I officially avoided becoming old a couple of weeks ago. I can recommend it.
Many many years ago (this was well before the kids). I was self-employed and working long hours making crap jewellery which for some reason was selling by the bucketload. My partner and I were making lots of money, we owned our own house outright (not bad for a couple in our mid twenties) and didn't spend much on anything but cat food (for the cat) and the odd crate of fizzy falling down water (for us). At some point, in an attempt to put some of this money we had sloshing about to some use, we bought ourselves a couple of pensions. I think the plan was we would keep adding to them and have a healthy nest egg for when we were wrinklies but I never did get round to it. Things went a bit tits up shortly after we started them and I've never really had disposable income since. My partner and I moved to Scotland, got mortgages on a couple of semi-derelict buildings, spent all our cash doing them up - and then we separated.
I pretty much forgot about the pensions - apart from the (dutifully filed) annual statements telling me that, when I retired, I would be able to buy a cup of coffee with the accumulated surplus.
This year the letters were different; they were asking how I wanted the money. When I had sat in my accountant's office all those years ago (I used to have an accountant!) the age '55' and the year '2014' seemed as far distant as I could imagine.
It's tomorrow.
The other day, after weeks of avoiding facing up to the fact that people in multi-national investment companies were trying to turn me into a pensioner I rang them up. Rather timidly I asked if it would it be possible for them not to pay me the pension for a few years? They looked at me down the phone like I was some sort of an idiot. If you translate what I was saying into multi-national investment company terms I can see why: "Please, take my money away for a few more years. Don't pay me...."
Yes, they said, wondering what the catch was. There isn't one. I'm no longer going to be a pensioner tomorrow; I'm happy. They've got my minuscule amount of pension fund to play poker with for another few years; they're happy.
If they win a few hands I might be able to afford a packet of biscuits to go with the coffee.
If they win a few hands I might be able to afford a packet of biscuits to go with the coffee.
The day after my Birthday we all vote in the Independence Referendum. If you haven't bought me anything you could just vote YES. It would make an old man very happy if we won.
