Dear All,
As promised, here is some of the feedback (in general) from the FPS.
For me at age 44 to purchase each added year of pension, it's 3.74% of basic pay.
Therefore, if I want to take my projected 31 yrs of service at age 55 to the maximum of 40 yrs for pension purposes, it'd be - Basic pay x 3.74% x 9 yrs until I leave.
Which is a lot of money however, as with any AVC scheme you are able to claw back your tax proportion i.e. 40% (or 20% for basic rate tax payers). This still leaves a lot of money to pay and you then need to project your final salary using on line compound interest calculators and a reasonable annual inc, say 2.75%.
Once you have a final salary, you can determine the new pension via the Forces Pension Calculator, also available on line, and crunch the numbers.
To claw back some of the outlay, the tax free lump sum is obviously 3 times the new pension i.e. much greater than before and then the increased pension, which is taxable, you'll need to decide how fit and healthy you are/will be, in order to recoup the balance of the outlay. Also bear in mind that the new and larger pension is index linked from age 55 (as before but greater) and the widow benefits etc are all based on the larger amounts.
I'll have to digest it all before deciding to purchase all or some of the missing years. The key point is; The sooner you decide to do this the better, don't wait until you're my age. The younger you are, the cheaper it is and it's probably the only cast iron investment worth persuing these days.
If I can afford it and think I'll live to enjoy it, it'll be money well spent. We'll see.
A point worth noting from Noprobs; Many of us will end up serving past age 55, we may not know it just yet. Once you are committed to this scheme, if you stay past 55 and therefore past the effective 40 yrs of pension, there is no more gain and you still pay the AVC. The only way out is to leave.
Regards
Ginge