I am financially comfortable. Inflation is biting me hard. What next?

lilac_lady

Kittie is right. No point in being wealthy without being healthy even if it has to be self funded.

margaretclare

We are comfortable, not rich, not poor, a long way from either. Being in the middle we seemed to be OK. However, DH looked at our joint account ins/outs and he's come to the conclusion that we need to fund it more. This is apart from food, which is approx £260 a month. We were tipping £130 a month each into the joint account, but according to DH's figures we need £200. That's £400 a month to cover everything else. We don't know how the council tax bill will go come April - it was frozen at £113 a month for the current year. What seem to be worse than anything are the insurances - motor, household. Saga are very competitive and we've found them very good, and they don't go in for a lot of expensive advertising e.g. comparethemeerkat.com We're paying £66 a month to E.on for gas and electricity and we're sure this is likely to go up again before the winter is over. We're warm and comfortable though, the insulation was very well done a year ago and that's really a blessing, as was the new boiler we got a few years ago when StayWarm was still in operation. We have one of those smart meters and are careful to turn off the TV standby when not in use. A few lights come on by timer but they're not much. I suppose it's inevitable that we wouldn't escape!

Errata

What seem to be worse than anything are the insurances - motor, household. Saga are very competitive and we've found them very good, and they don't go in for a lot of expensive advertising e.g. comparethemeerkat.com

I've found Saga's insurance quotes to be expensive and also widely advertised, and they compare very unfavourably with Age UK (Age Concern as was) quotes.
Comparethemarket is a comparison service, like confused.com etc.

margaretclare

Oooops, should have written 'food is approx £340 a month' rather than £260. We each contribute £170 a month for food. This is not something we can economise on at all. We eat well but simply. It's possible to buy an awful lot of rubbish which is no good for you so we concentrate on home cooking along the 'healthy eating/low carb' principles. So, £340 a month for food, £400 a month for all bills, utilities, insurances etc.

DH has looked at all the insurances on all the possible comparison sites and he finds he gets a good deal from Saga. Yes, it's possible to get cheaper, but then you might find that certain what we regard as essentials aren't covered.

Age UK and I are not friends. I asked them some while ago why there was Age Scotland, Age Cymru but not Age England. They didn't even understand what I was talking about. I scrubbed them off my list of charities to support from that moment on.

One thing we are still undecided about is whether to continue with our HSA - now SimplyHealth - subscriptions, which we have had for donkey's years. Both of us have been in hospital several times since we got together, and the plan we're on means we can each claim when the other is in hospital, needs glasses, needs a dentist etc. This is because we each subscribe as individuals, not as a family. So instead of getting 50% refund for the person claiming, we each claim and therefore it adds up to 100%. We sometimes got £70 a night for one of us having an overnight stay in hospital, up to a certain maximum. We'd never get back on that plan if we left because it is closed. We also might not get back at all because of age! We still haven't decided whether it's worth going on paying for.

In addition, we still haven't worked out how much more money we may be getting from April. I know there is a 5.20% increase, but as we each get SRP plus S2P, we haven't yet worked it out. We also don't know whether council tax is going up and if so, by how much.

pivotalgubbins

margaretclare wrote: »

Oooops, should have written 'food is approx £340 a month' rather than £260. We each contribute £170 a month for food. This is not something we can economise on at all. We eat well but simply. It's possible to buy an awful lot of rubbish which is no good for you so we concentrate on home cooking along the 'healthy eating/low carb' principles. So, £340 a month for food, £400 a month for all bills, utilities, insurances etc.

Is that for two people or do you have more mouths to feed? If it is the former, then of course you can economise and you can still eat well. If that is not something you want to do, I can understand, but to claim you can't is pushing the truth.

margaretclare

pivotalgubbins wrote: »

Is that for two people or do you have more mouths to feed? If it is the former, then of course you can economise and you can still eat well. If that is not something you want to do, I can understand, but to claim you can't is pushing the truth.

£340 a month is for the 2 of us. The only extra 'mouths to feed' are the foxes, and they get half a tin of the cheapest dog food a night. I pay for bird-food, so that's outside the joint budget. One of the first things I asked DH when he arrived with that list of figures on Saturday evening was: are we spending too much on food, could we do it any cheaper. He doesn't think so. I am prepared to believe him, because he's very good at it.

