As the cost of living crisis rumbles on, redoubtable money saving expert Martin Lewis recently advised his followers on social media to check their eligibility for a state pension and their national insurance record by sharing links to the appropriate government webpages on those topics.
His post was duly retweeted and shared far and wide by people anxious about their financial status ahead of what promises to be a trying winter.
But such is Mr Lewis’s huge influence as a consumer champion that the site in question was soon utterly inundated with traffic, eventually causing it to crash and show as unavailable for a short period of time.
“OK it looks like we’ve crashed the govt site too now... #Oops #MartinLewis,” the man himself tweeted as he was alerted to the situation by others, some of whom had been halfway through submitting forms and were very annoyed while others were highly amused by the blowout.
Now back up and running again, the government pension age checker – which you can access here – actually proves to be a valuable tool for working out precisely when you will receive your state pension, your qualifying age for Pension Credits and when you will be entitled to receive a free bus pass.
Simply follow the steps presented and enter your date of birth to have the answer calculated for you.
You can also use the site to work out more generally how to plan for retirement, how large your pension entitlement might be, how to increase it and what financial support is available to those approaching the end of their professional life.
The other link shared by Mr Lewis enables you to check your national insurance record up to the start of the most recent tax year, which might also be a help to those seeking to reimpose order on their personal finances.
As this one concerns personal information, you will require a Government Gateway user ID and password to access your record, which you can sign up for here.
