Mum seems obsessed with the cost of things.

[Neondisco]

My mum seems increasingly obsessed with the cost of things. She's in her early 60s and still works a few days a week. My dad is retired. They live in a house worth around 650k (in the North) and have a few 100k from my dad's early retirement /redundancy. He gets a pension. So not hard up.

But increasingly every conversion I have we end up talking about the cost of things. Particularly food and drink. She's adamant that food and drink have massively increased in cost since lockdown. Both in shops and hospitality.she thinks many places are trying to claw loat money back.

I'm a bit worried she's stressed about money, although I'm not sure why she would be. I'm also a bit worried about why she's latched onto this as a thing. Or have things actually gone up and I haven't noticed? It's obviously not massively effecting me before anyone asks! Apart from I just have to nod along to he talking about it. I'm also a little bit sad that she is maybe not doing things she would enjoy because of her perception she's now being ripped off. It does seem ever so slightly defensive.

Just wondering if anyone else has family members like this an/or if I'm being unreasonable and prices have gone up since lockdown? So my mum is actually right?

I now realise that an elderly relative’s first sign of dementia was when she started to obsess about the cost of things, which was completely out of character for her.

Or more likely in most cases that people are adjusting to a fixed income which won't rise much in the future and have therefore become more aware of prices rises. If they are late 60s/70+ they will remember when inflation destroyed the value of many pensions creating a generation of pensioners living in poverty.

Its not always dementia.

I was thinking about this yesterday.

DPs grandpa came round for a cuppa and was exclaiming about this poor 92 yo who has continously being ripped off.

We said on no what happened?

Apparently the emergency plumber cost £130 and her recent private dentistry just over £300.

We thought well thats cheap!

I think they just loose touch with inflation.

She’s right about the cost of food, my food bills increased a lot since lockdown

She's certainly not wrong in terms of rising costs - but I have also found this to be a pattern in the relatively wealthy pensioners I know, including close family.

The richer they are, the tighter they seem to get with money, or the perception of how far it goes, or should go (according to them).

Agree with her that prices have gone up - they have - but in an "Oh well, what can you do?" kind of way.

Agree prices have gone up.

My mum is at a similar life stage and is always saying things exactly the same. She goes out of her way to shops further away to save 10/20/30p on a particular item. I have taken it as something she talks about (like the weather!) and try not to take it to heart or let it annoy me.

She’s getting older, it’s a thing lots of them do.

Oh fuck off with the ageism - referring to a woman in her early sixties as "them" and assuming early sixties means "old."

You wait, you just wait.

Prices have gone up, it’s what we voted for! You can’t scare your cheap migrant labour away and expect prices to remain the same 😂

Precisely. It's apparently what the majority voted for so there's no point in moaning about it now!

I am not far off your parents age and now I do find myself checking prices a lot more. Not because I can’t afford it as I can but I am very conscious of the fact that what I have now is all I am going to be able to save and has to last me. Every unexpected expense comes out of a stagnant pot of savings. I can’t add to it and interest rates are pretty much nil so it isn’t even keeping up with inflation.
This year alone out of that pot came the cost of replacing a 30 year old boiler so over £2k and some essential roofing work another £5k. I am lucky I have the money but I don’t have a private pension and when I get to state pension age I will need my savings to live even a frugal lifestyle so every penny I spend now has to be justified to myself as an essential spend.

My grandmother got like this very badly but not until her 80s luckily! She had plenty of money but was worried about spending even on her weekly food shop when she barely ate anything anyway! Used to drive me mad but I don’t have much advice - I used to just say to her “you have plenty, gran, don’t worry about it” but it didn’t make a difference!

@MaskingForIt

Prices have gone up, it’s what we voted for! You can’t scare your cheap migrant labour away and expect prices to remain the same 😂

There is a vast oversupply of labour. It is the money printing and deficit spending causing the inflation.

@DumplingsAndStew

Am not sure what the value of the house matters in this tbh - its not like you can just pull a couple of 50s out the wall before going to the supermarket, is it?

Alright no need to be so arsey.

It matters as part of a picture of their financial situation

My Mum is obsessed with buying things in charity shops and telling me how little she paid. This is while on her way to the hairdresser for colour/special trim etc.

I'm also retired so I sort of get it. It's because of the realization that you probably won't ever now increase your income significantly. For those of us who still remember inflation of 17% plus, it's a scary thought.

There is a vast oversupply of labour

So why is there a shortage of HGV drivers?

Of course the house price matters. That's a very high value house for the north east so if someone was struggling for money, and there's only 2 of them, they'd easily get a house for a third of the price.

I've noticed really big price increases in London.

Everything from supermarket food, basic toiletries, takeaway and reataurant costs, clothes, shoes and UK hotels. We were charged £5 for an apple juice in a pub in the new forest last week!

Sorry just catching up but as pp's have said @Teaandjam how rude and ageist.

I did say in my op I think, she works so actually isn't on a fixed income or got nothing to do. She is a researcher in the NHS so doinga demanding job and not what I'd call old.

Your post is offensive to older people not just my mum.

Prices have gone up. It might be worth sounding them out on downsizing. It's a shame if not doing things as she's worried about cost. eg if they are holding on to big house and you only stay once a year you could say don't worry we'll stay in a nearby air b & b etc.

Could you do a new thread on where you shop that hasn't increased their prices, pretty much everything is more expensive than pre-covid/brexit

There are some things in the supermarket that literally go up in large jumps from one week to the next, how can you not have noticed

My Mum has started doing this (also not hard up) and is a similar age. She’ll get petty over really minuscule stuff.Drives me nuts!! I think they have too much time on their hands!

Is she well in herself otherwise? My MIL's dementia first started as very repetitive thoughts, and kind of getting stuck in a loop of worrying about something completely unnecessarily. (apologies if this isn't what you mean at all)

Prices have gone up a lot and quality has gone down. Regardless of how much money you have, some people were brought up to be careful and think about cost effectiveness. It never leaves you.

She is right prices have gone up. Just because you have lots of disposable income does not mean you should waste it.

Perhaps for those of a certain age (like me), they will have grown up with parents or grandparents who lived through WW2 and rationing, which continued into the early 1950's. Watching every penny and 'waste not, want not' was just a way of life and something everyone did. If you have grown up in that environment, then maybe it is something you start doing yourself later in life.

@foxandbee

There is a vast oversupply of labour

So why is there a shortage of HGV drivers?

Getting an HGV qualification is very expensive, takes time and isn't something everyone is capable of getting or even wants to do.

It's pretty obvious that having a surplus of (say) ex retail staff isn't an overnight solution to a shortage of a different job that needs a particular qualificaton isn't it?