Many years ago when I was young, starry eyed I started with HM Customs & Excise. I did not worry about my pension as that was for old people. I was told I had a good pension, even though my salary was not what I could have earned in the private sector.

Now that I’m old and my pension is within reach I find that the government are changing the rules again. .

The new changes to my pension will have significant impact on my life as all financial advice is that you need to pay for your retirement years in advance, and this is what I have done and now it appears to have been a waste of time and effort. The revisions of pensions a few years ago were renegotiated to make them sustainable for the future. Lo and behold our employers now say our pensions are not sustainable and they need to worsen our pensions because their chums in the city banks have caused the financial problems Our employers expect me to pay extra contributions for my pension to help pay off the government debt, as these contributions will not go into a pension fund but straight to the Treasury

The alterations to my pension will not just effect my from next April, but every day of the rest of my life for the worst, which hopefully will be a long time but not so long as people that are younger than I am..

From April 2012 I’ll be paying an extra £82.67p per month, which means in the 41 months, until I am 60, I will have to pay in extra contributions of £3389.47p at a time that my pay is frozen and inflation is rising, so in real terms I’ll be finically 10% worse off the year before. Not only that if I retire at 60, which I had planned to do, my pension will pay me £1298.34 less every year. If you multiply this amount by the number of years I hope to live after my retirement I’ll lose over £30,000.00. I feel this amount of money is being stolen from me but it is a theft that I cannot go to the police about even though I know who is steeling the money.

I want to be able to be active during my retirement, not just exist which is what I’ll be closer to if we allow the government to change our pension. Changes to pension will not affect the likes of Gus O’Donnell who will be leaving before the new pension contributions start nor for the likes of the people who are telling us that our pensions are too generous.

The latest offer is no change to people within ten years of retirement date, except increased contributions from next April and changing to CPI. As for people who are not within ten years of retirement well you get very little out of the new offer. It is a just sop to people like me and you to try and divide us but don’t fall for it.