UK Pension Poverty Warning

A former pensions adviser to the Government has warned that 80% of people may not have enough money to live on in their retirement.

Independent consultant Ros Altmann said the UK is in the grip of a pensions crisis and criticised the Government for presiding over a system in which employee savings have been destroyed.

Her comments were made as part of an ITV1 programme, Where's My Pension Gone?, to be screened at 9pm on Thursday. In it, pension experts assess the state of the company pensions system in the UK and examine the effect that collapsed schemes have had on victims.

As part of the programme Dr Altmann warns that people should be aware that there is a pensions crisis. She says: 'I would say about 80% of the country needs to be seriously worried that when they come to retire, they will simply not have enough money to live on at anything like a decent level.

'If there is one person in Government who is responsible for this pensions scandal, it has to be the Chancellor. Gordon Brown has been presiding over our pensions system at the Treasury since 1997.'

Dr Altmann added: 'The first act was to take money out of the schemes. He has never put it back in. He has also watched people's lives being destroyed by not receiving the pensions they were relying on. They didn't have any other savings and yet he has still refused to accept responsibility.'

In March last year, the parliamentary ombudsman, Ann Abraham, produced a critical report on the Government's handling of failed occupational schemes. She concluded that advice given by the Government had been 'sometimes inaccurate, often incomplete, largely inconsistent and therefore potentially misleading'.

As such, she called on ministers to compensate an estimated 125,000 workers who had lost some or all of their pensions due to companies going bust. But the Government has refused to accept her findings and ruled out compensation, provoking anger amongst campaigners.

In Thursday's programme, Tony Woodley, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, echoes Dr Altmann's concern for the future of UK pensioners.

He says: 'There is barely a person of any age in this country now that doesn't appreciate the time bomb effect of this pensions problem. We could find the disgraceful situation in a couple of decades time where the third strongest economy in the world sees millions of ordinary working men and women literally on the streets unable to live.'

Source: thisismoney.co.uk, Jan 2007

I guess nowadays, people need to take more personal responsibility and make their own contingency plans. I understand it's difficult to save when rent and house prices / mortgage repayments are so high, but here's a few ideas:

• If you're on a repayment mortgage, change it to interest only.
• Be more prudent with your spending. Martin Lewis’s excellent moneysavingexpert.com site will help give you some ideas.
• Start saving and investing as much as you can afford now - even if it's only £50 per month. It's surprising how much it will be worth in 20 years if you get good compounded growth. I'm investing in the market using my ISA allowance (which means it's tax-free) using the ISACO system at: www.isaco.co.uk/?r=flintoft . It works.
• Start a home based business. You can work from home and build something up part time for an excllent second income which will allow you to save and invest more. If you're committed, you can earn enough to allow you leave your job. I'm involved with home shopping company Kleeneze and earn over £3,000 per month part-time. My job is now my 2nd income!

There's always ways around things if you look.

Hope that helps.

Kleeneze New Year Conference News (2007)

Here's the main news from the Kleeneze 2007 new year conference:

• Super 200 business kit available on a 3-month trial. The kit contains 200 of the main catalogues and 200 health & beauty catalogues for just £125 on code 00590. For more information, visit Kleeneze startup options.
• The Kleeneze business manual is going to be updated in a more easy to understand and user-friendly fashion.
• Findel are investing £1M to increase the stock level of Kleeneze products. Findel enjoy stock levels of 98.3%.
• Findel are also investing £1M into raising the Kleeneze profile and brand awareness. Kleeneze will be sponsoring all 12 episodes of 'How Clean is Your Home' on channel 4 later in the year.
• The first Findel sponsored Kleeneze catalogue will be available in June 2007.
• The Kleeneze summer sales conference will be at the NIA, on June 23rd.
  New car incentives, which include: Jaguar X-Type, Jaguar S-Type, Jaguar XK8, Aston Martin Vantage and Bentley Continental.
• The 2008 international conference will be in Thailand - this incentive is available to ALL Kleeneze distributors in the network.

Robert Kiyosaki Endorses Network Marketing

Robert Kiyosaki is a world famous author and has written many best selling wealth creation titles including 'Rich Dad, Pooor Dad' and 'Cash Flow Quadrant'.

