Preparedness for when

moneyistooshorttomention

It is a difficult situation re people saying "I should have xxxxx......because I'm a pensioner". Now I wouldn't agree with that per se. But, I do see that people who have children almost universally say "But I should have xxxx...because I have children" and my personal pov is that this is where the Entitlement Viewpoint starts.

Now - I've never claimed all sorts of money for having children personally and hence think "Yep...about time for a bit ...because I;m a pensioner". However - this is one lot of claiming money and I do see that there will be many people doing two lots of claiming money from the State.

I am rather coming round to the viewpoint that people should be told (at some very early stage in their life) that "Look.....you can claim one lot of subsidiary money and one lot only. Now your choice boils down to = do you want to claim money for having children OR do you want to leave your allocation on ice and claim it for being a pensioner". Make up your mind - but you cant claim for both. I would certainly have been perfectly willing personally to state on the dot of Age of Majority that I would take My Bit as "money for being a pensioner" and sign a bit of paper stating I'd never claim money for having children. After that - well it would have been my hard luck if I had changed my mind and decided I wanted to be paid for having children after that - as I would have already agreed my own Personal Allocation was to go towards "pensioner costs".

I do understand the logic behind wanting extra money as a pensioner. This being most British people have involuntary extra costs imposed on them at that sort of age = having worse health (so paying out a lot extra for health care costs - because we all know the NHS doesn't cover everything). Add that many peoples health is such by that time that they have to take buses or taxis for distances they would previously have walked. Add that many peoples health is such that they have to pay other people to do housework/gardening/etc around the home they would previously have done for themselves. Etc. Etc.

So there are extra costs imposed on many people by necessity for being in the pensioner agegroup BUT the extra costs from having children have been voluntarily chosen (as no-one is forced to have children these days - but no-one can escape getting to old age).

jk0

I hope I didn't offend anyone regarding mentioning my relatives who won't pay for glucosamine. It certainly wasn't intended, and I'm sure GQ did not intend to offend anyone either.

[Deleted User]

Not in the least bit offended JKO just trying to make the point that you can't put people into compartments just because they're in a certain age group. I know lots of people who do whinge that thier pension isn't enough and they have difficulties because they can't have all the things they want when they want them but I also know many others who like we did have lived frugal lives and made sensible choices that have left them in a position to be independent and NOT have to expect handouts and be regarded as special circumstance cases. Life is not an easy ride, never was but choices made in the past, more often Not to do or have something, have made our lives much better for us today and I hope will continue to do so for all our days!

GreyQueen

jk0 wrote: »

I hope I didn't offend anyone regarding mentioning my relatives who won't pay for glucosamine. It certainly wasn't intended, and I'm sure GQ did not intend to offend anyone either.

And I hope I haven't offended our dear friends and forumites who also happen to be pensioners. I am sure we are among the most self-reliant sections of society, and have made many and consistant sacrifices and wise decisions across the decades in order to reach places of relative security. My own parents are the same; worked hard, lived thriftily and haven't claimed anything between child benefit and state pension, having worked from age 15. But oh, my dears, if you could but hover alongside our telephone headsets and hear what me and mine hear, I'm sure you'd be flabberghasted at what some pensioners say to us..............!

Been watching a silly movie on DVD, something I bought as a Poondlandia refurb in January and have watched three times in the intervening months. Have now added it to the donation bag as I feel I won't want to watch it again and that it should be released to be sold and enjoyed by other people. Gotta keep the stuff moving.

Tomorrow afternoon, I will be waiting in for the electical supervisor to come discuss the rewiring of the flat. I'm game to move stuff, but it will be a case of moving things in sequence, to access the sockets one or two at a time, there's no space in the centre of the rooms to move everything out all at once. I already pity the poor beggar who gets this gig. I will provide tea and bikkies to help them along their workday. I may even get some coffee in as I was socially embarrassed when the gas engineer was here last month was a non-tea drinker and I'm a non-coffee drinker and hadn't got any in the flat. Oh the shame of it, I will do better next time.

