Thanks - my data came from the Govt gateway, but although it says I was contracted put for a period it doesn't reduce the total pension quote accordingly. Is that other peoples experience?
Anyway thinking about it I could only buy additional years to make up a "number of years" shortfall, which I don't have (i.e. I can't buy additional years to negate the contracted out years).
btw Ignore my bad maths, having re-read it I have 44 full years, "2 years to contribute before April 2021", and 4 years when I did not contribute enough. The records start with 4 years "before 1975" which seems to credit me for a couple of years when I was actually still at school (though I had PAYE summer jobs so maybe they count).
I stopped work and have been self supporting for more than 5 years now. I'd have been a bit annoyed if I didn't have enough years through not signing on over those years, but all is well. As someone said elsewhere, I'm not fully dependent on the pension though it was factored in at the full amount when I did my initial spreadsheet about whether I can afford to stop work.
There are some recent years which I would question if I were short of years, where they said I contributed nothing which technically was true but that was because effectively I wasn't earning enough to pay NI
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