In our Pension Diaries series, we speak to people of all ages in the UK to find out how much or how little they have saved for retirement and the realities of putting money aside for your future.
Today, we speak to Chris Hull, 73, who is single and lives in Norwich. The retired father-of-three and grandfather of six receives a total of £1,423 a month in pensions including the state pension.
He describes how he is happy with this amount and lives a full and happy life.
What career did you have and what was your route into it?
I started an undergraduate degree in physics at the University of Essex. However, I didn’t complete it – I did two years and wasn’t happy with where I was going.
By then, I had already done a lot of voluntary work in the social work setting and I decided that’s what I wanted to do as a profession.
I got a job as an unqualified residential social worker, which you could do easily in those days. That experience, plus the voluntary work I had done, was enough to get me on to a postgraduate social work training course for two years, which was a big breakthrough in my life.
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I started working as a qualified social worker in London and I moved to Norfolk when I was married and about 32. Another significant development happened when I got a job with the Children’s Society in Norwich doing adoption placement work, placing so-called “hard-to-place” children for adoption. I felt very privileged to be part of that team.
I stayed in that field throughout my career and predominantly, for the last 20 years, I have worked in the post-adoption area with adoptive adults and birth relatives doing tracing work for those who have wanted to find their given up son or daughter. It was a wonderful area of work.
Around 2000, I made the decision to stop working full-time and went part-time. It was a lifestyle choice. I did a lot of campaigning work, particularly in developmental and environmental areas, so I wanted to allow more time to do that.
I worked part-time until I was 68 and then I fully retired.
What was your attitude to pensions and what pensions did you have?
When I was younger, I slightly resented the money going into a pension. In fact, I actually withdrew some of my earlier pension contributions.
When I started working for the Children’s Society, they had a final salary pension scheme. Then latterly, I had a period where I was self-employed for seven or eight years, so I decided to pay as much as I could into a private pension.
I started drawing down from my pensions early, at the age of 60, while I was working part-time. As a result, I am not getting as much from my pensions as I would have done if I had left that money and drawn it later.
Chris Hull with his granddaughter Thea
How much do you receive in pensions now you are retired?
I receive the state pension and two other small pensions and the monthly amount I receive is £1,423 after tax. I get about £950 a month from my state pension. It is not quite the full amount because my employers opted out for two different periods.
My other two pensions add up to just under £500 a month together.
I live alone in a three-bedroom terraced house and I paid the mortgage off on that some time ago, so that makes a huge difference as I don’t have to pay any mortgage or rent. I do sometimes let a room out in my home to a lodger for a couple of months, so I can get an extra £1,000 or £2,000 a year by doing that.
Are you happy with this money?
I am happy and content with the money I receive in pensions and I think that comes down to my lifestyle values.
I separated when I was 40 and as a single person, I’ve always been naturally fairly frugal. Also, because of a lot of my campaigning work, I have always been mindful of my carbon footprint.
As a result, I don’t own or run a car and I cycle everywhere and travel any longer distances by train.
This is partly environmental, but partly because I enjoy it so much. I love cycling and do lots of cycling events with a friend. It keeps me fit as well as saving me a lot of money.
Chris loves cycling and says it saves him a lot of money. It also aligns with his environmental beliefs
The costs I do have include things like council tax, which is £130 a month. My energy bills are quite low as I use my heating carefully and have a wood burner and a well-insulated house.
I keep myself busy and active with my voluntary campaign work. I am involved in a prison leaver scheme and am a group leader in local meditation work and I have a great friendship network. I have three grown-up children and six grandchildren and I love seeing them.
The things that are important to me don’t involve spending a lot of money and the things I want to do which cost money, I can afford with what I receive in pensions.
I feel like I am doing everything I want and not depriving myself in any way. I don’t scrimp on food and eat healthily and well. I am a pescatarian and buy lots of fresh food and vegetables and fish from the market in Norwich. I am prepared to spend a bit more on food if it is organic.
I rarely eat out, but I love cafes and meeting up with friends in them.
I took a pledge not to fly over 20 years ago because of environmental reasons. When I have been abroad, it has been on weekend and road trips and for things like cycling events.
The money I receive, I feel content and happy with. I have to be careful – but I have always been careful. I am of the age where we were taught not to take out credit or get caught out with debt.
If something big happened, such as the boiler going, that’s when I’d feel it. I have about £25,000 in savings, which is not a lot by modern standards, so if anything happened, I would have to dip into that.
Chris with three of his Birmingham-based grandchildren Dillon, Olivia and Amelia
What is your biggest pension regret?
I do regret starting to draw down my Children’s Society pension at the age of 60. At the time, I took a 25 per cent tax-free lump sum and began drawing the pension.
If I had my time again, I wouldn’t do that and I would have held it back, which would have meant it would be paying out more now. I was still working at the time, so I needn’t have started drawing it down as I was putting the money aside.
What is your advice to people about pensions and retirement?
I once saw a pension adviser when I was in my mid-40s, just to get a picture of what my retirement might look like. He told me: “You won’t have enough money to go on holiday to the Bahamas, but you will have enough money to go camping in Wales.”
That sums it up for me. I wouldn’t have wanted to go to the Bahamas anyway due to my environmental values!
My advice to people would be to plan ahead for your retirement, get good advice and think about what you expect. If you want to live a lifestyle similar to when you were working, you will have to put a lot more money away and possibly wait longer until you can draw your pension.
But for me, I wanted to keep it simple and enjoy the things I like doing and live a content and not very materialistic life.
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