We are nowhere near rich enough for retirement

I do wish organisations like the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and Unite would stop harping on about the minimum wage. The minimum wage is not designed to provide a good standard of living, but is there to stop gross exploitation of vulnerable people.

If anything our high minimum wage is stopping people getting entry level jobs (which by definition add very little value for the employer), which allow them to build up their skill sets. When was the last time someone filled up your car, or led you to your seat at the cinema? When not doing those basic things, the individual concerned would also be helping out the mechanics, or possibly doing some marketing work. Essentially this is on the job learning.

This report appears to say nothing new. It is therefore a complete waste of time, effort and resources!!!

What is all this "WE are not saving enough" and "We'll ALL be worse off than our parents" crap?

We wont ALL be worse off. Some of us have saved and are saving enough to retire on. We almost all get the same chances in life and its the choices and decisions you make that make the difference

If retirement saving became the first priority people would have less money available for housing and this could lead to a sensible adjustment of house prices. The effect of mortgages being based on two salaries has had a huge downside in financial as well as in social terms.

Anonymous2

We do not all get the same chances in life. Among factors which affect the outcomes of individuals are:

intelligence

health

household income per child

household stability

quality of available schools

housing quality

whether parents are well educated or not

local employment opportunities

and so on.

All this is well known and not questioned by any serious commentator.

You are rich then you are poor, in one form or another. We all go through life’s experiences, poor man, beggar, king. Life is a great leveller- then you die, of course one can always stay inside and never come out of the cave.

Stop the envy. Enjoy what you have appreciate what you can't afford

Life is a risk. Nothing new here.

We are sleep walking towards a social revolution none of us will like.Especially the complacent I'm alright Jack contingent.

Or maybe - we're not saving for something we hope will never happen. I can't imagine the horror of retirement. I don't want to wear beige and play bowls and drink endless cups of horrid tea and spend my days talking about how awful young people are.... Work is where I get my self-worth and I hope that the day after I quit it for good, I'll drop down dead.

Pension companies would no doubt tell me to think of my health. Well, I have no desire to spend 40 years in a nursing home either. They had the right idea with horses who were too knackered to work - a plan I fully intend to carry out on myself.

And before someone thinks I'm a 20-something whipper-snapper who'll grow up one day: I'm 39. And intend to work til I drop, in whichever decade that may be.

What the hell is Anonymous 3 going on about?

I'm retired. I don't wear beige. I don't drink tea (champagne and shiraz, yes). I never got my self-worth from work. I travel the world still , on cruises and driving. Just back in fact from the outer Hebrides. I've visited more countries than there are years in my life to date. Work is a form of slavery.

What on earth is Anonymous 3 talking about? Well, idiot, work until you drop if you wish. Your bills are probably paying for my freedom to live my life on my own terms. I presume you pay for water, gas, electricity, food, petrol. And I profit from all of them. If you had any sense you would be investing in income producing assets while you are still earning surplus income.

Drop dead if you must. But I think you have not sensibly explored the alternatives as you, inexorably, age.

"Work is a form of slavery."

I'm so sorry that you spent the first 65 years of your life in slavery. Maybe the next few years of - apparently - drinking yourself to death will make up for it. I may be an idiot, but you, by your own admission, are a parasite.

Anon. 3.

xx

You poor pathetic bastard. Who said I spent 65 years in slavery. You, you cretin, are a slave to work. I pity you for your stupidity.

They say save more for retierment,is that so some financial scrote from the pension industry can rob more from our funds,I think the young are correct dont save for the future ,just spend it now , stuff old age,Bill

What is wrong with you people? I am not a Doctor but it seems like their is an outbreak of Affluenza on this site.

Lets look at it from both sides you can work till you drop or decide to live your life to the full on what ever income you have and i can see both sides. My father told me when i was 14 "theres nothing Clever about working Son" i thought he was mad you know parents say strange things !!! I am now 54 and quit my job 3 years ago after 32 years with the same company, it was the best decision i ever made and dad was right all along !!!!

It may not suit every body but for me it was like being re-born what ever you decide good luck but dont wait till you retire to enjoy that cruise or that climb up Kilimanjaro to many people expire shortly after 65 for my liking !!

Best comment so far from Michael Turner.

A lot of my friends chose not to to take further education and we started out at 16 earning a wage (less than average) but those earnings gave us our freedom and nights out (never thought of savings back then). Even though Uni was free back then it just didn't seem the route in life that I wanted to take.

