Are you worried about discounts on your pension?

I haven't worried about my pension for a while now.
I assume that by the time I reach the NL retirement age there will be no pension at all, or you will have to get so old that hardly anyone will make it anymore.
That is why I have drawn up a savings plan myself, in which I invest less than for pension and state pension, but keep more of it. I will stop working at 55, and then I will have enough to live on until I die.
If at any time something is added from the NL government and the pension funds, that will only be taken into account.
I am now 44, and have been saving into my own retirement savings plan for 20 years. I put 3.5% of my income into it, and have now saved more than 5x as much as what mijnpensioen.nl says it says of 24 years of savings with the Dutch pension funds.
For those who don't, it will get worse and worse. They should certainly start to worry about their pension.
Thanks to the NLse roverheid, which prefers to throw away the money with left-wing hobbies such as the EU and fortune hunters.

Yes for those who have enough and, as always, think you shouldn't complain. Won't be a problem.
But they forget that it is not the fault of the people who left for Thailand, for example. Cuts are made everywhere. And it gets much worse. Because all those “refugees” must also have money. So we can bring that up again.

Yes, I am very concerned about my future pension benefits and let me explain how the funding ratios are calculated using a simple example: Imagine the pension fund as a shop. The assets (premises, stocks, delivery van, etc.) are on the debit side of the balance sheet and the liabilities (creditors, loans) are on the credit side. At the pension fund, the assets are real estate, the securities portfolio and the bank account, and the credit side shows how much has to be paid out to (future) pensioners.

To see whether the store can continue to exist, we look at how much we convert per period and how much we have to pay for purchases and costs. We use this to calculate the Break Even Turnover and if it is higher than 100% then we are in the right place. To calculate the nominal (= without indexation) coverage ratio, the pension fund calculates the present value of the obligations. Suppose the pension fund has one participant who receives € 1000 every year and, based on the mortality table, has an average of five years to live and applies an actuarial interest rate of, for example, 2% prescribed by the Dutch Bank. Then the obligation is 1000 + 1000*(100%-2%) +1000*(100%-2%)^2+1000*(100%-2%)^3+1000*(100%-2%) ^4 = 1000 + 980 + 960 + 941+ 922 = € 4.803. The pension fund now divides this amount based on the market value of its assets. Whether the pension fund earns 5% or 10% on its assets does not matter. In my example from the store, we looked at how much future income there is, but this is completely omitted when calculating funding ratios, despite the fact that pension funds have made returns of above five percent over the years. Broadly speaking: the lower the actuarial interest rate prescribed by the government, the higher the obligations and the lower the coverage ratio.

On top of this absurd, non-economic calculation method, the State Secretary Klijnsma has also introduced a buffer requirement of 130% to guarantee the solvency of the pension funds. This buffer of dead capital was never there and it can now be built up nicely now that I have retired. Oh, then there will also be a buffer for pension funds in other countries and then it is good that the Netherlands also has that. You already understand: nowhere abroad does such a buffer requirement exist and there are usually national guarantee funds.

If I am realistic and look at the current funding ratios of pension funds of around 100%, then I see pensions only falling in the future.

Rembrandt van Duijvenbode

Not yet a pensioner, but already receive a regular annual letter from the pension fund stating that there will be a reduction: already about 10% in total. And that before I even received a penny.
Apparently pension funds have to speculate with our money to get enough returns; It's easy to gamble with other people's money. In addition, there are of course the generous salaries at the top and beautiful offices; it may cost a bit. Seen a few episodes on TV how NL pension funds work with large "reliable" (read: super shadowy) investment companies in the USA; it should be banned by the state in my opinion. I shudder.
At another pension fund I left during the ride because of the commission for the intermediary and the high hidden costs; only the employer's part was therefore paid in.
Just like Michel, I therefore started building my own piggy bank years ago: making maximum use of the tax-free deductible annual margin every year (even more if there is a demonstrable pension shortfall), and depositing that as an additional deposit in an already current single-premium policy. In which I myself am in charge of the investment scenario to be followed: shares, bonds, real estate, cash. This is often done by means of standard mixed funds. Because I invested every year, I automatically spread the price risk. As I get closer to the retirement horizon, investing more and more defensively.
I have 2 policies: a policy that has been running for years at a guaranteed interest rate (was still pleasant at the time).
The other policy on a mixed fund basis. The good thing is that the “dull” interest-bearing policy has achieved a higher return at the end than that of the higher-risk mixed funds.
My idea: get rid of those expensive and quite unreliable pension funds, all the more so because the (r) government sometimes also takes a hold on the cash (ABP); and give people the choice to (compulsory) save for their old age instead of with a pension fund.
However, this will be difficult in practice in the current system, in which the young save for the elderly.

I don't know if anyone has seen the Zwatre Zwanen report. In it, the managers of the large pension funds are welcomed by the big grabs on Wall Street. Who do have very lucrative plans with our retirement money. According to people on the stock market, that means that a lot of our money goes to the major international banks. And those seasoned bankers know what to do with our billions. They will come up with something that will make the money disappear. Those administrators have no idea where they are collapsing

I think that the pension system in the Netherlands resembles a Ponzi scheme. Your deposit is used to pay other people and by the time it's your turn, you just have to hope that there's something for you too. Hope indeed because there is no guarantee because whatever they promise today they can just adjust the rules later and there you are…..