£200 for fuel,, £200 for council ax

margaretclare

djohn2002uk wrote:

Am I having a senior moment or what? I just don't understand that. Whether you watch 1hr a week or 100hrs a week it still saves the cost of the licence, £100+ each year.

We've considered getting rid of the TV altogether because we watch it so little. If we do that, would we still have the free licence forced on us in a few years' time?

It's the assumption behind the 'free gift' that I question, it's that stereotyping again, that TV is something that we wrinklies spend a lot of time on, and making it free to us is something we'll be grateful for. It's these little concessions, like throwing a bone to a dog, that I dislike.

Margaret Clare

djohn2002uk

It wont be forced on you, if you dont want it you dont apply for it.
And I couldn't agree with you more about the bits and pieces offered by Gordon Brown. A decent pension for all with no add ons would be the right thing and then I wouldn't be at a disadvantage because I worked hard and saved which is what the Labour party advocated before they came to power. ("You wont be penalised because you have savings") Ha Ha. No wonder no-one believes polititians.
I read all your posts with great interest and agree with almost everything you say, you seem to have had good foresight when thinking about your retirement and are reaping the benefits now but I think maybe a little more thought for those less fortunate than you and I who need the "free gifts" because of the inadequate basic pension.

Dora_the_Explorer_5

Well said djohn - wait until Lord Protector Brown is prime minister, many will be living in workhouse conditions in their own homes. These will be the people who didn't have the opportunity and luxury of working for the state with its excellent pension arrangements.

margaretclare

Dora_the_Explorer wrote:

These will be the people who didn't have the opportunity and luxury of working for the state with its excellent pension arrangements.

Working for the NHS you mean, and getting made redundant coincidental with widowhood? You're having a laugh, Dora!

Margaret Clare

Ken68

margaretclare wrote:

Hi Dora

Our loft was insulated after we moved here in 1990 (that was my late first husband and me) - fibreglass material laid between the joists and a floor laid on top of it. The roof wasn't touched though. Good news this morning - phone call from our roofing contractor who wants to start the job on Tuesday this coming week. The roof is 75-year old asbestos tiles, not allowed any more, not lined, tiles slipping and cracking and probably won't stand another winter's frost and gales. So the roof is this year's 'big project'. The new roof WILL be lined so the insulation will be improved.

We're just transferring money from high-interest savings accounts so that we can pay 'on the nail'. Pray for continuing fine weather for the next week!!

Margaret Clare

Margaret....mine was done last year, asbestos tiles too.
The roofing contractor made me laugh, just a token scaffolding to impress any passing council man, but he did most of the work running up and down the roof, treading on 70years old wooden lathes. THEN..he chucked the tiles into a skip from high up, dust, asbestos bits, copper nails everywhere. Brave man, working solo as well. I cleared orf, couldn't stand the tension of perhaps him falling.
Anyway got a grant for it from the council. PM for further details.
Massive savings on the bills over this last winter.
Definate

djohn2002uk

I don't think she's having a laugh Margaret.
I have a Civil Service pension allbeit for only 20yrs service (And was retired early, just another term for redundant under Maggies CS cuts) and my wife has a NHS pension for even less years and we have monthly interest on savings but I don't lose sight of the fact that others through no fault of their own are living on the state pension alone and are therefore ready to snatch GBs hand off at every bit he offers them. I admit that I do too. I paid in the same as everyone else and at times considerably more than a lot and that's why I get annoyed that I can't get the same back out. That's why I am all for a DECENT basic state pension with no means tested topups being necessary.

oap

As I think I started this post, maybe I should finish it!!!!!!!!

We both have worked all our lives and brought up a son as well, when he was just sarting university my husband was made redundant after 30 years loyal service, we paid extra into his superannuation fund, and now get a very small pension from it as he finished work not being able to find other work with his vast experience in shipping, so he was short of the complete pay ins from 53 to 65!! He therefore did not come out with his proper company pension!! The redundancy was small compared to some!!

We now come under the almost but not quite brigade, we get nothing, no free teeth, ha ha, no free glasses, ha ha, and no extra pension, ha ha, etc, etc, because our income just comes over what they think we should have, they are always writing to my husband saying he is not claiming enough, when we ring they say oh you have a small company pension, SORRY!!!!

