Teenage Take over #8
- September 29, 2023
- Written by Luke Quinn
- 7 months ago
- No Comments
It's the 8th teenage take over
Hello all, we hope you’re all ready for your monthly dose of teenage takeover. After coming home from a week together in Cornwall and unfortunately going back to school, we have got creative (and slightly dark)! Have you heard of the doomsday clock? We’ve been chatting about it and came to the conclusion that if there’s a doomsday clock for the world, there’s definitely one for pensions. No point saving to live in a world that won’t exist – right…?
What is the doomsday clock?
So there is a doomsday clock for the world. A clock that is supposed to represent how close humanity is to midnight. Midnight is the time that the world ends. The time is set and moves based on a number of factors such as climate change, biodiversity loss, food supplies, and the threat of nuclear war. This got us thinking…
A doomsday for pensions?
If the end of the world is close, and people start to fear for their future – what’s the point in saving for it? What would a doomsday of pensions look like? Would there be a single point in time when any sort of pension becomes redundant and useless? Or would certain bits die out first, becoming a Hunger Game of pensions? But we know we can’t fight (or work) until we die, so we need something. Will that something always be a pension? What could replace pensions? Something more accessible in case of an impending apocalypse?
The doomsday of the state pension
We’re not so sure that this is in any way fictitious. Just looking at the numbers on their own we can’t see how state pensions remain a viable option for the UK government.
Spending on UK state pensions costs more than both the education and the military budget combined. So where’s the give? The government needs to pay more to nurses, teachers, doctors and train drivers (we don’t agree with that last one!).
Where does all the money come from and with the latest rule change that means everyone will save for their pension as soon as they start work at 18 it looks like the writing’s on the wall for us! We don’t think we have a chance at getting a state pension.
But the state pension provides a lifeline for some, giving them a sum of money to make ends meet… we think a Hunger Game for the state pension is guaranteed. And most ordinary working folk won’t stand a chance.
What about a doomsday for your individual pension?
Rather than thinking on an industry level let’s dial it back a bit, what about our own pensions? Is there a point in time where it all becomes too late and saving becomes redundant? What is the tipping point in terms of age where there’s not enough opportunity for compound growth for a pension to be worth it? Does tax relief always make saving into a pension a better deal? What other things do we need to consider and why is it all so complicated?
Oh and another thing, what happens if you cash in a pension before you actually stop work. Should or could you restart saving and is it worth it? Let’s say we join the Army at 16, work for 22 years then sell our Army pensions and buy a pub. That gives us somewhere to live and an income through old age? Is that a sensible idea? Should we consider restarting our pension if we were still in the Army (asking for a friend)? The point is, is a pension always the best option?
Finally, on this point, what will be considered old age by the time we get there? 40 seems old to us to now. But from what we’ve learnt we won’t be retiring anywhere close to that, heck by the time we get there we’ll still be working in our 70’s.
All this doom and gloom and it’s your month of positivity
The idea of a doomsday for pensions is quite daunting and scary, maybe more so for you guys who have spent your whole working lives thinking about, creating and selling them. After we’d started this blog we found out that it was pension awareness week. By the way we had no idea! No-one from school said a thing, no-one in any of our clubs, not one of friends, the news was only broken to us by mum when she told us about it! And to be fair that’s only because she did some app thing that guessed she was 28 (so she told the whole world)!
Now tell me… what does this say about pensions? In the real world, where we’re not fixated with all the complexities of pensions day in and day out, they’re just not much of a hot topic. Even on pension awareness day – how many ordinary people were aware? Did you all just talk to each other more?
See you next month…
That’s all for this month. I hope you enjoyed reading about our weird and wonderful pension doomsday theories and hopefully we didn’t scare you too much with the thought of a doomsday for pensions! Maybe we should’ve saved this one for a Halloween special? Oh well, until next month!