THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

GreyQueen

DigForVictory wrote: »

Bit of a wait before I'm allowed a pension, but have both pitchfork and several burning brands (made on proper broomstick handles) to take the weight & keep the flames at a reasonable distance. Himself has an 8' spear which keeps most debate at a thoughtful distance...

When you want your mob, give me a whistle!
[Um, just if it's Thursday I may come with a pack of Scouts.]

One should always Be Prepared, and a whole pack of Scouts is taking preparedness to the ultimate. If you've never heard this wee song, you really haven't lived: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoEVPtVk9nE

Been to my allotment today and returned my emergency bag, after having checked its contents and rotated the meds. I keep a small backpack in a crate in the depths of the lottie shed. Nothing too valuable, a change of clothes, 2 sets undies and socks, an old jacket with a pair of gloves and a hat, plus a basic toiletry kit and one or two other useful bits and bobs.

The idea being that if I couldn't get into the flat, I should be able to get into the lottie shed, and it would form the basis of a kit to doss somewhere else.

herbily

maryb wrote: »

I simply do not understand how they expect people to keep going until their late 60s I can't be unusual in having cumulative health problems

The ONS publishes the Healthy Life Expectancy for every area in England (sorry, don't know where the data for Scotland is) http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/bulletins/healthylifeexpectancyatbirthandage65byuppertierlocalauthorityandareadeprivation/england2012to2014


Needless to say, in most parts of the country the healthy life expectancy is below the retirement age. This means the average person is likely to be claiming benefits for one or more years before they collect their pension. Raising the pension age automatically raises the benefits bill. It doesn't necessarily keep people in the workforce, it just changes what kind of benefit they're entitled to. Wonder if anyone at the Treasury has worked this out yet?

GreyQueen

That file path doesn't work for me but I found the file in the site anyway. It's an Excel doc.

Here it is:

Males
South East 80.5 65.1 * South West 80.2 65.0 * East of England 80.4 64.8 * London 80.3 64.0 * East Midlands 79.4 62.5 ** West Midlands 78.9 62.3 ** Yorkshire and The Humber 78.7 61.4 ** North West 78.1 61.0 ** North East 78.0 60.4 ** England 79.5 63.3

Females South East 84.0 65.2 * East of England 83.8 64.7 * South West 83.9 64.3 * London 84.2 64.2 * West Midlands 82.9 62.2 ** East Midlands 83.0 61.8 ** Yorkshire and The Humber 82.4 61.6 ** North West 81.9 61.0 ** North East 81.7 60.4 ** England 83.2 63.2

The first figure between the asterisks is life expectancy, the second is disability-free life expectancy, the bolded figure is the average. I've copied an Excel doc but it won't display in colums on the thread.

For both males and females of every single region in England, the disability-free life expectancy is under 65 years. In some cases, a whisker over 60 years.

What jolly japes as we take more and more time off sick, and to attend appointments and receive treatment, whilst trying to maintain our saleability as employees to bosses who may well even be of our grandchildrens' generation.

TPTB are blinking idiots, as always.

moneyistooshorttomention

That's shocking figures.

All the more shocking as "disability free" doesnt necessarily mean healthy. Also different people have different definitions as to what they describe as healthy - eg I was talking to someone in their 70s the other day that described themselves as healthy (to which my response was "But you said you've got x, y and z wrong with you.....").

I wonder if those figures are broken down into more detail anywhere? It's a very broad brush approach to say, for instance, if you're female and from South West England - then life expectancy is 83.9 and disability-free expectancy is 64.3 and I'd be interested to see it broken down more according to all the main variables (eg financial level/number of children and pregnancies/etc/etc).

I'd expect there to be a huge difference, for instance, between say a woman that had had no children (or even pregnancies) and one who had had lots of children. I'd also expect a huge difference between, say, a man who had done a professional type job or pretty traditional type office job and one who had spent his life scraping a living on running a small farm. Certainly, on moving to elsewhere in the country, I've been quite shocked to see the much higher percentage of late middle age to elderly people that obviously have a "disability" level of illness and I was told a lot of it is down to the harshness of life doing subsistence farming.

EDIT; On from that - I am wondering what the figures for the rest of the country are - as I went to study the Welsh regions and then realised these figures are only for the English regions.

maryb

How healthy you feel is in part a response to the demands on you and I think that is the point I was trying, in a confused way, to make about early retirement. I feel in good health most of the time despite the accumulating number of repeat prescriptions. But if I still had to do 10 hour days I would feel very differently

moneyistooshorttomention

I'm convinced that "demands on you" as you call it MaryB is indeed a major factor that also influences peoples health.