Personally I never got serious about level of salary, savings, pensions and investing till I was 33 and was lucky enough to survive a serious motorcycle accident. Got back to enjoying life but with new priorities of house, bills, furniture etc and so the socialising was vastly reduced for a few years.

Reached 40 and thought about what exactly what Michael was told by his father.

I didn't want to work till 65 and drop dead a year later so took a gamble on risky investments which luckily enough paid off and I was put out to grass at age 49. Life is a gamble and a JOB stands for "Just Over Broke". To me it seems that a savings account would never achieve what the riskier investments have done especially starting out with £3k.

True, it is like being re-born and I aim to make the most of it for the next15 or 20 years. Too many good places to see in this world, even if done on a budget...... Not so many to visit in the next world though! So try to enjoy what you can while you can, best of luck

Calm down dear(s) , it's only a discussion ...

Why do folks sometimes think there is only ONE solution?

Both WORKING & RETIRING can be good for you!

Many friends are doing just that, getting all the social, motivational & financial rewards from WORKING (part time) whilst enjoying the benefit of extra TIME that RETIREMENT brings.

I am with Tony Peterson, glad you are now enjoying your retirement, we work to live not live to work. I am only in my 30's and do not expect to work all my life and then drop dead like anon 3.

Anon 3 must have a poor social life if he would rather be at work than travelling the world having a good time with friends. He gets his self worth from work ??

Life is for living, i will raise my glass to Tony.

Why is Anon 3 being rude to the retired. i can see a fight brewing.

Read all the comments- both sides, all sides- like the one from GATSER best- do what you feel you want to do and calm down!

Anon 3, Just because someone is living off the income from their investments does not make them a parasite- to get the investment in the first place they had to do without the money that bought the investment, a matter of choice. They are now receiving back income from that investment. Of course they could have spent all their money at the time they had it BUT they CHOSE not to.

Choice is what life is about and thank goodness we have a choice- we may not get it right and things may not turn out as we expect but we do have a choice- it is NOT the other person's fault or the governments fault either, it is LIFE.

One more point, sorry, we may think that we can work t'til we drop but LIFE can be quite surprising so save some money so that at least you can pay for a better nursing home with better care as you dribble your way to the next world.

Dear all,

As a single woman who has had to make her own way in life I have one overriding concern. I work my socks off, get little or nothing in return from the welfare state, and see other people being given a great deal whilst doing nothing to earn it. I accept that I have to look after myself, but please do not expect me to invest in a pension scheme that then become worthless because I am expected to live a long time. Yes, you must 'save' for your future but keep control of your own money. With regards to the comments above - we should all live, work, and retire as we want as long as we are not a burden on others. Don't want to work and have no savings, go hungry.

The minimum wage quoted in the article is 20 months out of date

Reflecting on my own 70+ years, I benefitted hugely from opportunities - some of which landed in my lap, others I recognised from a distance and went after. Both brought significant rewards.

However, large measures of optimism, self confidence, courage, and luck are some of the ingredients for this option to be successful.

I (in my seventies) seem to find myself engaging here with many in their thirties. And what a varied lot you are. Thank you Eddie, for your support. I cannot fathom what causes the chip on Anonymous 3's shoulder. He would rather suicide (if he is to be believed) than grow old. This seems to me to be as foolish as you can get. I am having the most enjoyable time in my life to date. Free from work. Free from financial worry. Full of friendship, music, travel and fun. Poor Anonymous 3. He only exists to work.

I enjoy an unbelievably happy and entertaining old age. I have wonderful friends. It will not, of course, last forever. But my advice (though my personal experiences will be systemically different from those of you today) would be fairly simple. Do not trust governments. Or the financial services industry. Assume that you are going to have to be responsible for yourself all through your life.

While you work, save something, and use those savings to acquire income-producing assets. It hardly matters what. Property to rent. Shares in high yielding and defensive stocks. I would also say (sorry Citywire) invest directly. Do not trust intermediaries. Shares and homes. All you need.

The savings my wife and I derive our security from are now greater than our total lifetime earnings - even allowing for inflation. We cannot stop the habit of saving - but at least there will be ten wonderful charities to get windfalls from what we cannot hope to spend on ourselves.

Tony Peterson, you are a legend. Your life experience brings wise words and your 2nd & 3rd paragraphs sum it all up so simply.

Anon 3 has gone very quiet, has he croaked it?

Dave, Anon 3 gone quiet as he prob working !! or maybe its his last day of work and he just dropped dead.

Amen anon 3

I hope to be ok. On a £54k salary: I am saving 12% into pension. I have an buy-to-let investment. I save £1000 per month cash between ZOPA and ISAs. My mortgage is less than 2.5x salary, I have a plan with my Dad to avoid them selling the family home, I live modestly and I will retire at 60. The only thing that irks me is public sector people on the same pay as me who will get a gold-plated pension twice the size of mine without having to live modestly for 30 years and save their own money!

Rob,

You could always retrain as a nurse or teacher or fireman or policeman, and get one of those "gold-plated pensions". If' of course, you could manage the hard graft for the little reward that goes with those careers, few of which would pay you a 54K salary. And anyway, I don't trust incoming governments not to change the rules once you have signed up. Make your own provision. Always the safest course.

Interesting comments from Anonymous 3.

At 39, his age, I felt exactly the same. Work was everything.

At 65 I feel very different. After 50 years of graft I'm enjoying the rest.

I have wanted to retire since at 16 I found out how hard work, commuting and living on poverty wages was! Unfortunately my last employer decided to "retire" me a few years before I was ready financially. Fortunately time has made scrimping and saving a lifestyle. With a little luck and using my brain on the stock market I am slowly improving my living standard in the teeth of this economy. Persistence and self reliance are as important as intellectual effort. So I say to everyone here: nils desperandum.

Looking at government policy objectively we seem to be in a lose-lose situation. Option 1. We save for our old age. Bad move. The Bank of England's debt monetisation policy (inflation) means the value of savings (either currency of bonds) becomes progressively eroded: Wages, pensions, benefits, savings are all under the devaluation cosh. Option 2. Don't save. Makes more sense depending on what you spend your money on. Either non-mickey mouse currencies like the Yen or Swiss Franc, or hard assets like l'objet d'Art of precious metals, or index linked bonds. What you cannot do with your money is to simply consumer it on fripperies like expensive holidays and silly IT gizmos.

It is a game of cat and mouse, and the central bank and Treasury is the cat. You'll have to be nimble to stay one jump ahead of the game. Most importantly don't believe all the cat's bullshit about the 'recovery' - if you do you will soon be disappearing down the cat's throat.

Hi, please think out of the box.Q1:Do you know who owns the Fed and who’s side Bernanke speaks on behalf of? (Clue: Not US Government/Citizens).Q2: why was there no inflation or ballooning house prices for 1000's yrs before the Rothschilds? Through THEIR control of the 'saviour' IMF they want to lend and lend and lend - poor Greek taxpayers (modern day slaves). God help our state finances (i.e. taxes!) when interest rates eventually rise from 0.5% to the 5% norm!! Of the 50 US states, only North Dakota has an independent central bank who's in surplus - is this a coincidence or what? Read Ellen Brown's article, Libya all about oil, or central banking?, I guess that now just leaves the Rothschilds/ illuminati continuing their ‘axis of evil’ media owned campaign against the only central banks they don’t control (Sudan, Iran, Cuba, N.Korea). Iraq, Afghan ticked off recently. Read Bankers: The Only Profession That Drove Jesus to Violence. God has forbidden us to take usury..We will neither inflict nor suffer any inequity.

I think how it should work in Ellen Brown's web of debt ‘stuck on a treasure island’ economic model is that a State should issue its own notes and coins as legal tender (not gold as the Rothschild private bankers control this and also will use derivatives to destroy that nation’s currency and create unstable prices). I would change the fact that because interest is/should-be banned, it is replaced with the fact that the State’s Bank takes a profit share of when it lends to businesses and individuals (i.e. a joint venture risk-reward partnership, this will also reduce the need for an insurance industry that adds no value to the economy). All the profit the State then makes get re-circulated back for the State’s infrastructure and advancement = a debt free growing country forever as the founding fathers of America dreamed of. PS The only 4 Presidents ever to wanting money issued debt-free (rather than the Fed) & back in the people's hands were assassinated - is this just a coincidence or what?

Sorry if this article hurts, but through their controlled media THEY want every individual to be up to their eyeballs in debt from birth to death (student loans anyone?), THEY want women to work fulltime and be childless (why can't we have a quality life with one breadwinner anymore?), THEY have promoted and financed both sides of wars (e.g. Napoleonic, US war of independence, WW1, WW2), THEY want divisions, suffering, arms purchases, government debts and taxes, THEY want their interest payments (via increasing gvmt taxes/debts too) - basically we are slaves to the private bankers and no one can touch them even though 99.9% of the voters can't stand them and want them executed. Try telling your MP we need to return to independent banking and see what he says. Strongly recommended you research the Rothschilds Federal Reserve etc. Let's all wish for a world without THEM