10 March 2025
Anna and I wrote a Checksies about whether you should act urgently to beat a deadline for making manual topups to your state pension. Worth a read if you’re a freelancer or in your 40s+.
Very rough rule of thumb, for most people (NI has lots of small rules): if you voluntarily pay for 1 year’s worth it will probably cost you either £179 or £907, depending on the class of NI you pay. And your state pension will go up by an extra ~£5.80/week or ~£300/year while you’re retired. If you live for 20 years after retirement age, that adds up to an extra £6,000 to you. For most people it’s worth maxxing out their state pension.
Here’s a bit I cut from that section because it was getting long:
One way to think about that is: if you have NI gaps and you think you’ll live more than 3 years after your state pension age, maximising your state pension is probably worth it.
The ONS has statistics on how long you’re likely to live.
| If this describes you… | Your average life expectancy is | But a 25% chance of living to | And a 10% chance of living to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female, 20 years old | 89 | 97 | 101 |
| Female, 30 years old | 88 | 97 | 100 |
| Female, 40 years old | 87 | 96 | 100 |
| Female, 50 years old | 87 | 95 | 99 |
| Female, 60 years old | 87 | 95 | 99 |
| Male, 20 years old | 85 | 95 | 99 |
| Male, 30 years old | 85 | 94 | 99 |
| Male, 40 years old | 84 | 94 | 98 |
| Male, 50 years old | 84 | 93 | 97 |
| Male, 60 years old | 84 | 92 | 96 |
So that tells you that most people are going to live ~20-30 years after their state pension age. And that we’re all going to need to be careful to build our retirement plan, because you don’t want to run out of money if you’re one of the ones that makes it to their late 90s do you.
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