Your retirement should be about spending time with loved ones, doing things you haven’t had the time to get around to and having lots of new adventures, but too many pensioners are forced to scrimp and save just to get by. If you’ve found that your pot isn’t enough to live on read our top tips for easy ways to supplement your pension.

• Consider deferring your State Pension for extra money
• Make sure you get the best annuity rate
• Earn an extra £350 per year whilst you shop
• Slash your day to day costs
• Grab senior discounts and perks

Put off claiming your State Pension

Just because you’ve reached state retirement age, doesn’t mean you have to pack in the job, get the slippers out and start taking the State Pension. You have several choices open to you so if you don’t want to stop working, then don’t!  There’s nothing to stop you continuing with work part-time or even working for yourself and setting up your own business (we have lots of money-making ideas here for over-60s).

If you work past State Pension age, you don’t pay National Insurance and your personal allowance (the amount you can earn tax free) increases at age 65 – for this tax year personal allowance rises from £7,475 to £9,490 for those aged 65-74.

If you do decide to continue working and put off claiming the State Pension you will not only be able to boost your finances at the time, but you will also be quids in when you do decide to retire. As Directgov explains here, you can increase your pension by 1% for every five weeks you put off claiming, working out to 10.4% extra a year. So, if your State Pension was £105 a week and you decided to defer payments for 5 years, the pension you would then receive would be increased to £159.60 a week.

Even better, as long as you have put off claiming it for at least 12 consecutive months, you can choose to receive a one-off lump sum instead (based on the amount of normal weekly State Pension you would have received plus interest) and your usual pension paid at the normal rate.

Get further details on the Pensions Advisory Service website.

Before making any decisions, however, you should apply for your own State Pension forecast to work out exactly how much you can expect from the government based on your National Insurance contributions. Remember to see if you are entitled to Pension Credit which will top your income up to £137.35 if you are single, and £209.70 if you have a partner.

Get the best annuity rate

If you do decide to cash-in your pension pot for an annuity please, please, please shop around! Far too many people simply accept the annuity rate offered by their pension provider which could well be one of the worst rates on the market. Instead you should take what is known as the Open Market Option (OMO) – your legal right to buy an annuity from any provider on the market.

Go to the Moneymadeclear.org annuity comparison service to see where the best rates are – this will make a massive difference when you retire. When I used the service, for example, posing as a female, non-smoker, with a £40,000 pot buying a single lifetime annuity at age 65, with a five-year guarantee, the level monthly income ranged from £176 to a far more appealing £205 – that’s nearly £30 a month, or £350 a year!

Read our guide to annuities for more information.

Make money shopping

Cashback sites are a simple but effective way to raise some extra spending money – you can earn a portion of the price of most goods back if you buy them through one of the many cashback sites online. Christmas in particular is a tricky time for many pensioners with grandchildren to buy for but this is where using cashback sites throughout the year can come in handy.

All you have to do is check to see whether there is any cashback available from any retailer and the deals available will be displayed clearly for you. If you decide to go for it, simply select the deal that you like and the cashback site will direct you to the retailer’s website so that you can shop as normal.

Quidco is one of the biggest and most popular and they say members can earn £450 a year from cashback on everything from insurance and utilities to clothes and groceries. Take a look at some of these offers to see how you can earn cash on all kinds of shopping:

• Car insurance: £55 cashback with eCar Insurance
• Home insurance: £45 cashback with M&S
• Gas and electricity: up to £100 cashback with npower
• Travel: up to 10% of the purchase price with Lastminute.com
• Glasses and prescription sunglasses: 18% with Glasses Direct e.g. spend £300 and earn £54
• Vitamins and supplements: 27.5% with Simply Supplements e.g. spend £150 and earn £41.25

The only warning I would have is to stick with a reputable site – there are rumours of some sites failing to pay up – and read all the terms and conditions so that you know how and when you get paid. Focus on sites such as Quidco which give you 100% of the commission they get from retailers, although note there is a £5 annual administration charge deducted from your cashback earnings.

Cut the cost of every day living

As well as making a little extra money on the side, you should also ensure that your every day costs are as low as possible too. Rising energy costs are a real concern for all of us, but particularly for vulnerable pensioners.

Contact Warmfront.co.uk which offers grants to people on for insulation and heating improvements to those on benefits.

You should also compare available tariffs for your utilities on a dedicated energy comparison site. Switching is a completely painless, speedy process (we take you through the process in our guide to switching energy providers) and if you’ve never switched before you could save as much as £468 a year!

Remember that if you’re concerned about inflation and rising prices a fixed-price tariff may be the best option. These aren’t usually the cheapest to begin with but the peace of mind may be worth paying for

Grab senior discounts and perks

Exclusively for the over 60s, the Senior Railcard will cut your train travel by a third. Get it online or from your local train station for just £26 (lasting 12 months). You’ll even get additional discount at various retailers as a cardholder – read all about it here.

We have other suggestions in this article on perks for the over 60s and you can also check for other senior discounts on sites such as Seniorsdiscounts.co.uk. For example, the Boots Pharmacy Health Club is free and only for over 60s, offering an automatic 10% off Boots brand products, 30% off Boots brand glasses and a free hearing test at Boots Hearingcare Centres.

Of course, you don’t need to stick with exclusive senior discounts – you can make the most of any special offers or voucher codes going to cut costs. Sign up to our free weekly newsletter to have the best deals around sent straight to your inbox.