It came today.
14 years. I am depressed.
Tengu
you need to look at the exceptions from paying contributions, and getting credit for such as caring for someone, raising children, unemployment, low income, full time education possibly, etc, etc.
A lot of people do not fully understand the pension system, the cost to someone for a new pension, 30 years contributions, is actually a little under £27k, a lot less in some cases, so it would only take you less than 4 years to recoup this amount after starting to collect your pension, for missing years it costs £880 to buy another years entitlement, each year you buy gets you £5 extra per week,(up to the maximum full pension) for earlier years you pay at the rate for that year so it costs less. For self employed people with low profits its £2.60 pw.
Although the pension is not enough to live on, in most cases, it is probably the best investment you will ever make, providing you live long enough to collect it, and survive for a few years after.to get the same pension from a pension pot you would need to have in the region of £150,000.