Holding back the Years

[Deleted User]

I watched this compilation programme last night (it had been on before ) and was surprised at the lady who said she was struggling to live on £50.00 after all bills were paid .She seemed to be making rather odd choices of food to eat I don't know if anyone else saw the programme or not. A ready made pack of carrot and swede mash to last her two days etc Perhaps she didn't like to cook much but as an ex-nurse I would have thought she perhaps would have been able to work her cash out a bit better perhaps she needs to come on here for some ideas The presnters didn't seem to help very much though odd sort of programme more intent on telling people that they should have started saving for retirement in their 20s

PasturesNew

I saw that too - and I'm sure it was a re-run - and I'm sure the first time I saw it the programme said they'd done a benefits makeover on her and there was a bit more (maybe Pension Top Up or something).

I do find that/those middle-class presenter women very patronising and irritating though

They didn't say her situation. Renting/owns. Does she claim Council Tax - she must be getting something extra to be left with £50/week I'd have thought. Maybe she owns her flatlet and maybe she's got a £30k inheritance in the bank "kept in case" ... in which case she'd just have been claiming the basic pension and just missing out on the Minimum Pension amount top up. If she did own her flatlet, that £30k inheritance, say, (that I've made up) ... could be mentally there in case the roof falls in, or she needs the bathroom fixing or new kitchen.... so she daren't touch it.

We all make choices based on our past behaviours, access to things, space/equipment and access to knowledge.

Maybe she's never got into the Internet at all.

Yes, her food options were expensively bizarre (to BUY mashed veg) ... even a simple workround would be to buy cheaper bags of the veg and mash it yourself.

I think she just didn't have access to other people/information and so was just doing things how she knew.

I do get annoyed at those people who say "you should've started a pension" - because when you live alone your entire life on a "less than average wage" and are trying to get your home together and run it and afford to get to work, there's not much left over to even think about that. AND, once started, you had to guarantee you could keep the payments up "forever" on a pension or they froze it/shut it down (that happened to me), so if your work life isn't consistent you're never in a position to start. And, in any case, most lower earners would only have ever been saving into the pot - to then find the pension top ups would've given them that amount anyway and since they have a private pension coming in the top up is not available any more

Ed Investor here, some years back, confirmed to me that for me/in my position, it would be nuts to have saved for a pension - she said that pensions were mostly of benefit to people who paid a higher rate of tax AND who had an employer paying into a pension.

[Deleted User]

I must admit the presenter was very patronising I thought at one point I thought she was going to pat the poor woman on the head in the charity shop
I too find it irritating to be told that Hmm well if you had started a pension pot at 22 you wouldn't be so short of cash .Forgetting that at 22 a lot of women my age now were having their families or just getting a mortgage with the view to raising their families. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but given to few I have found

monnagran

Or PN they had an ex who decreed when they had their first child that they should cash in their very good teacher's pension to buy the equipment needed for the baby, after all they wouldn't need their own pension because he would have enough for both of them. Ho! Ho!
And if they then started saving for a private pension when the divorce happened, only just before they retired, their Pension Company went to the wall and instead of a comfortable top up to the State Pension the amount they got was so pitifully small that it isn't worth sending it once a month so she gets it quarterly.

If only my Crystal ball had been working.

maman

monnagran wrote: »

Or PN they had an ex who decreed when they had their first child that they should cash in their very good teacher's pension to buy the equipment needed for the baby, after all they wouldn't need their own pension because he would have enough for both of them. Ho! Ho!
And if they then started saving for a private pension when the divorce happened, only just before they retired, their Pension Company went to the wall and instead of a comfortable top up to the State Pension the amount they got was so pitifully small that it isn't worth sending it once a month so she gets it quarterly.

If only my Crystal ball had been working.

I can see why he became the ex!:rotfl:


I think another issue was that HR Departments (or Personnel as they used to be called) didn't explain the pitfalls of paying a married woman's stamp and presented it as an expectation for all married women.

[Deleted User]

PasturesNew wrote: »

Ed Investor here, some years back, confirmed to me that for me/in my position, it would be nuts to have saved for a pension - she said that pensions were mostly of benefit to people who paid a higher rate of tax AND who had an employer paying into a pension.

I loved that lady, she gave me very sound advice and encouragement and I have never looked back. It is down to her that I am facing a comfortable old age. I will always be grateful to her. RIP kind lady

yes I know, off topic but she has a special place in my heart, she gave her advice freely and at no cost

Art_Deco

:eek: I thought you had put she was struggling on £5 a week!! I wouldnt consider myself to be struggling if i had £200 a month left after everything had been paid.:)

PasturesNew

Art_Deco wrote: »

:eek: I thought you had put she was struggling on £5 a week!! I wouldnt consider myself to be struggling if i had £200 a month left after everything had been paid.:)

You're right... it's more than enough, excepting breakdowns, disasters and home maintenance that crops up from nowhere...

When I bought my last house my job finished soon after and the next one was at half the salary ... I had £50/month, for everything including food, if I stayed in with the lights out and never bought anything.... I sat in that house for 6+ years until I decided enough was enough

luxor4t

JackieO wrote: »

I watched this compilation programme last night (it had been on before ) and was surprised at the lady who said she was struggling to live on £50.00 after all bills were paid .................:(

She seemed quite vague about the amount - I wondered if she was fishing figures out of the air rather than give an exact breakdown on tv.

On a separate note, the charity shop clothes prices were cheap compared to where I live!

suki1964

I'm going to have to watch this one

I'm another married woman with a tiny pension due. One that will take me
Out of pension credit. It's been frozen for 17 years. I'm basicially screwed

I'm
Still
Working but less and less employers want to take me on through the books because of the work place pension. If I'm not on the books my stamp isn't credited ( I don't ever earn enough to pay employees stamp) so I e not paid stamp in 17 years. Not enough qualifying years for full stamp and sod all in private pension.

I've no chance of retiring

[Deleted User]

Monnagran or in our case, my late husbands extra pension that he had paid for for years went overboard with Robert Maxwell when the robber baron fell off his yacht grrr