[Deleted User]

GQ I hear them on the bus, in the shops, in the street whenever two or more are gathered together and I see them egging each other on to greater heights of discontent and never even entertaining the concept that things are only the way they are because of decisions taken freely by themselves earlier in life. It's what I call 'Chickens on the Bus Syndrome'. They all start clucking and whining and it escalates with each one trying to be more deserving or more put upon than all the others, to ridiculous levels when all you get is 'It's disgusting, how we have to live, THEY should do something about it!!!' while they sit there dripping jewellery, having discussed the latest cruise or 6th holiday they'll be taking this year or how much they're going to spend on a pair of shoes or a meal out. It's the nature of humanity in the main to be discontented and to see themselves as the underdog and rarely is it justified!

GreyQueen

Chickens on the Bus, oh I like that and consider it stolen. A woman I know tells me how her grandmother uses her winter fuel allowance to fly to her spanish holiday home where she overwinters. !!!!!! are we doing as a society when I talk to young families who can't afford to heat their very modest homes and yet we give cash to people without focussing it on those who need it.........or who are even in the country.

I ride on buses about once a year when I go up to the big hospital, the crowd on the coaches I have to use to get to the hometown aren't rich pensioner eavesdropping places as you can't use your bus pass on them.

My folks started work at 15, Mum stopped at 21 when 7 months along with me and restarted work properly when we were 9 and 7. Hard blinking work, in factories (Mum) and farms, building sites, and factories (Dad). They're pretty tired these days, his health is better than hers, but there are 4 generations of my Dad's family alive and over 21 right now, tough old birds, the lot of them.

We used to eat cheap sausages when times were tougher. They now eat nice sausages from a craft butcher. Doesn't occur to them that they might upgrade to steak, which I think is sweet.:rotfl:

[Deleted User]

I heard a doozie of a conversation on the bus into town a few weeks ago a couple and another lady on her own all of similar age to us, the couple had just flown back in from 3 weeks in Spain to collect their NHS Meds before flying off somewhere else for a couple of weeks and the woman on her own was off to the station for her third holiday of the year, only three more to go after this she said, I like to get away for a break every other month these days!!!!! unbelieveable!!!

Just to qualify my post last night, I also hear the discontent and complaints from every other age group too, it seems that perception is universally that everyone is underprivileged and needy in a special sort of way, no matter how materially affluent they are or how much they are supported it's the gubment not doing enough, the NHS not giving them what they want, the schools or the council not playing ball on their demands, their parents not giving them enough for the latest gadget or not letting them go on holidays with their mates, The whole of society has become a great gormless group of spoiled and over pampered two year olds stamping their feet and wailing 'IT'S NOT FAIR' and 'POOR ME', how some of us have escaped this is a bit of a mystery but I'll be eternally grateful that we did and that our feet are firmly on terra firma and our eyes still see reality and not the myth that is living in 2015!

mardatha

Well personally GQ, I'm a pensioner and I feel that I am fully entitled to free sweeties. I demand free jellybabies and I'm prepared to fight for that.

GreyQueen

mardatha wrote: »

Well personally GQ, I'm a pensioner and I feel that I am fully entitled to free sweeties. I demand free jellybabies and I'm prepared to fight for that.

But how far will you go? Are you prepared to storm Jelly HQ to secure a supply line of this fabled product? Spill sugar in the fight for your inalienable rights?

I'm limbering up for a morning of glasses shopping (spectacles not drinking glasses) which is always great fun. Then having to stay in for 5 hours as at some point this afternoon there will be an electrical supervisor coming in to discuss What Needs to Be Done Before the Rewire. Don't even know when they propose to do it but my annual leave is already booked so I guess they'll have to fit in around me.

Will tidy around and make sure nothing incriminating is in view before he arrives.............:rotfl:

mardatha

Near sweeties I am a dangerous woman. It's goin to get nasty.
Mad Mard.