We are also conscious that, at our stage of life and with the health problems we've both had, our immune systems may not be as good as they once were. I believe that quality before quantity is important.

For example, this morning we've had a boiled free-range egg and a slice of our favourite bread, from the local baker. This is special GI bread that he makes fresh every night - it's wholemeal and full of seeds. He started making a small quantity and now it flies off the shelves, it's so popular. I hope you're not suggesting we should eat eggs from battery hens, and cheap white bread which may be full of additives?

I'm going to make soup for lunch, that's 2 chicken stock cubes, a large onion, 2 carrots and a handful of lentils. We can share a large orange to follow, or a Mullerlight toffee yogurt.

We sometimes buy a cooked chicken from Waitrose. We prefer theirs to the ones at Tesco - have tried both. I wondered if this was extravagant, but in fact, a Waitrose cooked chicken lasts us 2 days, so that's about £1.50 each. People talk about fish and chips as if it's cheap, but in fact it is far from cheap, and we never eat it anyway.

gayleanne

After receiving practically nothing in interest payments from savings accounts, and ISAs, hubby suggested buying gold, it may sound stupid to you but in the past year I have spent £30,000 pounds on gold jewellery, not your cheap argos or high street stuff, but gold from Dubai, I have an 18ct gold Rolex watch, which has risen in value by £5,000 in the last six months, the money is still there if it is needed and at the same time I can wear it.

pollypenny

Errata wrote: »

I've found Saga's insurance quotes to be expensive and also widely advertised, and they compare very unfavourably with Age UK (Age Concern as was) quotes.
Comparethemarket is a comparison service, like confused.com etc.

Apart from travel insurance, I have found Saga to be cheaper over the last few years. Apparently, they are not now tied to one company, so can offer better prices.

Just renewed my car insurance; they matched the cheapest on comparison sites, so it's less than last year.

Their service was excellent when I was hit last year, too.

Nearly_Old

pollypenny wrote: »

Apart from travel insurance, I have found Saga to be cheaper over the last few years. Apparantly, they are not now ytied to one company, so can offer better prices.

Just renewed my car insurance; they matched the cheapest on comparison sites, so it's less than last year.

Their service was excellent when I was hit last year, too.

Unfortunately we have had the opposite experience with Saga motor insurance.

8 years ago someone reversed into our car when it was parked in a car park, there were witnesses and the other driver waited until my wife arrived. Despite phoning Saga 4 or 5 times and being told that someone would phone back nobody ever did. The other driver's insurers (ESure) phoned the next day, admitted full liability, collected our car and provided a loan car within 24 hours.

I'm 62 and work 2 or 3 days a month so virtually retired and my wife is 60, works fulltime and is retiring at the end of September. When doing the annual check a couple of years ago Saga were 50% dearer on one of the cars. twice the cost on the second car and would not even quote for the third car. I've been on the Saga site today and again they are basically twice as expensive as our current insurer. Obviously despite our age we do not appear to fit Saga's preferred demographic.

[Deleted User]

saga!! don`t get me going about saga
saga insurance went up a lot on re-newal so we looked around and got cheaper and we do the low mileage etc. Currently we are with LV (via meerkat) for £213 for 1.8 litre 2 year old top of the range octavia

2 years ago we went with saga to their malta hotel and found that 9 people had been taken ill with pneumonia and several were hospitalised. The hotel corridors sounded like a chest ward at night. Dh got acute bronchitis, no joke with asthma and we spent the whole holiday in our room or getting the bus to the doctors or pharmacy. They should have told us but did they heck, the plane in and out must have been a breeding ground for germs. Two years later I am wondering if it might have been legionnaires? anyway never again with saga, except for their fixed rate savings account and we got 5% for 5 years

Back to the thread, I am tweaking my kitchen and have given some small electricals to our daughters. I have ordered a waring pro classic blender and am saving for a kmix mixer. I am trying to consolidate appliances to make more space and electric kettle is going as soon as my new hob kettle (induction) arrives.

Dh gets his state pension in may, I am very pleased as it will make a big difference. I must say that we get by on a lot less now that he isn`t working and I am trying to kick start the savings habit again, so that we have a good safety net to cope with whatever. No point in saying this and that government are to blame, we have to take reponsibility for ourselves