.

The plan was for me to go do the trusted house sitters thing and go travel the world, I’m not sure this will be happening now which is a bummer, the rental from our house would certainly help with this but there’s little point if I can’t get to places longer term.

I always planned to do that, but I haven't been healthy enough. I have two friends who do this though, one in their 60s, and one in their 70s, doing it for pleasure. When it works, it really works! Stay with the plan, Kiwififer!

[Kiwififer]

My folks do it, they travel between New Zealand, Australia, India and Bali and they are continually booked almost a year in advance.

It was my plan to see the world on the cheap, I don’t think I would get to Benidorm they way things are going!

[Arzosah]

Coo! My friends have stuck to the UK so far. Amazing what you can do when you know about it, your folks sound like they're doing brilliantly!

[Kiwififer]

Coo! My friends have stuck to the UK so far. Amazing what you can do when you know about it, your folks sound like they're doing brilliantly!

They get a lot of repeats as they have built up relationships with the owners. My folks are good with dogs, years of experience with rescues and my mum actually helped set up a charity which is going strong to this day so the word got out they can help with behavioural problems etc and it snowballed from there.
They do get gaps and that is when they go to the more exotic places. They were at a hippy commune in Chennai for a bit, it is some life they have. Not bad for a couple of council house kids from Scotland!

[Arzosah]

Kiwififer - it's brilliant for kids from anywhere - following your own path is a wonderful thing. And very interesting about specialising with dogs.

I've been a bit dozy - I've just realised about the probable implications of the BoE support finishing on Friday ... everything's going to tank, isn't it Bleep. That's a third of my funds. I'm luckier than some, that's what I have to keep telling myself, and it's actually true. But I still don't fancy that third of my funds halving in value over the coming weekend.

[Frnc]

Kiwififer - it's brilliant for kids from anywhere - following your own path is a wonderful thing. And very interesting about specialising with dogs.

I've been a bit dozy - I've just realised about the probable implications of the BoE support finishing on Friday ... everything's going to tank, isn't it Bleep. That's a third of my funds. I'm luckier than some, that's what I have to keep telling myself, and it's actually true. But I still don't fancy that third of my funds halving in value over the coming weekend.

Hope it doesn't get worse. This is so frustrating as none of this was necessary. It was all predictable and avoidable. Hopefully Kwarteng will ditch the tax cut and things will calm down. However they are still not doing anything about the gas extractors/producers profits, which we have to pay for. Also the government said they were looking into decoupling renewable and nuclear electricity prices, as they also are getting free money for nothing off the back of the gas prices. In the meantime, both could be sorted with windfall taxes.

Edit. Ah, I see now the government is now preparing to windfall tax the low carbon electricity firms. Good. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of low carbon, but they shouldn't be making extra money due to the price of gas. They need to do the same with the gas extractors.