So whatever your religion, your politics, your colour, etc, etc, maybe we should not have paid into the superannuation scheme, like many of our friends at the time, when we could ill afford it, and WE ARE VERY GRATEFUL for the free tv and the help with council tax and heating, but we would also like a rise in our old age pension, me just married womens I am afraid as I did not pay the full amount as we could not afford it at the time,

I will now get off my soap box and shut up!! I do not care whether they are labour, liberal, conservative, all we want is someone to care enough to give us a decent standard of living, and the good health to enjoy it!!!

Ta ta, oap 's

Dora_the_Explorer_5

Thinking back a very long time to when my gran received her pension - it's never been enough, only sufficient to keep us away from death's door with a little bit more obtained through holding out a begging bowl to 'the social'. Sadly governement stats show considerable numbers of pensioners die of hypothermia each winter and a greater number are malnourished.
There hasn't been the political will to address the issue of old age and an adequte income in the last 50 years, I don't beleive the white paper due this week will bring about any significant change for today's pensioners.

margaretclare

Hi Ken

Good luck to you for getting a grant for your roof from the council. I actually phoned our council because we were told there were grants available - there are, but only if you're on e.g. pension credit. We're not, so we're paying for it ourselves out of savings.

Well, we're lucky again. The roof was stripped, re-tiled and almost completed last week, but they couldn't finish it on Friday because of the gales - it would have been too dangerous. We don't think the original roof would have stood up to the gales and lashing rain that we've had over the weekend, so our luck has held! Even if we'd been eligible for a grant from the council they would have waited until it was leaking, then come around to assess it, which might have been mid-winter, and how would we have found a roofer then? So we don't mind paying for it ourselves, thank goodness for savings!!! DH only uses 2/3rds of his pension income every 4 weeks, the remaining 1/3rd, £200 or so, he's been tipping into a cash ISA since last summer, and that's his half of the price of the roof, I'm paying the other half.

I recall when my mother became 60, that was in December 1971. And she worked for an old woman who'd never done a hand's turn in her life. My mother used to turn out on her bike in the cold mornings to bike 2 or 3 miles to give this woman her breakfast in bed and dust and clean for her. My mum was determined to retire at 60 - the old woman was most upset. 'Why are you leaving me, I never thought you'd ever leave me!' It was a bit like 'Brideshead Revisisted' where there are 'old servants' who never retire, like Nanny in the nursery upstairs. Anyway my mum took her pension. And she was delighted to find that she was better off than she'd ever been in her life. All those years of hard physical work, cycling through fog and frost even when her asthma was bad, and she was better off on whatever the pension money was at that time than she'd ever been in a working lifetime.

Sadly, she didn't live long to enjoy it. She died of heart disease in 1975. Her heart had no doubt been weakened by all that hard heavy work. But what I gleaned from her was the value of looking after your pension provision yourself, not leaving it to a husband. I wasn't a wealthy widow when my first husband died in 1992, I was redundant and still with a mortgage, and I had another 5 years of very uncertain and uncongenial work to 1997, by which time I was 62.

oap, you say you couldn't afford to pay the full NI contributions. But nowadays you'd have no choice. Anyone getting married after April 1978 no longer had that option of paying the reduced contribution. Like my daughter, who has just landed herself a new job after redundancy last year. I don't think she gives a thought to paying NI contributions - it's just something that goes out before you receive it. And like me, she's looking after her own pension provision, transferring her work pension from local authority, then to the Civil Service, and now to the university pension fund.

I do sympathise with those who are less well-off than me, djohn, don't think I don't. Sometimes I wonder how it happened. It certainly wasn't wisdom or foresight, and I could have done so, so much better. So could DH if we'd met many years ago - he wouldn't have had 2 expensive divorces, for a start! I could have done better if I hadn't been influenced by a first husband who had been taught at school that 'a gentleman doesn't think about money',and he 'didn't approve' of things like life assurance. We poured money into a Pennine cottage like it was going out of fashion - it was a bottomless pit, was that place. Again, because of the state of his health - heart disease from age 38 - I went along with his wishes when my better judgement said otherwise. Nowadays I wouldn't! The one good decision we made between us was to move here in 1990 - he needed a bungalow by then and a better climate. He only lived another 18 months, but DH and I are still here, and we've modernised and upgraded little by little. Every year we do a 'big project' and this year it had to be the roof. They're just finishing off putting the ridge-tiles on now.

Margaret Clare

oap

To save money you have to have it in the first place