hi it has just dawned on me that now i am a fulltime mum i dont pay national insurance and so does this mean it would affect my pension? what am i supposed to do tobuild up my pension?

hi there, I had the same worries as i had a letter telling me i wasnt paying enough contributions to quilify but i phoned inland rev and citizens advice and they helped me to go through my options(too complicated to write it all here!!!) i think thats your best bet unless you have a financial adviser in which case they should know all the in and outs of it. hope this helps xxxxxxxxxxxx

i know that if the child benefit is paid to you rather than oh/partner, this goes some way towards your ni contributions. im not sure to what extent. dont you think the government should make it easier for you to stay at home if thats what you want and can do??

a freind of mine only yesterday said that she doesn't qualify for full state pension now because she has gone over the 5 year rule. Dont know how true it is as i will have to look into it further but she said that if you stay at home looking after your children and claim c/b up to 5 years then you are covered. After 5 years you need to top up your contributions. Well i've been off work now 4 years so if its true then i had better go and get myself a job. CAB should be able to help on this subject so we can get the facts us ladies need

you only need to have 30 years of paying NI to qualify for full pension.
If you are not working you can pay the credits yourself which is about £8 a week (or get your working o/h to pay it)
However you should not need to do this because you are protected by home responsibilities protection. i think this is automatically in place for you if you receive child payments but check.
the directgov website or the jobsite website will have details on this.
hope this helps and remember there probably won't be a pension worth having anyway!

This is a constant worry to me too, especially since i'll be staying home a little longer now to look after the newest one (when he pops out)

have to say- i've never even thought about it! oh god another thing to worry about....!

I know i have been of work now for about 4 years as i went back to work for about a year after justin was born, and i have been getting these stupid letters through for the last few years now but i think this year im going to pay to top it up as i dont want to get further bown the line and find that i have nothing.
They really do want to make it imposable for mothers to stay at home and look after there kids, i personal just do see why layabouts who cant be bothered to get of there backsides and get them selfs and job get suport, they get there jobseekers alowances (this is a laugh as so few of them are actualy seeking a job) and meany have been getting this for 20 + years and they also get there NI contributions payed so when they turn 60 65 the goverment will still be suporting them,
Now my husband pays over £1000 a month in tax and NI as i sure do a lot of the mums on here so why the hell cant what they pay go towards out NI contributions as well after all it is money out of our banks as well why should we then have to take more money out of the same bank to top up our own contributions seperatly x

My firends a financial advisor and brought this to my attention at the wknd when I said I wasn't returning to work and gave sent me this email (her words in an email just for me so pls ignore grammar) -

'Hi here is the form I mentioned you cant send this off till your maternity pay runs out

Attached is a home responsibilites form for you to fill in the relevants of this is , obviously why you not working you are not paying National Insurance when u come to retire u will have an incomplete national insurance record which will effect the level of state pension u will receive. Fill in this form and send it off when your maternity pay stops (national insurance is still paid when cliaming maternity pay).u will need to complete one for every tax year you arent working and basically the goverment will pay some ni contributions for u ,so first form will be dated from the day ur maternity pay stops till the 5th of april that year
remember to complete every tax year , tax year runs from 6th april to 5th april next year'

So if anybody want me to send them the forms (dont know how to put them on here), email me asking for them and I'll send you them.

emmacarr2043@hotmail.com

Emma

so if you back to work before 5 years,then off again with another baby or again,this wont matter as long as you are never off more than 5 years at a time as appose to 5 years in total. and dod you have to go back for a specefic period of time before having another child?

[Modified by: mrskc on August 07, 2008 03:17 PM]

hiya babe just copying and pasting this from a post i left earlier hope it helps

After reading another post i was starting to worrie again so done some searching online with just made things more complicated so i called the Voluntary National Insurance Contributions line and was told that all is good. Intill now they had a thing called Home Responsibilities Protection (HPR) which cut down on the total number of qualifying years a woman needs to get her full state pention ( so if i stay at home with my kids intill my youngest goes to school i will have been at home from 11 years there for i only need 33 qualifying years instead of 44)

But now instead what they do is for each year that you stay at home you will be creadetid with the credits needed for a qualifying year instead of just cutting down on the years needed, and this runs from the date of your first child is born intill he turns 12 or if you have other kids with in this time intill they turn 12. they also informed me that it takes time all the records to be changed so these letters will still be getting sent out. so buy the time my new baby is 12 i will have been credited with 19 years of contributions plus i will have the years of credit i collected before my son was born and the year inbetween so that once they baby is 12 i only need 22 more years to get a full state pention. which would mean working till i am 60 to get a full state pention.

Also if you are lacking in contributions then you can also borrow against what your hasband/wife has paid, even after divorce if needed so long as you dont remarry before retirment age.

Which in all is good as it means that paying the volentary contributions is not needed x

does anyone no the answer to my above question?