widow's pension

iris

If you read my post again you will see that there is a buffer per month of £50 for any 'extras'. There is also over £200 per month left over for whatever you want to buy that is extra.

As for the car insurance - we are at the moment looking to renew ours. It is for a 3 year old Mercedes CLC Coupe and we have renewal quotes at the moment for approx. £176 comprehensive cover with Protected NCD and legal protection. We don't need breakdown and recovery because our car is always serviced by main dealer and is therefore covered. Our car has also been serviced for £25 per month (service contract). However, we do garage our car. There is also cash- back from TCB.

However, if I was on my own I would probably buy a much smaller and cheaper car and therefore my outgoings would be even less i.e. no road tax

If you go over to the Old Style board you will find many 'pensioners' living on less than £100 per month and eating nutritious food.

I really was just trying to help and show that you can live on £145 per week.

brewerdave

Off topic I know - but iris, if I may ask, who has given you a renewal quote of £176 pa on your car?? Genuinely interested because my wife's MX5 is due -and the quotes even with max no claims ,are way more than that!!!!

iris

brewerdave wrote: »

Off topic I know - but iris, if I may ask, who has given you a renewal quote of £176 pa on your car?? Genuinely interested because my wife's MX5 is due -and the quotes even with max no claims ,are way more than that!!!!

Our quotes are from Halifax and M&S and there are a few others, but you need to factor in that we garage our car and do not use it for work (we are both retired) I believe your wife works, so think this will make a significant difference. We have full NCB. We also live in the sticks and only do about 7/8000 miles per year. Our car is not a soft top. We also use TCB.

HTH

margaretclare

margaretjohns wrote: »

Wow Iris! I think I must be very wasteful then as I am sure I couldn't manage. Food and toiletries, cleaning items all for £75 per month. To me that's worrying about the quality of food pensioners are eating

I missed seeing this. This is about what we spend on the said items per week, not per month. We do eat well, are fussy about what we buy. One person on her own? When I lived alone I used to buy a lot in bulk, freezer packs from the butcher, split it all into smaller freezer bags, 2 sausages etc! I also used to cook ahead and freeze so that I always had a meal to defrost, big pots of stew etc which could be put into smaller containers to make a meal for one.

Car insurance, Churchill, £19.92 a month, 2 drivers, 09 Ford Fiesta Titanium.