We'd like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum... Read More »
📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!
How much is 'enough' for a single pensioner?
Options
Parsimonia
Posts: 255 Forumite
Dear all,
Your advice would be much appreciated as I'm sooooo frustrated...
As I've posted in other threads, my hubby is likely to lose his incapacity benefit in 5 weeks' time, and because I work full time he's not entitled to JSA, so we will need to tighten our belts a bit.
We've worked out all our bills etc and once we've taken into account our fixed commitments such as our mortgage, utilities, council tax, annual expenses (car/house insurance, putting a bit aside every month towards Christmas etc. ) we'll have about £130 a week left, so we've set a budget of £100 a week which has to cover us for groceries, petrol, dog food, entertainment, gifts, haircuts etc., leaving a 'buffer' of £30 a week for emergencies. We also have savings of just over £5000, so the wolf's not exactly at the door.
We reckon we'll be OK, and we count our blessings that we're much better off than many...our mortgage finishes in 4 years, and that will help a lot.
My frustration comes from my MIL, who lives in the next village. She's 74 and was widowed 3 years ago. She's always been very, very extravagant, and when her husband (my hubby's step-dad) died, any restraint that she'd previously shown over her spending went out of the window.
When she and her 2nd husband married ten years ago, they each sold their own house to set up home together. His house was sold for £360k, hers was sold for £130k. They bought a house for £260,000 and banked the remaining £230,000.
FIL became ill soon after they were married, and was unable to monitor the household spending. MIL went doolally and ran through the £230,000 nest egg in less than 5 years (about £100,000 was spent on renovating the house, the rest was frittered on clothes, accessories, fine wining and dining, shopping trips to London and Milan etc). When FIL died in 2011 there was just £7000 remaining.
Within a year of being widowed she had to downsize to a smaller house because of financial worries. By this time, she was overdrawn by £10,000.
She sold the house for £260,000 (none of the 'renovations' had added a penny of value to the house), and bought a bungalow for £136,000. After paying conveyancing, removals and clearing her overdraft, she was able to bank £104,000. This was in March 2012.
Yesterday she phoned in tears, because she's so worried about her finances.
We went round and I went through all her finances for her...there's now just £14,000 left of the £104,000 nest egg that was supposed to last her for the rest of her life.
She's 74 and in excellent health - she's never spent a day in hospital or had a serious illenss, and she keeps herself fit, active and slim, so there's no reason why she shouldn't live until she's well into her 90s or beyond...
She reckons she's spent most of the £90,000 on home improvements. But by 'home improvements' she doesn't mean anything structural that will add value to the property - she means soft furnishings, garden furniture etc. The rest has gone on clothes, cosmetic surgery, cosmetic dentistry, foreign holidays, and eating out (literally) five times a week.
The property was valued just before Christmas and is now worth £144,000.
We went through her income and fixed commitments, and her pension income totals £1,797 per month. Her bills (including annual amounts for car insurance etc.) total £432 per month.
We pointed out that this means that she has 'spare' revenue income of £1,365 a month (or over £300 a week!!!), but she just bemoaned how she can't possibly survive on such a pittance and she doesn't know what to do, and she may as well kill herself now because "after going without all my life, I swore I wouldn't have an impoverished old age..."
I was totally gobsmacked.
My parents (aged 87 and 84) get by comfortably on less than half of that amount, and as I pointed out at the beginning of this post, my hubby and I will have budgeted to spend ony £100 a week (of which £25 is petrol for me to get to work every day).
I went onto Compare the Market and managed to get considerable reductions for her car insurance, house insurance and gas/electricity bill (I saved her £770 a year overall) but even that didn't cheer her up.
She knows she's a spend-a-holic, so we offered to 'hide' her credit cards and cheque book and give her a weekly allowance for a month to try to get her to develop more thrifty spending habits, but she wouldn't hear of it.
I'm at my wits end how to get through to her.
We suspect that she thinks the answer to her problems will be to sell her house back to an agency who will allow her to remain living it until she dies....but we're not sure if she's able to do that given that her 2nd husband wrote a will leaving her a life interest in the house, but after she dies the estate is theoretically to be split into 4 equal parts (1 part each for my hubby and his sister, and the two other equal shares for FIL's two sons). My hubby and his sister are pretty resigned to not inheriting a penny (they're just glad you can't inherit someone's debts!) but both of FIL's sons are in poor health (one has MS and the other has COPD) and both are probably expecting something to come to them in the fullness of time as it was what their dad worked hard his whole life to ensure.
It seems criminal that MIL has squandered the money that FIL specifically said he wanted to go to his two children...and she shows no sign of slowing down her spending.