If someone has a very long workday and/or antisocial hours then it's got to have an effect if that is the case for very long.

Other jobs involve health hazards per se and that's difficult too.

Looked at from the other viewpoint and people who have to do a full-time job probably find it difficult to impossible to find the time to actively look after their health (be it exercise/preparing proper meals/etc) and I know I'd personally come to a point where, though I was in a non-demanding (in a physical sense:cool:) job I was aware that it was becoming necessary to have the time for that preventative health care of having enough exercise, etc, or there might be health problems further down the line.

So I can definitely see what you're getting at there.

GreyQueen

SuperGran took early retirement several years before reaching state retirement age. After a fight which was escalated right up to her MP, she was allowed to take her NHS pension, and topped it up with savings to bridge a few years until she was 60. It was a struggle and there's no way in hell she would have been able to cover the difference up to the new age of retirement.

She was physically and mentally exhausted from working as a theatre sister, sometimes being sent with no notice to another big regional hospital, a round trip of 120 miles and having to drive back in the small hours. You'd get home sometimes, she'd explain, utterly shattered, and the phone would ring before you'd even got your coat off.

Bad road traffic accident, theatre(s) opening for emergency surgery, all hands to the pumps. What can you do?

I know a fair few of my own mid-life female cohort are going down with things like multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, crippling arthritis, cancer. They're sometimes managing working with chronic illnesses by going part-time instead of full-time, but it is a terrible struggle, and they're visibly not well on it.

For the youngest in the workforce, the state retirement age (SRA) is already 68. I look at them and wonder if they will even live to see this age. They are certainly nowhere near as fit as my grandmother and her 1920s-born peers, who are in their nineties now, and starting to pass away.

There are unintended consequences to all this. Some twenty-somethings I know are pulling out of pension schemes. They can't see the point if their retirement age is going to be pushing 70 and there will be so many gouges taken off their contributions anyway. They're taking their ball and leaving the pitch. I can't entirely blame them, it's a pretty rational response to a ridiculous situation.

There are other aspects to this; later-life women typically have heavy family responsibilites to aging parents and in-laws and towards grandchildren, and many do voluntary work. I know voluntary organisations which go into crisis on rotas every school holiday inc half-term. The majority of their vols are grand-parents who are called on for childcare duties when school is out.

With the younger-retired due to disappear, and the older-retired going to be that much more exhausted by the time they reach SRA, who is going to be doing all the good things which are now being done?

Presumably the unemployed teens and twenty-somethings who have to wait for the grey-haired to drop in the traces like worn-out horses before they can start their own working lives.

maryb

They say your thirties are the first time a lot of people develop a health problem, such as IBS. Your sixties are when it becomes the norm. We haven't really defeated nature

westcoastscot

MaryB totally understand what you meant -stress has a huge impact on health and well-being.
Being disabled in no way means that you are not healthy and for those with a chronic illness (a different thing, MTSTM) you can still be healthy if it is well managed. I have been in that position for the past 5 years - up until the turn of this year actually - my PsA was very well managed and my lifestyle up to then has afforded me a great deal of resilience which I'm very grateful for.

In Scotland, generally, life expectancy is shorter - particularly in the cities. In my own case PsA is known to curb life expectancy by approx 3 years, and brings with it a 60% higher mortality rate than for an "average" woman. I try not to dwell on that - it's an immune disorder - nothing I do or could have done could prevent that, however by continuing to live a healthy lifestyle I can mitigate the impact of it.

GQ my grown children are making their own plans for when and how they retire, not relying on workplace pensions or state pensions (assuming there still is one). Since we have chronic illness and disability in our immediate family they are also planning for the management of that between them too - very sensible!!!


MTSTM - you are correct, single women with no children will have a different life expectancy than Mums - I understand loneliness in later life has a massive impact on health and well-being, and there is no doubt that both years of manual work and years of office work will both bring with them differing health challenges.

No easy answers are there??
Edited to add: sounding a bit sanctimonious there with the "healthy lifestyle affording resilience" - I do realise that genes are a huge factor too - and massive amounts of luck!!!!

DigForVictory

When I'm allowed, creaking out of the gates, I'll be singing Tom Lehrer as I go (but this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BDyFuDxA-I not that internationally famous motto which might well serve as a warning to us all).
I absolutely believe the doors have been locked until we're through. However I've a nice Estwing axe to entertain myself with in the interim. Son who axe throws with me startled at quite how accurate I can get when in the right state of calm.