Yes.....I quite agree.
My 66 years old brother had a fairly decent, reasonably well paid job with the same, small family owned company for almost 40 years. His final salary before retiring was about £ 40k per year but although the family had their own Directors' Pension Scheme, there was no Scheme for employees until the legislation came in ( was it ?? ) last year or the year before.
His State Pension is about now £ 140 per week having never been unemployed and so he has paid his NIC contributions, in full, since he started work at 16 years old.
His new-ish wife is 67 years old and hasn't worked since she was first married at 21 years old. Her State pension is about £140 per week also.
Absolute madness in both cases - my brother is expected to continue his life unchanged although his income has dropped from £40k per year to £ £8k per year despite having paid his State Pension contributions, 100%, for 50 years while his wife hasn't paid anything for 50 years and gets the same amount.
In fact, it's not madness - it's scandalous.
I wholeheartedly agree with you.
But I’ll add a whopping caveat that is;
People should go through a natural bell-curve in Life that sees you arrive at 65 years of ageWithout;
- An unscratched or unrealised travel itch
- An existing loan or mortgage
- Large value outgoings
- Expensive habits you can’t afford
All of those things are possible, and all should be targets.
Anyone that counters with “People work so hard and should be able to enjoy their retirement”.... is going to be missing the point.
Unless you have a continuing valuable employable skill that you want to do (not NEED) to do, or you’ve saved a large sum of money.... You should be arriving at 65 and retirement with some semblance of restraint, budgeting ability and a realisation that the costliest period of your life is long behind you.
You should not expect your 66th year to look anything like your 46th or 56th. You should know this in your 36th year.
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