Any Ladies In Their Early 60S Here?

[barry1010]

My wife is a gentle and reasonable woman who rarely loses her temper but today she is raging.
She has known this day has been coming, she is not surprised.
She was been aware of the changes the government has made in recent years and has begrudgingly accepted them but now that day is nearly here.
She is 60 tomorrow and is furious that she won't be able to claim her state pension, she won't be entitled to a bus pass and she will still have to pay full price at the hairdresser's, the theatre and the zoo.
She is adding up exactly how much the government will be stealing from her.

I am trying not to laugh and desperately searching for an extra surprise present to help sweeten her special day.

Any ladies of a similar age had the same reaction?

[Bobbisox1]

She can eliminate the theatre and hairdressers from her list, I pay full price for both so tell her things aren’t so bad after all :0)

[LadyCG]

I think the days of concessions for "OAPS" in the modern world of hairdressing are long gone.

The government had to raise the pension age threshold with many people now living well into their nineties and beyond. My nan is 95 this year and still going strong...

[davebro]

She can have my OAP if I can be 60 again!

[pastafreak]

I fume when I see student discounts everywhere. Why not oap discounts? Maybe we are presumed to all be rich.

[barry1010]

LadyCG, she understands all that and agrees with it usually - just not today :D
My grandmother lived to be 100 and lived on widow's pension for many years before she was 60. I don't think she worked a day in her life

[barry1010]

Correction to my last post, my grandmother did work in munitions during the wars

[Milo2]

I think it was inevitable that the pension age for women would rise. As LadyCG says we are all living longer and as my husband pointed out to me, women want equality so it has to work in all areas. His view is that we can’t pick and choose when to apply it. However, I do feel sorry for women who based their financial plans on the earlier age.

[barry1010]

It's risen for us men, too, Milo. I see the government is now considering postponing free prescriptions in England until state pension age rather than 60.

[Milo2]

It has Barry. I’d forgotten about that.

[-SharonA-]

I understand how she feels. I was annoyed on reaching 60 to be told I had to work for another 30 months to claim my pension. I was even more riled when my colleague whose birthday was exactly ONE week before mine was allowed to retire & claim full pension. We were going to have a joint farewell party at work.

[jennyjoan]

I'm sure the wife knows that she won't be able to draw her pension until she is 66 - that is a pretty bad blow having to wait another 6 years for that pension.

I was lucky I made it in time and was able to get my pension at 60 and also because I worked in the Civil Service for 40 years I got a good works pension. I count myself very lucky.

[roopower]

I have heard that some councils are doing away with bus passes....it gets better!

[ToraToraTora]

gawd I'm sick of these whining women. Women live longer the respective ages for retirement were the wrong way round for as long as there has been a state pension. On another subject they'd be chaining themselves to railings etc. They should just rejoice they got away with it up to now.

[david small]

My wife worked for nearly three years more after becoming 60. She too had no choice, but to grin and bare it.

[ladybirder]

I worked until I was 68 although I could've retired at 60. Drew my pension at 60 though.

[Buenchico]

The title of Barry's post suggests that he's trying to use AB as a matchmaking site! Having read his post, I'm still not entirely sure that he isn't ;-)

On a purely practical note though, where Government-imposed rules don't apply, the age for granting 'senior concessions' (if any are actually given) is entirely at the discretion of the relevant company or organisation. Many hairdressers, for example, offer a discount to people who are (or simply appear to be) over 60. I've been paying 'pensioner rate' since I was around 50, despite never having asked for it! (I've never heard of a hairdresser demanding documentary proof of a customer being over 60 and I've most definitely never heard of a hairdresser shifting the age qualification to get a discount in order to match the State Pension age!).

Similarly, I've never been asked to prove just how ancient I am when asking for a Senior Citizen ticket for art galleries, museums, etc.

If you want to buy your missus a little gift to cheer her up, why not present her with entitlement to discounted travel by rail
https://www.senior-railcard.co.uk/
or by coach?
https://www.nationalexpress.com/en/offers/coachcards/senior
Both National Rail and National Express still regard 60 as the qualifying age for cheap travel.

[youngmafbog]

Just tell her is about equality. And stand well back when you do. Or maybe shout if from another room! :-)

[piggynose]

so i suppose the words she doesn´t want to hear anymore are " you dont look a day over 50" lol

[jackthehat]

The issue is *not* the rightness, or otherwise, of the decision to increase pension-age for women, it was the speed and lack of consultation which caused real problems.

Mrs JtH had intended to retire at 45 and spent her working-life paying a substantial portion of her salary into pension funds, etc. to ensure that happened.
Unfortunately, the chap overseeing all of her money lives on a huge boat/yacht in Marbella and Mrs JtH had to continue working.....
Then the government decided to increase the pensionable age for women and arbitrarily picked a date for this to happen. Working women didn't have sufficient time or help to adjust their plans, etc.
There will be a lot of women falling into significant debt just at the point when their financial safety-net ought to have kicked in.

[barry1010]

TTT, married men retire. Married women never do :D