UK state pension: qualifying years

[Wales4rugbyWC23]

I got an interesting letter from HMRC yesterday. It was dated 3rd June, so not bad for them (less than a month). It said:
"We've looked at your National Insurance record and you currently satisfy the National Insurance conditions for entitlement to at least the State Pension at the full rate. You do not need to pay any further voluntary contributions."

I've paid 37 years, by the way. The second sentence is a pleasant surprise. I thought that they'd have kept it quiet and left it up to me as to whether I kept paying or not. But no, they've actually confirmed that they don't want any more payments from me. Respect

Ominously though, they added a bit further down the page:
"Your State Pension could be affected by:
- any future changes in the rules
- your personal circumstances"

Hopefully this is just the usual disclaimer that things might change, and not a hint that new rules are being considered that affect retirees living abroad and/or have stopped paying voluntary NICs!

My Japanese wife has 10 more years to pay towards a full state pension (which in her case requires 35 years of contributions). But so far, so good.

I have been trying to find out Brits who are residing in Japan, who have managed to get their spouses into the UK pension scheme? How was it possible for you? Did she reside in the UK for a few years?

[beanhead]

You mean the Japanese state pension? I only have 10 years of that since I didn't realise I had to pay it at first. And it's all kokumin, so not expecting much income from that at all. The full UK one is a different matter though, along with a UK company pension that's about the same size. As things stand, those will help my (our) retirement income a lot.

Yeah, I think about the retirement permutations quite a lot, and probably even more next week because I'll be running a full check for end of Q2. I use calculators such as cFIREsim (https://cfiresim.com/) to see how we might manage in various scenarios. This is powerful because it allows income to be inflation adjusted or not depending on how you set it. It's based on US data though, so not ideal for retirees in Japan. One of the worries I have about our UK pensions is the exchange rate. If GBP.JPY drops to all-time lows then it probably won't be enough. So it's best to run simulations based on low exchange rates as well as average ones, to cover all scenarios.

I'll try James Shack's UK calculator (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0DUV5noXus) next week to see how they compare. I think he uses US data too due to not enough historical data from other countries.

I might post more about this in July after I've crunched the numbers and thought about it some more. I'm still 11 years away from receiving my UK state pension, by the way

Thanks for the reply.
OK, yeah, 10 years of kokumin might provide a bit of beer money of pachinko money if you are lucky
Mine is kosei and I will get to 30something years.
So I just wonder if it is wise to rely at all on getting the state pensions. I should get a full UK one, so around 10k at the moment but more by the time I claim it. And Japanese one will be around 1.8 - 2M, plus my wife's which is maybe 0.8M. So we will have 3 relatively small state pensions, if all goes according to plan.

[RetireJapan]

Thanks for the reply.
OK, yeah, 10 years of kokumin might provide a bit of beer money of pachinko money if you are lucky
Mine is kosei and I will get to 30something years.
So I just wonder if it is wise to rely at all on getting the state pensions. I should get a full UK one, so around 10k at the moment but more by the time I claim it. And Japanese one will be around 1.8 - 2M, plus my wife's which is maybe 0.8M. So we will have 3 relatively small state pensions, if all goes according to plan.

That sounds similar to my wife and I. I predict we'll get 3-4m a year in nenkin and UK state pension.

I am not counting on it, but it will basically be enough for us to live on so the investments would be gravy (or vice versa)

[Tkydon]

That sounds similar to my wife and I.

https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/e ... -Me-and-I-

https://nmu.edu/writingcenter/i-or-me

[northSaver]

I have been trying to find out Brits who are residing in Japan, who have managed to get their spouses into the UK pension scheme? How was it possible for you? Did she reside in the UK for a few years?

Yes, she lived there for five years and worked for three before we moved to Japan.

Thanks for the reply.
OK, yeah, 10 years of kokumin might provide a bit of beer money of pachinko money if you are lucky
Mine is kosei and I will get to 30something years.
So I just wonder if it is wise to rely at all on getting the state pensions. I should get a full UK one, so around 10k at the moment but more by the time I claim it. And Japanese one will be around 1.8 - 2M, plus my wife's which is maybe 0.8M. So we will have 3 relatively small state pensions, if all goes according to plan.

You're welcome. So you'll have about 4.4 million (440 man) in pensions if all goes well (and GBP.JPY=150). Not small at all That's about 37 man per month, which should give you and your wife a comfortable retirement. On top of that you'll probably have some savings in iDeCo and NISA. Sounds great! We'll be in a similar situation, and will get even more when my wife's UK state pension kicks in (if I'm still around by then).

I really hope we can rely on them. I guess it would take a major catastrophe like nuclear war or zombie apocalypse for all of them to fail. I'd like to get our savings to a level where we wouldn't have to rely on any of them, but that might be difficult since I want to start semi-retirement next year. Will keep saving and see how it goes.

[northSaver]

I'll try James Shack's UK calculator (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0DUV5noXus) next week to see how they compare. I think he uses US data too due to not enough historical data from other countries.

One thing I've discovered with James Shack's calculator is that the "Additional Retirement Income (Gross)" inputs are all annually adjusted for inflation before and after you start taking them - even the two Custom rows at the bottom. So unless I'm missing something, it's not so useful for Brits in Japan who won't have their UK state pensions adjusted after they start drawing them. Shame... it looks very good apart from that.