My hubby is sick with worry about her, and worried she'll do something silly (she kept talking about life not being worth living on such a pittance)....
Can anyone think of what I can do or say to try to get through to her to make her see that she needs to put a brake on her spending, and start counting her blessings instead of feeling like she's destitute and hard-done-by? I don't have the words to break through to her - she just can't see how she can possible make any economies, and she thinks a slide into penury is unavoidable because she doesn't have a 'living income'. When someone is that far detached from reality, how can you show them the error of their ways?
By the way, my hubby's sister is also on a modest income, so it's not as if MIL doesn't have examples right under her nose of people (and loved ones, at that!) managing on far less than she thinks she needs for herself...
Your advice would be much appreciated as I'm sooooo frustrated...
As I've posted in other threads, my hubby is likely to lose his incapacity benefit in 5 weeks' time, and because I work full time he's not entitled to JSA, so we will need to tighten our belts a bit.
We've worked out all our bills etc and once we've taken into account our fixed commitments such as our mortgage, utilities, council tax, annual expenses (car/house insurance, putting a bit aside every month towards Christmas etc. ) we'll have about £130 a week left, so we've set a budget of £100 a week which has to cover us for groceries, petrol, dog food, entertainment, gifts, haircuts etc., leaving a 'buffer' of £30 a week for emergencies. We also have savings of just over £5000, so the wolf's not exactly at the door.
We reckon we'll be OK, and we count our blessings that we're much better off than many...our mortgage finishes in 4 years, and that will help a lot.
My frustration comes from my MIL, who lives in the next village. She's 74 and was widowed 3 years ago. She's always been very, very extravagant, and when her husband (my hubby's step-dad) died, any restraint that she'd previously shown over her spending went out of the window.
When she and her 2nd husband married ten years ago, they each sold their own house to set up home together. His house was sold for £360k, hers was sold for £130k. They bought a house for £260,000 and banked the remaining £230,000.
FIL became ill soon after they were married, and was unable to monitor the household spending. MIL went doolally and ran through the £230,000 nest egg in less than 5 years (about £100,000 was spent on renovating the house, the rest was frittered on clothes, accessories, fine wining and dining, shopping trips to London and Milan etc). When FIL died in 2011 there was just £7000 remaining.
Within a year of being widowed she had to downsize to a smaller house because of financial worries. By this time, she was overdrawn by £10,000.
She sold the house for £260,000 (none of the 'renovations' had added a penny of value to the house), and bought a bungalow for £136,000. After paying conveyancing, removals and clearing her overdraft, she was able to bank £104,000. This was in March 2012.
Yesterday she phoned in tears, because she's so worried about her finances.
We went round and I went through all her finances for her...there's now just £14,000 left of the £104,000 nest egg that was supposed to last her for the rest of her life.
She's 74 and in excellent health - she's never spent a day in hospital or had a serious illenss, and she keeps herself fit, active and slim, so there's no reason why she shouldn't live until she's well into her 90s or beyond...
She reckons she's spent most of the £90,000 on home improvements. But by 'home improvements' she doesn't mean anything structural that will add value to the property - she means soft furnishings, garden furniture etc. The rest has gone on clothes, cosmetic surgery, cosmetic dentistry, foreign holidays, and eating out (literally) five times a week.
The property was valued just before Christmas and is now worth £144,000.
We went through her income and fixed commitments, and her pension income totals £1,797 per month. Her bills (including annual amounts for car insurance etc.) total £432 per month.
We pointed out that this means that she has 'spare' revenue income of £1,365 a month (or over £300 a week!!!), but she just bemoaned how she can't possibly survive on such a pittance and she doesn't know what to do, and she may as well kill herself now because "after going without all my life, I swore I wouldn't have an impoverished old age..."
I was totally gobsmacked.
My parents (aged 87 and 84) get by comfortably on less than half of that amount, and as I pointed out at the beginning of this post, my hubby and I will have budgeted to spend ony £100 a week (of which £25 is petrol for me to get to work every day).
I went onto Compare the Market and managed to get considerable reductions for her car insurance, house insurance and gas/electricity bill (I saved her £770 a year overall) but even that didn't cheer her up.
She knows she's a spend-a-holic, so we offered to 'hide' her credit cards and cheque book and give her a weekly allowance for a month to try to get her to develop more thrifty spending habits, but she wouldn't hear of it.
I'm at my wits end how to get through to her.
