Yes, it’s an extra 7 years… our plans were set for my retirement at 60 so a bit of a blow that it changed. We decided to carry on anyway, and eke things out until the great day arrives. Not holding my breath tho’ , who knows what will change by then!
The women’s protest against the changes is going nowhere fast, sadly…
Widows’ pension is now a only a year of nereavement benefit.
I think these comments must be what my pal was getting at…that’s to say…I am, by accepting my 450 OAP pension euros each month… taking more than a fair share of money available to pay for pensions…
Why should I get a bigger cut than anyone else? I work more or less full time as prof. Artist, BUT, don’t earn enough to be charged any tax.(77 yrs old. Lived in France since 95).
I don’t want to do better out of the system, than anyone else. Fellow humans think of me, with good reason, in my view, as getting more than I have any right to.
I’m adding to the government overdraft. Etc. As this gentleman points out. So what can be done?
They don’t let you send it back, and all payments are direct to Bank.
Did you start receiving your U.K. OAP before you started working in France?
If you are receiving a U.K. OAP you have the right to that money, it’s to do with rights that you earned in the past. I know it’s hard but try to ignore any negative comments from friends and acquaintances.
€450 doesn’t seem a large amount of pension. You wouldn’t get it if you weren’t entitled. I’m sure Paul McCartney doesn’t need his song royalties but he’s entitled to them.
Does your pal refuse his/her pension? If not I’d be tempted to ask him to mind his own business.
And if it helps when someone asks you a personal question ask them why they want to know. If they’re just being nosey it really throws them. And they’re less likely to interfere in your business a second time.
hahahaha !! That made me laugh…but I’m serious…I’m thinking, I really need to consider the full picture. Don’t want to take anything that REALLY isn’t mine to take…don’t want to ride any band wagons of demanding mysterious Others, cough up for my expenses, without my feeling ok with it…
Well, the thing is…I feel I need to consult The Very Wise, someone like Cicero?
But there is no flowering of wisdom and ethics on at the mo. Looking around Europe and the rest of the world…leaders? What have we got?
Sure…everyone…Everyman, can take part in what looks like an incredible cock up right now…but choosing a good way to go, that doesn’t encourage the worst of it…could be…I don’t say …,IS …an option?
I have already thought a long time about ways to opt out. And if opting out is right…,
It seems ok so far because consumerism has very little to recommend it on …,450 euros per month… I paid close attention to the criticism …that OAPs who lived as I do, on a pension, are simply a drain on the system…there isn’t enough money to PAY all the aged folks that survive pretty well now…
My current plan is to step up production, maybe to the point of actually paying tax…but that is a mammoth task and it doesn’t fit well with The Arts…
I can’t say I understand much of your last post but really confuses me is the suggestion that a 77 year old feels that she needs to work harder so that she can earn enough to pay tax and theoretically pay a contribution to the pension that she is already entitled to receive.
If you have been here since 1995 I presume that your OAP has been administered by France although the majority of your entitlement will come from the UK. Is that the problem? Is a French person moaning that you are receiving a pension that they believe is being paid for by French taxpayers?
In my opinion the answer is simple, use the money and choose your friends more carefully.
Not…¿GUILT¿… exactly.
If you are destitute, or a leper or in some way grossly underprivileged, more so than me, I could consider sending you a cut in my haul…, but that’s not the way to influence a SYSTEM…?
I need to know if it is TRUE …that I am being given money that, taking into account, all payments and investments throughout my life, into this scheme…is money unjustly given. Wrongfully given.
If there is something else , better, I could do.
So, I understand that the payments…the stamps…were not straight away, ,¿Invested¿…I have no idea where the money went.
It would be good to know how much was paid, and even if it wasn’t invested…then…if it HAD BEEN …invested would it now be worth the amount I collect?
No, taxes are not a concern, except that I haven’t paid any in France because my income has never been big enough. Im not extravagant with public funds, and hope that makes it ok…
Sometimes France has attempted to give me money, I accepted the free water pump, but only because they had removed the one I supplied for myself…but I don’t think there’s anything else. My motives I suppose, are about wanting to be sure of not living off anyone. …
…No one can be invited to keep me, like a pet dog…and perhaps that is exactly what IS happening? ,450 euros isn’t a lot, but over decades.I might live till I’m a hundred…that is a pretty huge sum.
Ive been self employed for decades, and paid quite a lot of tax in UK, up till around ,96…when I moved to France,…I have lived here ever since, but my work goes to Japan, I mean I sell it there, I don’t stay there or pay tax there.
Why… feel…UNentitled?
Well…we are looking at one kind of system…there must be others…
What happens to old folks around the world? They don’t all get ,450 euros per month. Most societies depend on family systems to preserve oldies, in reasonable comfort? So…perhaps the rules should be, that no one gets out of the obligation to provide for themselves when old or sick. if they do not want to accept a family system of responsibilities.
There must be something I might have fixed better, or can fix now…that IS NOT…taking funds from the govt purse. So many people seem to be close to disaster, even though social welfare systems are in place. Horror stories out of UK…
No, I haven’t had any money from France, I dont know if it’s the same for everyone, but my pension is paid into my french bank,from the UK pensions office…I discovered I had a govt pension, I think it must have been in 2002… How can it possibly be, that from those measly payments, from the ,70s I end up with …what is quite a lot of money?
Why isn’t that ,
Charity?
Yes…investment…if I and no one else either…invested our insurance payments, and nothing was done with the money to make it grow…how can it possibly be anything but ,
Charity, now?