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Permalink Reply by Jacqueline Kathleen Holding on February 12, 2012 at 8:10

Does this mean we would have to sell our house now if one of us has to go into care???

When we were younger, my husband and I decided to buy a house so that we could move out of the council house we had. Great idea we thought. Wrong.... We also decided to take out private pensions (one each) so that we would have more money in our old age. Great idea we thought. Wrong.... Every month we've worked, we've paid tax, always paid the council tax, always paid our way. Yet now we are penalized. Our pensions were effectively stripped because we chose the wrong pension provider. The monthly payback from these private pensions is laughable, but enough to top up our government pensions, and enough to keep us over the threshold so that we still end up paying for everything. If we had decided, when everybody else was doing it, to spend our money on annual holidays and decorating the house, instead of putting it aside, all we would be getting now would be our government pensions - oh, and get out of paying council tax, and all the other expenses people on government pensions only are entitled to. Laughable, isn't it. These days, whenever a young persons asks if they should be considering a pension plan, I tell them not to.

As for either of us needing social care later on? It's just not going to happen because both of us ride bikes and, sooner or later, we intend to end our days by having a nice, cosy, heart attack while out on a bike ride.

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Permalink Reply by Heather Pamela Brigham on February 12, 2012 at 16:58

It's all very well saying people should save money, or should have saved money but what about those of us who brought up children on our own because we lost our husbands young?  We were never in a position to save much.  We would not have been able to put money aside for social care even if we had known how much we should have been saving!  And, like the pensions age being raised at the last minute for those of us born in the 50's, it is now too late for a lot of us.  We just have to hope we don't need extended care and just drop down dead instead! 

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