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Thank you for bringing up this video, I really appreciate you for the time being spent to educate us financially. despite the dip in the stock market, I still thank you for the level-headed financial advice I have netted a profit of 35k from my investment of 9k since following your strategies for few weeks now after feeling so ecstatic and heavy minded that nothing good can come out of it.

I don't believe for one minute that people are in favour of this. Who did they survey and how many? The law is supposed to be equal but it isn't. This discriminates against poor people and treats them as criminals to be suspected of something. I would agree wholeheartedly with it if applied equally (let's see the bank accounts of dodgy politicians too) As for DWP staff, searching people, well that's just stupid. What's wrong with the police doing this? Are they too busy with hate crimes to cover all aspects of policing in the UK that we have to have pretend investigators making mistakes left right and centre? Anyone who has claimed benefits will tell you the DWP are prone to mistakes on a regular basis. I can can see this costing lots of money in claims against the DWP when their accusations are off the mark (and they will be) The DWP are not exempt from legal action taken against wronful arrest or search or seizure powers being abused. That is why this is a bad idea.

Vote for anyone, Except Conservative and Starmers CONservatives, untill these 2 parties of the Rich Class are not given a Bloody Nose, Nothing will change for us working class.

So if we never saved a penny and spent it on drinking smoking and holidays they would get a full pension and if you didn’t drink or smoke go on expensive holidays you wouldn’t get so much old age pensions so what’s going to happen nobody is going to save.

My mother who passed away 2 years ago aged 97 paid great attention to the pension rules. She qualified for pension credit, and as you say, it opens many doors. It lead to her service charges being paid (she owned he leasehold flat outright) , council tax being paid, it made the application for mobility allowance much easier, and it qualified her for fully paid social care at home. She lived independently in her own home until a few days before her death from old age. As executor for her estate I estimate the pension credit lead to £20,000 (and it could be double that) in additional income and savings.

People still believe that the state pension is not a benefit. It absolutely is and can be changed or withdrawn by the government.

I've never heard something so stupid..... use your pension pot to pay off your credit card. The dumbest thing I've ever heard.

If its means tested, then its completely optional to contribute to it

What's the point of planning? I paid in for 45 years yet received a reduced pension because I opted out for 3 or 4 years. Our plan was, because I am 6 years older than my wife, she would retire 1 year after me. You know how that turned out. We both also, have NHS pensions. We worked long and hard all our lives then the Government robbed my wife of 6 years of her retirement. Now we're both paying tax again. I wonder how hard we will be hit if means testing happens.

Will we take advantage of the new British ISA ? Very much going to depend on the detail. Currently have S&S ISA happy in the knowledge that I can transfer that gradually in to a Cash ISA if needed. To make UK ISA work for UK I suspect it'll be a binary "in" or "out" so I don't think it'll be attractive until everything else is max'd out. Waiting for the details ..........

what a minefield to navigate what is right today might be wrong in the future

It is just a crazy system. People who have worked and saved should be better off than someone on benefits but the benefits should also provide an acceptable standard of living for those in retirement. I feel sorry for the youngsters who probably will be working well into their seventies if capable.

I’ve got so many gaps as was self employed for many years (Taxi driving) I paid my tax but always seemed never to have enough cash for the NI so would leave it till later in year and then seemed to forget about it most years. It would cost me a small fortune to pay. 15 plus I think. At 53 I am full time carer for my mum (93) at the moment so can’t afford to top up. Because I get carers allowance they are paying it for me at the moment. But when my mum goes I don’t think I will pay anymore contributions. I hope to be left enough money to buy a house which I will do up and sell on, as I can do everything from plumbing electrics plastering carpentry ect. So hopefully do that a couple of times to make some money then I won’t be able to afford to live my property, so will rent it out and find a cheaper way to live, possibly off grid somewhere ! And if not pension credit it is lol !

What is the risk of the government changing the rules between now and when I get my pension,( 8 years time), meaning that I will need more than 35 years of contributions? I currently have 35 years of qualifying contributions but no longer work and have zero income, living off savings and my partners income. I feel I need to go past the 35 years so I safeguard myself to ensure I do actually get the full state pension. Is this sensible or money down the drain? My partner will have a sizeable private pension, I will have a very small private pension. I am pretty sure we will not qualify for any other benefits come retirement.

put pension into hargreavs lansdown under a sipp if your worried

If I had followed their advice and paid to cover my gaps I would have been shafted even more than I have been as A WASPI. I had more than paid enough contributions by the time those bar stewards paid me my pension. My advice…. Give them nothing because that’s what you will get back.

Really like Dianne’s videos - clear, practical, focused - and a super lovely voice!

Great video - really useful, thanks

Dianne is fantastic - practical, focused, gets to the point quickly

I just wanted to say thank you for sharing this tool. I've just started using it and it's brilliant

Hi Dianne , If I buy a government Gilt like T26 which has small coupon and then a yield at maturity do I just get a payment of 4-5 % in 2026 or do I also get a payment of 4-5% in 2025 ? Is the yield paid every year ? Thanks Russell

Nonsense you’re not taking into account compound interest which makes a HUGE difference over a lifetime of work . 😊

it. is critical that contact is made with the >gov contact, the numbers displayed are only a guide and you will receive ZERO benefit for paying some years. speak to them

You say that £3.3bn was under-spend due to fraud or error, so who done the fraud the government?