We suspect that she thinks the answer to her problems will be to sell her house back to an agency who will allow her to remain living it until she dies....but we're not sure if she's able to do that given that her 2nd husband wrote a will leaving her a life interest in the house, but after she dies the estate is theoretically to be split into 4 equal parts (1 part each for my hubby and his sister, and the two other equal shares for FIL's two sons). My hubby and his sister are pretty resigned to not inheriting a penny (they're just glad you can't inherit someone's debts!) but both of FIL's sons are in poor health (one has MS and the other has COPD) and both are probably expecting something to come to them in the fullness of time as it was what their dad worked hard his whole life to ensure.
It seems criminal that MIL has squandered the money that FIL specifically said he wanted to go to his two children...and she shows no sign of slowing down her spending.
My hubby is sick with worry about her, and worried she'll do something silly (she kept talking about life not being worth living on such a pittance)....
Can anyone think of what I can do or say to try to get through to her to make her see that she needs to put a brake on her spending, and start counting her blessings instead of feeling like she's destitute and hard-done-by? I don't have the words to break through to her - she just can't see how she can possible make any economies, and she thinks a slide into penury is unavoidable because she doesn't have a 'living income'. When someone is that far detached from reality, how can you show them the error of their ways?
By the way, my hubby's sister is also on a modest income, so it's not as if MIL doesn't have examples right under her nose of people (and loved ones, at that!) managing on far less than she thinks she needs for herself...
Save £12k in 2014 - No. 153 - £1900/£9000
January NSD Challenge - 19/21 under target
February NSD Challenge - 22/20 - over target
March NSD Challenge - 19/14 - over target
April NSD Challenge - 0/16
YTD NSDs = 60
January NSD Challenge - 19/21 under target
February NSD Challenge - 22/20 - over target
March NSD Challenge - 19/14 - over target
April NSD Challenge - 0/16
YTD NSDs = 60
0
Comments
-
Wow!
She could be quite comfortable........if she grew up and acted like an adult!
It seems as if you have enough to worry about yourselves, OP, without taking on your MIL 's profligacy.Member #14 of SKI-ers club
Words, words, they're all we have to go by!.
(Pity they are mangled by this autocorrect!)0 -
We suspect that she thinks the answer to her problems will be to sell her house back to an agency who will allow her to remain living it until she dies....but we're not sure if she's able to do that given that her 2nd husband wrote a will leaving her a life interest in the house, but after she dies the estate is theoretically to be split into 4 equal parts (1 part each for my hubby and his sister, and the two other equal shares for FIL's two sons). My hubby and his sister are pretty resigned to not inheriting a penny (they're just glad you can't inherit someone's debts!) but both of FIL's sons are in poor health (one has MS and the other has COPD) and both are probably expecting something to come to them in the fullness of time as it was what their dad worked hard his whole life to ensure
Hasn't she already sold the house she was living in when her 2nd husband died (ie the one she had a life interest in)?0 -
Hasn't she already sold the house she was living in when her 2nd husband died (ie the one she had a life interest in)?
Yes, but that was with the full knowledge and support of her two step sons. The understanding was that she would downsize the house to release some of the equity to fund her living expenses, but that once she finally died, the smaller house would then remain to be split 4 ways. They have no idea that she's talking about selling the house to release the equity to fund her lifestyle and then the house reverts to the agency on her death. She thinks this will allow her to live rent free in the property and have another £144,000 to spend.....we think she's living in cloud-cuckoo-land, but we're not legal experts.
MIL's step sons are both lovely men (now in their 50s) and when she said that their father had died leaving her practically penniless they were appalled at his poor planning and said of course they understood that she needed an income to live on. I think if they'd known that she would have a net pension income of over £20k a year they may not have been so generous.
We saw a copy of FIL's will and we've always assumed its legally enforceable, but as I said we're far from being legal experts.
It just doesn't seem right that she can effectively steal her step-sons' inheritance. Hubby and his sister don't mind about not having anything themselves (she's their mum, they love her, they see her as their financial cross to bear) but they're horrified at what she's doing to their step-siblings.Save £12k in 2014 - No. 153 - £1900/£9000
January NSD Challenge - 19/21 under target
February NSD Challenge - 22/20 - over target
March NSD Challenge - 19/14 - over target
April NSD Challenge - 0/16
YTD NSDs = 600 -
A rich boyfriend would solve her problems?"A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Ride hard or stay home :iloveyou:0 -
A rich boyfriend would solve her problems?
Funny you should say that! She left hubby's dad for her 2nd husband as he was richer than her first, and she currently has two gentlemen friends who are vying to look after her...(one is 83 and the other 92)...
Both have made proposals of marriage and both have offered to sell their houses and buy a joint property with her and leave her comfortable when they die...thus far she's turned both down.
I'm not sure why....she may be holding out for a better offer. For a lady of 74 she is remarkably attractive and uses that to good effect.
