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

[definitelybothered]

I help an elderly relative (late 80s) with various admin tasks, paying bills, ordering shopping, etc. It can be time consuming but she is virtually blind and can no longer do this herself.

But I find it really hard to bite my tongue as she is constantly complaining that she doesn’t have enough money, can’t afford to put the heating on in the winter and is one of those people who says young people today have more money than she ever did but they spend it all on holidays, coffee and concerts etc. She honestly believes it was harder financially in her day and young people today are just spoilt.

When I try and disagree with her she shouts me down. But what really irritates is she pleads poverty but it’s rubbish, she has an income of £4.5k every month (after tax) and barely spends a grand of it. She has an eye watering amount in savings too. Her latest grumble is she doesn’t think she should be in the higher tax band (she’s just been taxed 40% on something) but I said she must be based on the maths but she won’t listen.

World war 2.
Young years throughout the war. Remembers losing relatives, neighbours, friends. Remembers rationing well into her teens.
Remembers things being very hard afterwards, and watching many adults in her life struggle.

The war era and beyond has been very romanticised, but for those who lived through it, even though they were young, it was still very difficult.

My late elderly neighbour was born in the late 1920s, was evacuated at about 10 and spent 5 years with another family. She used to volunteer at a local museum talking about being an evacuee, rationing, general wartime stories. People went through an awful lot in those times. Whilst there was an element of getting into the spirit and making the most of it, her descriptions make me believe that we’ve had so much peace and comfort that we no longer have any concept of what people went through, then we moan about how awful old people are.

Okay, so a person who was say 8 when the war ended died and suffered for my freedom? Really?

I’m more concerned about today’s 8 year olds whose lives are likely to be blighted by poverty, climate crises and ongoing wars on a cyclical loop to be honest. Their future concerns me more.

I don't think you're a "monster". I just think you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Yes, when we moved to England to a new build house that was the best the GPO could do for us for some months (1971). Still better than trudging off to the nearest phone box with a handful of coins, I suppose!

People are going through an awful lot now. But unfortunately they won’t have gold-plated pensions, cheap housing, a functioning welfare state, the triple lock and everything else. Why is it so difficult for people to just admit that simple fact on threads like this?

And I think you struggle to separate your own personal situation from the wider societal context. This is not an attack on you.

No thanks.

And what percentage of people in the generations below you will be able to retire at that age do you think?

There are plenty of us around whose grandparents were actively a part of the war, and raising young children during those times.

Many of their generation fought and died, many of them were left with what would be classed as ptsd now. If you can’t remember anyone affected directly that’s great for you, but that’s not true for everyone.

I think, though I hope not, that you are saying I'm thick? I do actually have adult children.

Well there you go. You won't help yourself.

Okay, and going back to the point of the actual thread, what does any of that have to do with the OP and pension provision?

Both my sons probably.

Well if alive they did not die. Some will have done. But suffered yes.
If they lost a home. A parent. Both. Were hungry. Homeless. No NHS don’t forget.
That generation most certainly suffered. Before the war you had a depression. Starving people. Then the War. And people did suffer. When bombs dropped people were killed. Bits of the people remained in the streets until cleaned up. Such sights remained in traumatic young peoples minds. And when recalling the memories as older people reduced them to tears.

You do understand that a great many children born before, during and just after the war were indeed affected by the war? Disruption to education, bereavement, separation from loved ones, family break ups because of these lengthy separations, untreated PTSD for some, living through air raids, massive housing shortage, poor public services, dire economy for years after the war, etc etc. You sound very angry, but it's not the fault of those who are now in extreme old age that housing costs are so high now. You'd be much better taking this up with politicians who can actually do something about it.

What on earth is she saving it for at her age?

I’m not saying you’re thick, but what I am saying is that I don’t understand why threads like this always lead to a couple of posters going on about their personal circumstances as if it’s at all relevant. This is about societal trends-not individual circumstances.

The fact of the matter is that today’s pensioners ate vastly and disproportionately more wealthy than any other generation that came before (or any that is likely to come after). Why is that so difficult to accept?

https://www.scotsman.com/recommended/the-ps7-trillion-wealth-transfer-that-is-changing-who-controls-money-in-the-uk-5427433

People are going through a lot now, but depending on where we live we have more cosseted lives and luxuries as standard.

Most people alive (in the U.K.) now haven’t lived through a war or hardships in the way that our grandparents did (depending on how old you are!). Politics has become a weird entity that no longer serves people but serves itself.

Decades ago the NHS was formed to allow everyone equal access to healthcare, public sector jobs created to rebuild cities with what felt then fair payment and retirement plans to serve citizens who’d already been through so much. It worked at the time.

Now with population booms and more billionaires (hoarding money and paying wages that people can’t live on) it feels like we’re screwed, and it’s very easy to blame the generation who built society back from a very destructive war, when in truth it’s decades of politics that’s led us here, and the same politics that is making life for young people very hard.

Let me guess: I’m being hysterical?

Do you think my £3000 a month income is rich?

And the war again. Okay, I’m out, I can’t have a conversation about spending policy today when people keep going on about a war that ended 80 years ago.

I've no idea why you'd think I'd say that. It's a misogynist slur and I try to avoid those. I'm simply saying that rather than getting angry that other people have had some luck in life that you haven't a more pragmatic response would be to lobby the politicians, who are the only ones that can change the law and public policy in the ways you want to see.

The point of the op wasn’t particularly the pension income, more the attitude of the elderly blind lady to feeling the need to not spend any money and keep saving, which having known several people affected in their living memory of war is quite normal.

My original point to the op was that an elderly woman is unlikely to change her ways now and to not be drawn into battles about how shit life is now for young people, when arguably they’ve never been safer!

Agreed. Social mobility was the best it's ever been in the UK in the years immediately following WW2 and it started to get worse again in the 1980s. The haves got wealthier and the have nots started to fall back. In my view New Labour stuck a sticking plaster over things by introducing tax credits instead of forcing employers to pay a living wage and going back to sensible limits on housing costs. Not holding my breath that we'll ever see a return to those policies.

Well, yes, when someone is of an age to have been affected by it and displays behaviour very common in those of similar age. It’s relevant.

Spending policy now has very little to do with an elderly woman whose pension provision was probably set up long before many Miners were born.