pension<\/a> felt unachievable.<\/p>\nShe assumed that she would figure out her retirement later in life but now, at the age of 63, she realises she has left herself in a financial bind and cannot afford to retire. <\/p>\n
Ms Smith, who is self-employed and lives in Oxted, Surrey, expects to be working into her seventies as the state pension will not go far enough.<\/p>\n
It is Britons like Ms Smith that the Government is worried about as it revives the Pensions Commission, which will look at how to boost retirement savings.<\/p>\n
People retiring in 2050 will be worse off than pensioners today, the Department for Work and Pensions warned earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Almost half of working-age adults are not putting any money into a private pension at all, with low earners and the self-employed less likely to be pension saving.<\/p>\n
A shortfall in funds is also worse among women, with a 48 per cent gender gap in private pension wealth among those currently retiring.<\/p>\n
When Ms Smith was younger and had four children, she said \u201cdidn\u2019t really think too much about it\u201d.<\/p>\n
She worked part-time \u2013 two days a week \u2013 in the hairdressing industry but never got a workplace pension. <\/p>\n
\u201cWith four children, I just didn\u2019t have the spare money to put into a pension at the time,\u201d she said. \u201cHindsight is a wonderful thing. When you\u2019re in your thirties, you think, \u2018Oh, I don\u2019t need to worry about a pension.\u2019 And then time just goes so quick. Now I\u2019m 63. I wish I had done it.\u201d<\/p>\n
She wishes there had been more information and help available about pensions when she was younger. <\/p>\n
\u201cNobody\u2019s ever discussed it with me,\u201d she said. \u201cObviously I knew that there were pensions, and I was just like, \u2018oh, well, I can\u2019t afford it,\u2019 and that was that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt should be a bigger thing \u2013 it should be discussed more,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
She then became self-employed, running a hair salon and now Geek Meet Club, a friendship and dating app for geeks. <\/p>\n
Ms Smith spent years paying into the pensions of the staff at her salon but never got a pension herself. <\/p>\n
She said she always thought: \u201cThe older I get, the more I\u2019ve got to put in for a pension. You wouldn\u2019t be able to just put in \u00a350 a week \u2013 it would have to be a lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve just never had that money to do it, to be honest,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019ve been penalised for raising my children\u2019<\/p>\n
She said she has also been affected by the gender pensions gap, having lost out on money because she reduced her hours to help care for her children.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s only now I\u2019m older I\u2019ve been even looking at the state pension,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I log on to the government website, it says that I have missing years of national insurance payments. I think that\u2019s unfair, because I was the one bringing up the four children.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she did a great job of bringing up her children, who have never been in any trouble, but feels \u201cpenalised for doing that\u201d.<\/p>\n
Her husband will get the full state pension when he retires but she will not. <\/p>\n
She said she cannot afford to pay an additional lump sum now to be able to access the full state pension when she turns 66.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a friend who has upped it and she\u2019s had to pay around \u00a36,000,\u201d she said. \u201cI haven\u2019t got \u00a36,000 spare to do that. I just think, how unfair is that? She had children and she\u2019s in her sixties now. She\u2019s still working, but she\u2019s had to pay this lump sum so that she can get her full pension.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018I couldn\u2019t live on the state pension\u2019<\/p>\n
Ms Smith said not having a pension is making it difficult to plan for her retirement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019ll still be having the salon probably in my seventies,\u201d she said. \u201cIn retirement age, I couldn\u2019t live on just the state pension. It just wouldn\u2019t be enough money. So it is a worry.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she hopes her app, which she launched in November, will also help her earn enough to be able to retire. <\/p>\n
\u201cWith the hair salon, there\u2019s a ceiling in what you can earn,\u201d she said. \u201cSince lockdown, that\u2019s massively dropped so I\u2019m literally only just keeping my head above water with that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dennie Smith, 63, wishes she had saved into a private pension when she was younger For most of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,186,4363,184,185,36316,36317],"class_list":{"0":"post-41243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-pensions","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance","15":"tag-private-pension","16":"tag-self-employed"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}