Don’t know if those of us of a certain age have been watching Martin Lewis on the shouty box but he recommended topping up your state pension if you didn’t have enough qualifying years.
Anyhooo, I contacted DWP a few weeks ago and got a letter today giving me the figures (as I’m already drawing my state pension, for those who are not drawing theirs yet you contact the future pensions team and they tell you over the phone as they use a different system) . Because I was contracted out for a number of years, even though I’ve contributed for 44 years overall I am still 5 years short of enough to claim a full pension. I can buy 5 extra years for £824.20 each and get £5.29 a week extra for each additional year I’ve bought, though in my case buying 5 years means the 5th year gives me only 63p a week extra so I’ll only buy back 4 so will be 63p a week short of a full stack. So depending on what income tax rate you pay you recover your outlay in just under 3 years if you pay no tax and 3 years 9 months if you’re on the basic rate. That’s without factoring in increases to the pension in the next 4 years which will bring that down more so if you don’t recieve a full pension or are unlikely to it’s worth investigating, but you must do it before 31st July. More information is available here:
