Martin Lewis’s Money Daving Expert has urged people to check if they can add tens of thousands of pounds to their state pension – but only if they are the right age.
The money saving expert has previously explained how the deadline is fast approaching to buy back 13 missing National Insurance years in your personal record with the taxman – and now the deadline is just a few weeks away.
Because the amount you get in your state pension depends on how many years of National Insurance contributions you have on record, if you’re missing years from your back catalogue, you could boost your state pension massively by buying them back.
For every £800 you spend on buying a missing year, you could add £6,100 per year on average to your pension pot, Martin told his fans. If you lived for an average life expectancy, that could be a huge amount added to your state pension over the years.
How worthwhile it is will increase as you get closer to retirement age.
If you’re not over 40 – so born after 1985 – it probably isn’t worth doing unless you have large gaps in your NI history.
Martin Lewis’ Money Saving Expert website said: “There is a potentially unbeatable opportunity everyone aged 40 to 73(ish) needs to consider.
“You’ve got until 5 April 2025 to buy back any missing National Insurance years from 2006 to 2016. This can be prove very lucrative, as some are on course to make over £50,000 in boosts to their State Pension.”
One of Martin’s podcast followers said she had increased her pension contributions by £49 a week after buying six missing years.
MSE added: “To put that in context, Martine paid up to £5,000 (it may’ve been far less) to increase her State Pension by £2,550 a year. If she lives for the typical 20 years after state pension age, that’d be a total uplift of around £51,000… and it’s inflation-proofed.”
On an episode of The Martin Lewis Money Show Live, Martin told his viewers: “If you have gaps between 2006 and 2018, you need to think about this this year because you can only do it until April.
“If you’re nearly at the state pension age it’s easy to see, it’s pretty obvious that you should be buying them.”
“The older you are, the more likely you should be. If there are no gaps after 2019, then you could buy those so you could wait and see.”
“If you’re under 45 this probably isn’t worth doing, unless you’ve got very cheap partial years. If you’ve got a year available for £16 just go and buy it because it’s so cheap just in case you miss years in the future because it’s so cheap for what it could be worth.”
But the deadline shuts in April, and once it closes, you will never be able to buy back any missing National Insurance years again.
