Teenage Take over #2

HomeBlogTeenage Take over #2

The teenagers are back!
Aaaannnnddd we’re back… we’ve had some positive feedback from our first blog and we’re feeling like there’s loads more gas to cook with this time. We were going to start off with the question about communicating to gen Zs, then Martin Lewis released a 90 minute pensions special and we had to have a look. We watched it and then chatted it through and that’s what we’ve written about in this blog today.
Martin Lewis and Pensions

Martin Lewis has made money understandable and easier for millions across the country, however his shows are rather boring and it felt more like a chore to watch than something we’d sit down to enjoy ourselves (we know many of you pension folk – Mum included would disagree and that’s all good – you can speak for yourselves).

So, our first take away from Martin Lewis was his quote about putting half your age as a percentage into a pension. Which, if you start late turns out to be a big amount. Especially since a quick Google search told us that gen x and baby boomers didn’t even start saving until they were around 30 – 35. We started talking about how that could ever be achievable nowadays with a cost of living crisis. Was his message if you’re already 35 and haven’t started saving you’re already stuffed? And how do those percentages work? If you start at 20 and save 10%, do you have to save 11% when you’re 22?

Even the basics aren't basic
Then we started looking at his slides. This is the man that makes money easy? This image shows a slide titled state pension basics. Basics that, although neatly presented, are chaotic and confusing for the untrained eye that does not fully comprehend all the terms, dates and numbers.
Then we started chatting about this more. Why should Martin Lewis teach us things that he calls basic knowledge? If this is so basic surely everyone should know about it already? We want to know why more money and pensions and useful stuff isn’t taught at school. Because if it’s not taught when you’re there, as soon as you leave school there are few and far between opportunities to learn about it all. Once you earn money and start spending it, and realise you can’t have everything you want to live how you want you’re hardly likely to start taking money out of your own pocket?
It just doesn't feel right

If money is not taught in school then we will learn by our mistakes which could cost us thousands of pounds in the long run. We don’t think any of our friends are thinking or talking about money or pensions. It all feels far away and it’s easier to ignore things that are very complicated.

Mum said that’s why it all happens automatically now. What! So for people that aren’t aware money is just taken from the money they earn. For us, this raises concerns, what if you lose your job, or want to buy a house, you’ll have money stashed in a pension that you can’t access when you need it most. How does that make any sense??

But you have to save because we realised from Martin Lewis that the State pension is not enough to live on and there’s no guarantee that it will even be there by the time we get to retirement. Even the basics that were explained by the man that makes money easy are still confusing. We want to know how can people actually get to know enough to make the right decisions?

And this feels very wrong!

Finally, the thing that we spoke about most after watching Martin Lewis and writing this blog is how unfair women have it. They really do have the rough end of the stick! When they take time off for childcare their pension is affected. They generally earn less and don’t have such senior roles and even if they are senior they probably get less than if they were a man!

In this month’s blog we’ve learnt a lot of new things about pensions and we’re left with a lot of new ideas and thoughts for next month. Please leave us some feedback! We really loved reading all the comments and we’d like to know what is important and useful to you all. Although we think we want to know more about why women have such a bad deal. I hope you’re all excited for our next teenage takeover!

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