To find my elderly relative’s attitude to money very wearing

I am afraid you are just a wind up merchant. Your post and lack of appreciation for a generation who died and suffered for your freedom is foul.

That makes more sense. The state control that came in took a long time to be removed in all areas. Even in the 1980s when you wanted to install a phone in your home you had to apply to BT (might still have been part of the Post Office then) and wait for months on a waiting list till they could send an engineer. That was annoying and inconvenient rather than traumatising, though!

I know, I’m a big meanie aren’t I? Using facts and logic to ask why we as a society are happy to shaft the younger generations over and over again to keep the pensioner electorate happy.

What a monster am I.

This person is in her late 80s. So when the war ended, she'd have barely been out of infant school.
I don't think her warmemories, if she has any, are the reason behind her thinking.

I cannot believe your reply. Sadly, no. I can.

I mean there’s clutching at straws and then there’s that.

The Second World War. Depending on when they were born. Even if it had finished by the time they were, the impact of it would have been apparent to them growing up. Bombed out cities. Rationing. Of both clothes and food.

There's also the issue of discouraging people from driving once they're not in good enough health to be safe. Free bus travel may help there.

Which war would that be? Napoleonic? The War of Independence? The Boer War? Which one exactly? Which war will have affected a person who is in their 80s in 2026?

Well, for a start, it's not maths, it's simple arithmetic. Divide £12,547.60 by 12. What do you get? I'll tell you. £1045.63. So are you saying the £45.63 a month makes them loaded?

I don't think she knows what she's talking about which isn't a slur, it's a misunderstanding on her part imo.

I think it was going through wartime, losing friends and neighbours depending on where you lived (she grew up in a badly hit area), and a decade of rationing after the war, although designed to deliver decent nutrition, could feel restrictive and she remembers lots of queues and upset over it. It didn’t sound like an easy time to live through. In comparison life looks very easy now, and if younger generations had to live like that they’d be appalled. It’s not as straight forward as calling old people boomers and criticising them for living easy, privileged lives.

I used to have a neighbour who was evacuated as a child and spent her formative years with another family, then going back to parents who were then basically strangers. She had a lot of issues that she couldn’t shake off.

Your personal situation does not invalidate my post.

I think it was going through wartime, losing friends and neighbours depending on where you lived (she grew up in a badly hit area), and a decade of rationing after the war, although designed to deliver decent nutrition, could feel restrictive and she remembers lots of queues and upset over it. It didn’t sound like an easy time to live through. In comparison life looks very easy now, and if younger generations had to live like that they’d be appalled. It’s not as straight forward as calling old people boomers and criticising them for living easy, privileged lives.

I used to have a neighbour who was evacuated as a child and spent her formative years with another family, then going back to parents who were then basically strangers. She had a lot of issues that she couldn’t shake off.

Yeah you don’t pay into a “system” to get money out of it-that’s actually not how society works I’m afraid, and it certainly will not be how it works for the next generations of pensioners coming after you. And pensioners do not get £1000 per month-you might want to check your maths.

DH and I both have DB pensions, and we are only in our 50's.

I think it was going through wartime, losing friends and neighbours depending on where you lived (she grew up in a badly hit area), and a decade of rationing after the war, although designed to deliver decent nutrition, could feel restrictive and she remembers lots of queues and upset over it. It didn’t sound like an easy time to live through. In comparison life looks very easy now, and if younger generations had to live like that they’d be appalled. It’s not as straight forward as calling old people boomers and criticising them for living easy, privileged lives.

I used to have a neighbour who was evacuated as a child and spent her formative years with another family, then going back to parents who were then basically strangers. She had a lot of issues that she couldn’t shake off.

And what about keeping younger people out and about and engaged with society? What about the health and well-being of working people? Because they are being constantly squeezed from all sides. What about their mental health?

Like you say, those concessions were introduced for a different generation of pensioners. The boomers and baby boomers do not need those concessions like their parents did (or indeed like their children will). So why do we as a society continue to pay for them?

I for one would much rather we had a system of giving people in work X number of free bus rides a week to get to and from work than giving free bus rides to people based on nothing more than their age. We need people out there working and contributing don’t we?

What does she mean when she says people were deeply hurt by rationing emotionally? It was a scheme to ensure that everybody could get the essentials, not just the people who could pay the most. It was carefully designed to give everybody the nutrition they needed. There's research that shows the nation's physical health improved considerably under rationing because people ate less sugar, mostly had to eat wholemeal bread, and ate more vegetables. I'm sure it was very boring at times and it must have made feeding a family a challenge, but I don't understand how it could have deeply hurt people to have to live a very simple life. The war itself was obviously a different matter, but there again a lot of people found a purpose during that time and lost it again in the post-war years when women and older people had to make way for the young men returning from the military.

Because they have worked all their lives and paid into the system and now they are getting a little back. Haircuts? Jesus. Pensioners in the UK get £1000 per month to live on. I dare you to try that.

Btw, I live in Scotland and we get free travel from age 60, and all under 22's get it too. However, I am 62 and my husband is 63 and we don't have free bus passes. Not everyone who qualifies for it claims it.

What eye care? Everyone in Scotland gets free eye tests. I still have to pay for my actual glasses, which are around £600. The free eye test is the least of my worries.

Arts concessions? WTF?

DH and I both have DB pensions, and we are only in our 50's.

If you mean they're more likely to vote than younger people, the solution to that is very simple. The young need to get out and vote. Postal votes are available for those that can't get to the polling station on the day.

Most of the concessions you mention were introduced at a time when pensioners were often a lot poorer than working people. However, keeping older people engaged in society and able to get out and about and take an interest in things pays off because it keeps them in better health for longer.

I should have clarified-I don’t just mean via benefits. I also mean free bus travel, rail concessions, eyecare, self-care (e.g. pensioner rates for hair cuts), arts concessions etc. etc. etc. Everything in this country seems to be geared towards making sure pensioners stay on side. I wonder why?

Not all pensioners are well off. Many lost businesses, lost houses along the way. Some did not have jobs which paid into pensions.
The final salary pension that people call gold plated was literally decades ago. And no longer existed in the way it originally was.
Some pensioners have pension credit because their income is so low they need it topped up. They don’t own their homes.
There have been some nasty recessions in recent history. People ended up in negative equity on their homes. They owed more than the home was worth. The homes were repossessed. The idea everything has been easy is not so.