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

margaretclare

Oh no, we haven't considered Saga holidays. Bit of a laugh that - some years ago now, when I was widowed, I went on one of their 'singles weekends'. Trouble was, I was the wrong generation. It was more of a World War Two reunion than anything, with people saying 'I joined up on xxx day, which day did you join up?' And all the 1940s jokes I wasn't familiar with.

DH and I prefer to travel independently and this year we're looking at 'short breaks' rather than a big holiday. We're going to a confirmation in York this coming Sunday and that involves a 2-night stay. In March we're going for a 4-night stay to Amiens. Amiens cathedral is something we really want to see. We're concentrating on places we want to see, either haven't seen or not seen together. The next one will probably be the Jurassic coast in Dorset.

I have no shares in Saga but have to admit, they have been good insurance-wise. DH does all his homework and really does 'compare the market'. We have no complaints about them whatsoerver.

margaretclare

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 responsibility for ourselves.

Absolutely. I could not agree with you more. I have saved more since retirement than I ever did in a long working life in (mostly) good jobs. I've had practical demonstrations of the value of having that 'safety net' in place, especially over the last few years, and we just do not know what is around the next bend in the road.

babyj3

jennifernil wrote: »

I am noticing that there are lots of price rises in food these days.

When you are shopping every week, I think it can easily creep up on you, a penny here, a penny there. But with us going abroad for 2 or 3 month stints, you really notice the differences! We were away in May and June this year, and I noticed lots of 30p jumps in July on things costing £2 or more.

I love to shop in M&S for food, the quality is good, but I only ever buy the special offers and stock up the freezers. Sainsburys is good too, but again we just get the special offers. Our main shop is probably at Tesco, but we do have a Lidl a few hundred metres away, and an Aldi about 3 miles away, so I always stock up with basics at them.

Our Lidl is great for milk, 79p for 2 litres. Their orange juice and bread flour is excellent too. We pretty much make all our own bread, even take the breadmaker on holiday with us! We also find them good for olive oil, yoghurts and desserts, margarine, wine, cold meats, eggs, cereals....... Tesco is getting less of our money these days!

OH's main pension only gets the CPI or RPI increases on around a third of it, so last year was only about a 1.5% increase on it overall.

Utility bills are rocketing, our gas and electricity has increased about 20% in the last year or so, which is very worrying. We are turning down the thermostats, being really careful about leaving lights on, but there is only so much you can do.

Quite difficult to sell a house here right now, unless you cut the price drastically. With prices of bungalows commanding a premium, we would have about £100k from downsizing, but with stamp duty and legal and removal costs, that would be reduced by about £20k, so not woth it right now when considering the huge hassle involved.

I have noticed that since Christmas the price of most things that I buy at Tesco have gone up not just by pence but much more even £1 on a usual price of £15.
One week corn flakes were £1.28 the next £1.64, I enjoy a sherry and one week £4.60 the next £5.50 (still £4.60 in other supermarkets) I emailed them and got a very negative response
I will be shopping around more from now on

pollypenny

Nearly_Old wrote: »

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.

Strange that - I'm 64, OH is 68.

They also did a price match on house insurancer last year - that's due soon, so I'm crossing my fingers.

Nearly_Old

pollypenny wrote: »

Strange that - I'm 64, OH is 68.

They also did a price match on house insurancer last year - that's due soon, so I'm crossing my fingers.

The last time I actually spoke to Saga we were 60 and 58 and both still in fulltime employment: civil engineering consultant / local government officer so not normally high risk categories. However we could both claim mileage payments if we travelled on business (usually to meetings, etc) so we had to have business cover. Saga were 50% more expensive on the Citroen C5 that I used most of the time, twice as expensive on the BMW Z3 (James Bond's car in Golden Eye) except that mine is 2.8litres and not the 1.9. My wife had changed her Z3 for a Z4 sports model and they just flatly refused to insure it. Her view is that if she has to commute to work then she will do it in something she enjoys driving.

The Z3 and the Z4 were really pre-retirement presents and will probably be kept for another 15 to 20 years. I've only had the Z3 for 4 years but it will be 13 years old this year.