What about tax avoidance and tax evasion. Seems like the rich ca; get away with anything.

I started work at 15 and I am still working at 74 because I have to, I get the old state pension of people born in 1949 why is this? the bills are the same and cost of living is the same for everyone do they think that we need less heating and food because of when we were born? I think everybody should be on the £221.20, I feel aggrieved that people that have never worked and contribute nothing are far better off than me

Always worth checking online your NI Payments i was missing one year completely even though I had been working for same company through that period the records had not been uploaded I had to get confirmation from company and then year was added but was worth checking anyway.

If you were lucky enough to have been highly paid , especially in the state sector and have been afforded a generous government pension why should you be allowed to have it tax free and the same for private pensions , when you become a pensioner you're still using public assets

I chose not to top up because they keep putting back the retirement age. And by the time I can retire I will have enough years of NI anyway

I worked in Canada officially for 12 years. I understand they take this into account due to the tax treaty however this will not be confirmed until I am ready to retire which is not for another 12 years or so, by which time it will be too late to back date payments. So this is not an ideal situation!! 😥

It seems very strange to me. The entire system seems flawed, it is surely better to just get rid of the qualifying years test entirely and give everyone a full pension. People who are in work will have contributed to a private pension since a decade ago, or should have arranged something if they are self-employed, that's the boost they get for being employed. Note that Stay At Home Mums get 12 years NI credit at least if they are in receipt of child benefit (even if it's paid back), as long as a child is under 12, also people off work long-term sick, and I believe jobseekers. Older people got three years because of university too.

“the system was far too complicated and it’s hard to work out what you will get”. I think that statement also applies to the New State Pension, at least for people subject to the transition arrangements, which is most people 🙂

Pensions are a complicated and technical subject, which is difficult to explain to an ordinary person. Most people aren’t very numerate these days and even for those who are, pensions are on another level. To be fair, this lady explained as well as possible.

what about auto enrolment that is being forced upon us

Excellent! Thank you very much, Dianne, for sharing! Very useful advice and tips! 👍

Can you top up your national insurance for years previous years outside of the time limits mentioned here? I was given bad advice to opt out around 2001 and lost 2 years. In addition I also was in the local government superannuation scheme from 88-99 which I believe also opted out.

I'm one the people who is worse-off for having paid full NI contributions. To make things worse I have to listen to a friend on Pension Credit telling me how much better-off he is and refusing to believe I am not getting the same benefits as him!😡

I cashed in me private pension put half in stocks n shares isa and rest in normal isa .felt too many charges in the novia pension i was in

Whats pension credit.i got working tax credits but wont get universal credit from next year as have over the 16k in savings limit .

So if you pay it from 16 to 51 you get it anyway the full state pension?

Do you honestly think that anybody wants to be dependent on pension credit??

I’ve noticed the wording - 35 years required for full state pension is no longer shown on HMRC website/ app.

Dont buy stamps if you dont have enough stamps it will be made up by pension credits which is a benifit and this will give you more money because being on a benifit gives you entitlement to things like no council tax and low income benifits. I have full stamps and am Worst off.

Simply pay more to get less.

I have 36 years of Nic's , 30 of those were contracted out so I have a company pension too. I do not get the full state pension because of this however trying to top up to get the new full state pension would be money down the drain asIt won't make any difference. As it is at the moment I'm about £2k a year worse off on state pension about £40 per week. this gap will grow incrementally as yearly triple lock is applied to each pension old and New.

its a very good point you raised Dianna about pension credit, i have not seen this mentioned on other people's vlogs. Also people should not rely on the forecast on the government website as this does not include if you contracted out of SERPS, some people do not know if they had been contracted out of SERPS, some people will be in for a shock to find the will not actually get the pension that is shown on the government website & may be a lot lower even if they hsve worked over 35 years.

Does this mean that at state retirement age if you have no other income then your income will be topped up to the equivalent of full state pension? And according to the benefit checkers I have used, you will get rent and council tax paid? When I do the maths that's a bit more than I end up with on an occupational pension, and I live perfectly well on this. So why do we hear about so many pensioners living in poverty? It could only be that either they are home-owners and have high associated costs, or they are not claiming their entitlement. The latter is concerning. My NI contributions are just a few years short. I'm not going to pay. If nothing changes i would get the money back by about age 70, but I fee l it is crystal ball territory. Someone made a good point in your comments that in the future we may have to pay NI for even more years in order to receive full pension, but I'm still not making up the shortfall, unless I win money in a raffle/premium bonds, but I certainly won't pay it out of income or savings. And the gain is not as much as some people say, as many of us will pay income tax on the state pension.

There really is no general answer to what to do £50 a year fair size pension plus investments and cash pot no dependants no mortgage against £20k a year 2 kids and high rent, totally different worlds. Add in that everything could and probably will change every four years or so planing around what will wont or could be is almost impossible. Saving as much as you can is a no brainer but if what you can save isn't enough then its not going to be enough. The only thing you can really do is build as much flexibility into any plan you have. Start early save as much as possible use people like Diane to advise and review regularly. The pension system in this country was invented for a different time and different world and is no longer fit for purpose but no government is going to make serious changes that make a meaningful difference so alas its down to you.

Back dating to 2006 was extended to the end of this tax year.

It is incorrect to say that you cannot pay Gaps in your ni over six year's ago you can but you only have till 2025 to do this I think you can pay from 2006 (I think) it should have ended in 2024 but they extended it