The majority of people fear ending up with too little money for a comfortable old age and a growing number now plan to retire later in life, new ONS research shows. Some 59 per cent of 20,000 adults surveyed said they were either 'not very' or 'not at all' confident they would have a big enough income to maintain the standard of living they wanted in retirement. And people increasingly expect to have to work for longer, with 58 per cent of those surveyed in 2012-2014 now believing they will retire aged 65-69, up from 54 per cent in the previous two years.

I will reach state pension age in a couple of years but I am worried that I will not have paid enough national insurance contributions to qualify for my state pension. How many years of work do I need to be eligible for the new single-tier state pension and can I buy extra credits?

After hearing about pension freedoms, 64-year-old Wilson Smith thought this would be his chance to visit the military cemetery in Hanover where Scott was buried almost 40 years ago. Wilson had been serving as a sapper in the Royal Engineers when his son passed away of cot death at three months old. After returning to the UK in the 1970s, he's never had the money to go back.

People reaching official retirement age before next April get a 10.4 per cent boost to their future income for each year they put off taking the state pension. If you defer for just one year, that works out at £410 extra annually or £10,100 if you live for 24 and a half years beyond your state pension age. If you can afford to postpone for seven years, your state pension will be £1,640 higher a year or £40,300 altogether, according to a study by Fidelity Worldwide Investment.

Now, 91 days after the new rules came into force, the system looks to be in meltdown. Instead of unlimited freedom, savers have faced lengthy delays, misinformation, boundless bureaucracy and high charges. We have identified six major failures of the reforms.

Millions of pounds have been spent on home improvements, exotic holidays, expensive cars and even speedboats, under new rules giving savers the freedom to do splash their savings.

With-profits policyholders often face an impossible choice about when to take their benefits. Turn down today's offer and tomorrow's may be lower. Yet the information you need to decide is difficult to get and harder to understand. How can you decide when it's time to leave?

The huge overhaul allows older savers unrestricted access to their whole pension pots, and removes the need to buy an annuity to provide guaranteed income for life. But pension experts warn freedom reforms bring big and serious risks, like fraudsters stealing people's life savings, baffled retirees paying far too much tax, and the possibility of some treating their savings like a cash windfall and blowing them too fast.

It's taken 20 years of campaigning by this newspaper - sometimes against governments of the day, other times against big corporate vested interests in the financial world. But after all the battling - and going a little greyer on top - it's time to raise a glass of prosecco and toast a new era. The great pensions revolution has arrived: goodbye unwieldy, straight- jacketing pensions; hello pensions fit for a modern, flexible Britain. From April 6, the pension pendulum swings firmly from provider to you, the consumer, the investor. Rejoice.

Over-55s will be able to cash in their entire pension from this April, an opportunity that could tempt many to plunge their savings into buy-to-let property. But there are pitfalls, first and not least the huge tax bill you could face for taking all the money at once. Retirees seeking a reliable income stream, plus the possibility of growing their savings, might decide they are better off putting their money in an invest-and-drawdown scheme instead. Read our guide and decide which is the best option for you.

The over-50s are the ones to watch when it comes to start-ups and new pension freedom rules mean an extra opportunity to tap into cash for business ideas. A recent report from the Global
Entrepreneurship Monitor highlighted this age group as being increasingly entrepreneurial. We explain the options and pitfalls of using your pension pot to fund a business.

People nearing retirement traditionally switch savings out of risky investments and into safer assets, but pension freedom reforms are likely to prompt a big rethink of this practice. That's because derisking - or 'lifestyling' as it's also known - is normally done in preparation for buying an annuity, but many more people will be opting to stay invested an draw down an iincome in future.

Pension freedom reforms will give people more decision-making power over their retirement savings from next year. The options to access your money, spend or invest it will widen - although your choices will still largely depend on the size of your pension pot. Financial experts Mark Stone of Whitechurch Securities and Ben Westaway of Jessop Financial Planning explain both your opportunities and the limitations on them.

I'm looking for what to do with my pension pot in a few months when I retire. Ideally I'd like to not buy an annuity, and hopefully keep some or all of the pot to pass on to my wife or the next generation. While I'd be happy researching which funds to invest in now, I guess I'm not the best person to do this and I certainly wouldn't want to be doing this with a fading memory or mental capacity.

I'm worried I might not qualify for the new full state pension, but I can't check because the Government is only sending forecasts to people aged 55 and over. I fear that some of my employers opted me out of the second-tier state pension without me realising what they were doing or the implications of it at the time. I don't recall ever signing anything specific, but they might have notified me in the packets of bumpf they sent me and I never read.

My wife is due to hit state pension age in the next two years. But during our 40-year marriage she has never paid any National Insurance contributions. I thought that women who stayed at home would receive some of their husband's pension when they retired. But I'm now alarmed to learn that changes to the system mean she could now retire with nothing. Is this correct?

I have recently been informed that one of the pensions I have been drawing since my retirement in 2010 has been paid in error. The pension payments have been halted and I am being told that the money paid to date is to be repaid. As this has arisen due to no fault of my own and the pension was accepted in good faith, am I legally liable to repay the money? If so can I reasonably claim a nominal £100 for the inconvenience?