How much an RAF pension?

[clive_candy]

Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago ran an article 'The nine days that changed our finances forever' which featured a retired RAF chap so impacted financially by Truss and Kwasi's recent act of raving lunacy that he was having to look for delivery driving jobs and cleaning floors and "whatever will pay the bills".

Poor guy's having to pay a lot more on his mortgage and he's having to dip more and more into his £250k Sipp. Almost as an afterthought, the article mentioned his RAF defined benefit pension of £44k pa.

Two things really: first, how is this guy any kind of example of someone who's struggling financially and second, what kind of rank would you have had to be to get a £44k pa pension from 32 years in the RAF, an Air Vice Marshal?

[Burrow01]

If he did 34 years and left as a Group Captain (so pretty senior) he would get 44k a year

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/governmen...

Have to say its not exactly a great example of someone who would "struggle" but it may also depend on when they bought their house. Lots of service people live in service provided married quarters for periods of their service, and so it may be that he did not buy a house until he retired. This would be pretty poor planning from someone of that rank though....

[Kickstart]

I think this is just an example of only being able to see things from one's own perspective

To most people a final salary indexed linked pension of £44k pa would be pretty good going

Assume as was said above chap must have bought property late on with hefty mortgage

[Burrow01]

Kickstart said:

I think this is just an example of only being able to see things from one's own perspective

To most people a final salary indexed linked pension of £44k pa would be pretty good going

Assume as was said above chap must have bought property late on with hefty mortgage

Just noticed that he has also got a £250k SIPP, so definitely not a great example of some one who would be considered of bottom of the pile financially. The majority of people in the UK would love to have that kind of income

[Jurgen Schmidt]

It's certainly not a 'normal' situation - there are options available to him, he could downsize

[Burrow01]

Also people at that rank generally have the skills and contacts to get consultancy roles after they leave, if they want to supplement their pension income

[OutInTheShed]

The media seem to be struggling to find any hard luck cases who normal people can empathise with..

It's almost like they're not trying.