Robert has long supported network marketing as an exellent way for people to enter the business world. You can start a network marketing business part-time, with a low investment. You can hear Robert explain why he supports the nework marketing industry below:



Some Of The Benefits of Network Marketing
(press the play button to listen)

By starting and running a home based business like Kleeneze you can earn an income which can replace your job and enable you to do more of the things you really want to do with your life. The training available through network marketing can also help people who want to start another business.

The Thief of Fulfilment

One of the biggest problems we can encounter when we consider making changes to our life is fear. Even though the changes we want to make will bring more happiness by considerably enhancing our lives, fear will still raise its head to try and stop us in our tracks.

Why does this happen?

It's all to do with the way the subconscious perceives survival. It knows that you are in a safe position and that survival is more or less guaranteed if you carry on in the same way. As soon as you start to consider making changes to your life, your subconscious mind will play the fear card. You are leaving the comfort zone and boy-oh-boy, does it not like it! Not one little bit!

This is no joke. It happens to millions of people and this fear ruins their dreams for a better life. And here's the danger of giving in to this fear: You can feel as though you're stuck in a rut - kind of like life is passing you by. As the years pass, these feelings can become magnified and you can become filled with regret over opportunities you didn't grasp.

I don't know about you but the last feeling I want before I breathe my last is that I didn't take advantage of opportunities because I gave in to my fears. Because let's be honest here, we can generate excuse after excuse to save face and gain sympathetic understanding from our families and loved ones. But we can't fool ourselves. Deep down inside, we know the truth.

If you want to achieve a dream, you are going to have to understand and overcome fear. There's a lot to it, much more than I can cover in one article. But for now, I want to look at an ally of fear, an ally that you can easily defeat.

When we're in the comfort zone, one thing re-enforces it more than any other. Routine. Performing the same habits and behaviors on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. The more routines you have in your life, the harder it is to embrace life-enhancing changes. Any break from routines is met with strong resistance by your mind.

This is security. And the more secure you feel, the more the mind believes we are safe, that survival is assured. Introducing change triggers the fear response because your subconscious mind perceives a threat to your survival.

A great technique to combat this is to demonstrate that your conscious mind is in control. You do this by adopting the axiom that change is essential to growth. The more you embrace change, the more colours you add to your life. The more you grow, the more happiness, satisfaction and fulfilment you feel.

Here's a couple of great ideas to further help keep the fear of change at bay by limiting the routines you perform in life. Use them to stimulate your own ideas:

• Start and finish work at different times each day – if work allows. Can also vary the times you have lunch – and where you eat lunch. Can you vary the routes you take to and from the workplace?
• Eat a different breakfast each day. Most people eat the same breakfast everyday. Can you vary it? And try not to get in the routine of eating the same meal on a particular day. e.g. Tuesday ispot roast, Friday is fish, Saturday is steak.
• Shop at different supermarkets. Many people shop at the samestores on the same day every week. Try different ones, different days.
• Try a different cuisine every week. I love cooking and I like to try as many different dishes as I can. One idea I use is to pick a country and try a couple of recipes from there. You could also use states and regions. It's a great way of varying the diet and learning about other cultures.
• Visit somewhere new at least once a month. This could be a new town or country, a new restaurant, a new museum, theatre, park wherever you can think of!
• Avoid the temptation to watch television every night. Read a book, surf the Internet, attend a night-school class, workout, go to the movies - the idea here is not to just slump in front of the TV everynight.

OK, I know these are basic ideas but they are effective in helping to break mundane routines. Routine really can make life a bit of a dull plod, so please do try and use these ideas to help you break free from them. And please don't rush into making major changes as it can be overwhelming. Take it nice and slow by making small adjustments to make life less of a routine and to slowly get the mind to accept changes when they come. It's so important to demonstrate to the subconscious that YOU are in control and that you will not let fear of change control you. If you let it, your imagination will set boundaries on the amount of happiness you can get from life. The biggest weapon it will use to stop you from embracing life-enhancing change is FEAR. Why let it get away with it?

Author Bio: Chris Green is the author of the new acclaimed book "Conquering Fear", the complete guide to overcoming fear and attracting more success, prosperity and happiness into your life: conqueringfear.net .