The company pension scheme has changed again so now if you’re 50 before April 2010 you can apply to have your pension now...and carry on working till you’re 65. How great is that but typically I am a year away from qualifying...so how disappointing is that! Although I have paid into the scheme for the last 30 years I am beginning to believe that I shall end up with nothing by the time it is my turn. Sometimes it seems like every bright plan we were promised for the future is slowly turning to broken promises. Soft treads the heart through the times when bad news fills the air. All we can do is take a breath and look into a deep blue sky and try to remember what we are striving for.

Here’s what the Times Online said

DS Smith, the packaging group and a member of the FTSE 250, was revealed as the most vulnerable to adverse pension movements, by one measure — the size of its pension deficit as a percentage of its total market value. DS Smith had no immediate comment on the research. In June, it revealed that its pension deficit had risen by £83.5 million to £138 million. The fund was closed to new members in April 2005. It halved the dividend and injected £15.6 million into the scheme last year. The research said that a tipping point would come during the coming 12 months in which the cost of trying to close the funding shortfalls of the companies’ defined benefit schemes would be equal to the money they set aside to cover new pension benefits earned by workers.