How much is 'enough' for a single pensioner?

Pollycat

Katiehound wrote: »

What's Pinecone when it is at home? I've never heard of it. Tell us all please!

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Parsimonia

margaretclare wrote: »

. But keeping personal accounts is important to me. This is the only way I know where you really see where money is going and how to save it. For me, the only way of using a credit card is to pay off the total every month. I shudder to think how much interest I've paid, unnecessarily, over the years.

I 100% agree! It takes me just a few minutes each day to 'do my finances' and you could wake me from a deep sleep and say 'How much is in your current account?' and I could tell you to the penny! Plus how much is committed to come out of my account between now and next payday.

I also use a spreadsheet to plan ahead...I've logged all known income and fixed bills such as direct debits for a whole 12 months ahead, so that annual commitments such as car insurance don't come as a nasty surprise.

I consider my credit card a 'DEBT card', and pay it off in full every month without fail. If I can't afford to pay it off, I don't buy it. End of story.

On a positive note, MIL cancelled her delivery for tomorrow (she sacrificed her £10 deposit, but saved the £180 cost of the CD rack). She also went into town with her friend and returned the dress to the shop (tags still attached) and got a full refund onto the friend's CC.

Without MILs knowledge at the time (although she knows now, after the fact) I phoned her three closest friends (the ones she sees every single week, and who encourage the bulk of her spending) and told them that MIL had asked me to speak to them about helping her to cut back on her spending. I didn't tell them that it was because of imminent insolvency, but I did say that MIL was trying to curb what amounted to a spending addiction, and that their help and support could be pivotal in helping her to develop more balanced spending habits. They all referred to MIL's famous generosity and all said that they had always found her spendthriftiness to be somewhat uncontrolled....all 3 said they would do their best to lead her away from temptation, and all 3 promised not to lend her money to buy things.

When I told MIL she was mortified and angry - but about an hour ago she called me to say that all 3 friends had since phoned her and been really kind and understanding. One had said that she'd had to cope with an alcohol dependency issue after being widowed, and so she knew from personal experience how easy it was to give into temptation - she said that owning up to an problem was a great first step. Another friend just said that she totally understood why MIL wanted to gain more control - she said no doubt it was because MIL wanted to donate more to charity, which was a nice ego boost for MIL, who did nothing to convince her to the contrary.

So, in short, MIL said she was grateful I'd done what I'd done...and she saw it was the right thing to have done.

Let's see if it works.

On Thursday I'm also going with her to speak to her bank about securing their help to try to curb her spending. I'm not sure if they can do anything to help, but it's certainly worth speaking to them.

margaretclare

On Thursday I'm also going with her to speak to her bank about securing their help to try to curb her spending. I'm not sure if they can do anything to help, but it's certainly worth speaking to them.

The bank could possibly reduce/cancel her overdraft facility. Pity she's so against internet banking. She could do this online and save the time and effort of a trip to the bank.

I'm not sure there's much else they can do.

I'm glad she took the dress back and cancelled the delivery. I've had to do things like that, long ago, in another existence...And someone on here a few pages back told me I was 'fortunate'? Ironic that.

itsanne

Parsimonia wrote: »

On a positive note, MIL cancelled her delivery for tomorrow (she sacrificed her £10 deposit, but saved the £180 cost of the CD rack). She also went into town with her friend and returned the dress to the shop (tags still attached) and got a full refund onto the friend's CC.

Without MILs knowledge at the time (although she knows now, after the fact) I phoned her three closest friends (the ones she sees every single week, and who encourage the bulk of her spending) and told them that MIL had asked me to speak to them about helping her to cut back on her spending. I didn't tell them that it was because of imminent insolvency, but I did say that MIL was trying to curb what amounted to a spending addiction, and that their help and support could be pivotal in helping her to develop more balanced spending habits. They all referred to MIL's famous generosity and all said that they had always found her spendthriftiness to be somewhat uncontrolled....all 3 said they would do their best to lead her away from temptation, and all 3 promised not to lend her money to buy things.