I'm making her sound like an awful person and she's not at all...she's lovely, really, but she IS a terrible spendthrift and a little mercenary when it comes to wealthy suitors...Save £12k in 2014 - No. 153 - £1900/£9000
January NSD Challenge - 19/21 under target
February NSD Challenge - 22/20 - over target
March NSD Challenge - 19/14 - over target
April NSD Challenge - 0/16
YTD NSDs = 600 -
It seems your MiL may have a plan. Doesn't make her a bad person :AParsimonia wrote: »Funny you should say that! She left hubby's dad for her 2nd husband as he was richer than her first, and she currently has two gentlemen friends who are vying to look after her...(one is 83 and the other 92)...
Both have made proposals of marriage and both have offered to sell their houses and buy a joint property with her and leave her comfortable when they die...thus far she's turned both down.
I'm not sure why....she may be holding out for a better offer. For a lady of 74 she is remarkably attractive and uses that to good effect.
I'm making her sound like an awful person and she's not at all...she's lovely, really, but she IS a terrible spendthrift and a little mercenary when it comes to wealthy suitors..."A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Ride hard or stay home :iloveyou:0 -
It seems your MiL may have a plan. Doesn't make her a bad person :A
Oh, I don't think she's a bad person at all. She's kind, warm, generous-hearted, empathetic - she's a very lovable person....but just hopeless with money and a spending addict!Save £12k in 2014 - No. 153 - £1900/£9000
January NSD Challenge - 19/21 under target
February NSD Challenge - 22/20 - over target
March NSD Challenge - 19/14 - over target
April NSD Challenge - 0/16
YTD NSDs = 600 -
Parsimonia wrote: »
I'm at my wits end how to get through to her.
She knows she's a spend-a-holic, so we offered to 'hide' her credit cards and cheque book and give her a weekly allowance for a month to try to get her to develop more thrifty spending habits, but she wouldn't hear of it.
You won't get through to her.
At least not until she's ready to listen.
She needs to have her 'lightbulb' moment and it sounds like she's light-years away from that.
Just like drug addicts, alcoholics and gamblers need to acknowledge their problems and that they need help, so does your MIL.Parsimonia wrote: »
We pointed out that this means that she has 'spare' revenue income of £1,365 a month (or over £300 a week!!!), but she just bemoaned how she can't possibly survive on such a pittance and she doesn't know what to do, and she may as well kill herself now because "after going without all my life, I swore I wouldn't have an impoverished old age..."
My hubby is sick with worry about her, and worried she'll do something silly (she kept talking about life not being worth living on such a pittance)....
That sounds like a typical drama queen, tbh.Parsimonia wrote: »
Can anyone think of what I can do or say to try to get through to her to make her see that she needs to put a brake on her spending, and start counting her blessings instead of feeling like she's destitute and hard-done-by? I don't have the words to break through to her - she just can't see how she can possible make any economies, and she thinks a slide into penury is unavoidable because she doesn't have a 'living income'. When someone is that far detached from reality, how can you show them the error of their ways?
She seems very detached from reality and I doubt than anyone would be able to say anything to show her the error or her ways.
I appreciate that it's a very difficult situation for you and your OH to be in but sometimes you just can't help people if they don't want to be or won't be helped.
Good luck with your own budgeting.
0 -
I wonder what she would think of the mean queen, who lives off next to nothing and wears old clothes:
http://meanqueen-lifeaftermoney.blogspot.co.uk/Who having known the diamond will concern himself with glass?
Rudyard Kipling0 -
Most of us start to face reality in our fifties, if not before, in that there will come a time when we won't be able to rely on the next pay rise, the better job etc. to see us through. We will reach a point when we retire when we are pretty much on a fixed income, with maybe just annual adjustments for inflation. Your mother in law seems to have only just worked this out for herself and the money-tree has long stopped budding.
I think £1000 per month should suffice as long as you have some savings for emergencies and to provide a little extra income. Now I have no mortgage I have to pinch myself that my outgoings are so low and once I retire I will have so much time to make household economies I think I should manage quite well. The budget won't run to too many extravagances, but I intend to be warm and well-fed and able to pay my way in the long-termSolar Suntellite 250 x16 4kW Afore 3600TL dual 2KW E 2KW W no shade, DN15 March 14
[SIZE Givenergy 9.5 battery added July 23
[/SIZE]0
This discussion has been closed.
Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply
Categories
- All Categories
- 351.1K Banking & Borrowing
- 253.2K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
- 453.6K Spending & Discounts
- 244.1K Work, Benefits & Business
- 599.1K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
- 177K Life & Family
- 257.5K Travel & Transport
- 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
- 16.1K Discuss & Feedback
- 37.6K Read-Only Boards