When I told MIL she was mortified and angry - but about an hour ago she called me to say that all 3 friends had since phoned her and been really kind and understanding. One had said that she'd had to cope with an alcohol dependency issue after being widowed, and so she knew from personal experience how easy it was to give into temptation - she said that owning up to an problem was a great first step. Another friend just said that she totally understood why MIL wanted to gain more control - she said no doubt it was because MIL wanted to donate more to charity, which was a nice ego boost for MIL, who did nothing to convince her to the contrary.

So, in short, MIL said she was grateful I'd done what I'd done...and she saw it was the right thing to have done.

Let's see if it works.

On Thursday I'm also going with her to speak to her bank about securing their help to try to curb her spending. I'm not sure if they can do anything to help, but it's certainly worth speaking to them.

That's actually much more promising than I had anticipated . Well done for getting MIL to take a step in the right direction. Three steps forward and two back is still heading the right way. Hopefully you're feeling a bit less disheartened.

And I agree, a credit card is a debt card. It's a pity more people don't recognise that. Other boards on MSE are full of people who just don't get it :cool:.

Parsimonia

MIL has just phoned, as pleased as punch with herself!

She turned down 2 lunch invitations for Thursday and Friday this week. She's also spent the day batch cooking, and has made 30 main meals out of her storecupboard stash (ranging from sausage plait to mixed vegetable bake to nut roast to green lentil chilli to 4 different types of soup) which she's figured out have cost her a total of £18 (she went online and worked out the cost of replacing the used up ingredients on the Tesco website, because she couldn't find the information on the Aldi website).

This is a HUGE step forward...!!!!

Not so much the batch cooking (she's always been strangely thrifty about using up leftovers and she's an excellent cook) but more that she overcame her internet aversion and worked out how much it had cost her - that is a massive achievement for her and shows that she's at least TRYING to make steps in the right direction.

And she was so chuffed to have made 30 meals at an average of 60p per meal!

Baby steps, baby steps.....

I'm sure we've rocky days ahead, but it's nice to have small victories to celebrate!!!:D:D:D

seven-day-weekend

This is all great news, how well she is doing and how encouraging for you.

It must be a big help for her that her friends are being kind and supportive. She probably thought they would think badly of her, it will encourage her no end to find that they understand.

So pleased, for all of you xx

Parsimonia

Guess what?!?!

I never thought I'd see myself type these words, but MIL had a NSD yesterday!!!

:beer::beer::beer:

Parsimonia

Just when things were starting to look positive, we had another setback!

We had an appointment with her bank yesterday late morning, and there wasn't much they could suggest to help her. She's already on their highest saving account for a current account, and it appears she's been mishandling the account badly (no surprise there!)

As she's already exceeded her £5000 overdraft limit they did agree to extend the overdraft to £7,500 for three months to reduce her bank charges whilst she sorts herself out, but after the three months they're withdrawing her overdraft facility entirely.

That means she needs to withdraw about £6.5k from her savings account to clear her overdraft. The bank also reduced the amount that she can withdraw from the hole-in-the-wall from £500 a day to £250 a day.

I don't think it helped matters that MIL got very combative and started saying that it was people like her that kept banks solvent, and threatening to take her account elsewhere. The person we dealt with was unfailingly polite and professional, but I could tell he was losing patience by the end.

They cancelled some old DDs and standing orders, but not enough to make any major impact, and they gave her a pack showing the pattern of her income and expenditure over the past year, which was a sight to behold. They also tried to give her a pack containing budgeting advice etc, but she got stroppy and refused to accept it.

She demanded to know how much of her overdraft they would write off, and when they said that it must be repaid in full, she picked up her handbag and stormed off. The bank person and I sat there expecting her to come back but she didn't...I made my apologies and left, and found her sitting in the cafe opposite in a storming bad temper....and now she's gone all mutinous and is refusing to even countenance the idea of making cutbacks.

I feel like I'm back to square one now - in fact, this is probably a worse situation than 2 weeks ago!

seven-day-weekend

Oh dear....not too good. She is probably panicking because she sees 'all' her money being cut off. Let's hope she realises that she has little choice but to comply with the bank's requirements, because I doubt she will be able to transfer her overdraft elsewhere

Errata

Sounds like she's shot herself in both feet with another shot straight into her brain for good measure.
She's vain, rude and stupid. In your shoes I'd now take the opportunity to leave her to stew in her own juice before she turned on me.