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.

Dont waste your breath...

"That's nice Anna. Do you want another tea before I go"

My great aunt is similar. 4.5k net pm pensions from 2 x very average jobs.

I dont agree with the older people "cant understand". She can see the hundreds of thousands in her bank account.

I am not a 20yr who grew up with the internet neither is my mother in her 70s... we are both still able to have huge sympathy for 20 somethings who (unless they have supportive / wealthy parents or are in the lucky few) are by and large fucked as social mobility barely exists now.

For goodness sake stop helping her. If she is going to be so awkward and stubborn and is making an already arduous task (for you) even more difficult, then let her get on with it. It's not law that younger family members have to help elderly ones. How is she related to you?

I agree with PP that this can be a symptom of cognitive decline.

I think my DM stopped understanding money, wealth etc some years ago. In her case she thought she was wealthier than she was and thought money was worth more than it is worth.

Just to point out that public sector final salary pensions - these sound like very ancient and outdated ones.

And not the ones in existence now. Not by a long chalk.

If I said that to her she would erupt

Let her erupt

If she ‘retired 30 yrs ago her final salary pension would have been greatly reduced…I really don’t think she have £4.5k income a month! If indeed she had….bloody good luck to her. Someone’s in for a good inheritance!

The pensions increase every year with inflation, final salary doesn’t mean they stay the same amount forever

Then stop pandering to such an unpleasant person!
Step back and let her pay for her care! She can easily afford it, she doesn't value you or your help by the sound of it.

You can't change her behaviour but you can change your reaction to it.

I agree with this. It certainly can. And given she is nearly 90 not surprising if so.

Social mobility certainly didn’t exist when she was young. Far more entrenched.
And I am afraid they really cannot understand sometimes.
And she cannot see her bank account. She is blind.

Seems an unusual amount for a person of that age.

Flatter her by saying how clever she is to be born into a time that pensions were so generous that she’s building up more money than she can spend now.

Say don’t be bitter about the younger generations, they’ll be living all together in the old student flats that they returned to when the universities go bust. Probably still paying their student loans off too if they find a job.

My mum never worked so literally has NO IDEA of the cost of living increase. She’s like your elderly relative - high pension after tax. She receives around £4k after tax - widows pension from my Dad plus state. But she also has no idea how much things should cost - for example she will have a tradesman in who will tell her a job will cost £2k, whereas I know it’s a £500 job all day long. I have had to get rid of and shout at so many rogue traders who have tried to take advantage of her

Because they haven't been available for some time I don't think people understand how amazing an index linked final salary pension is....it increases every year inline with inflation often RPI. If you stopped work 20 years ago on a salary of 40k it's supposed to give you income relative to what that 40k salary would be now (so circa 80k....).
It's mind boggling really and of course off the scale expensive (which is why they stopped).

My Father is like this. After pointing out he has been on 4 overaeas holidays this year already
I ask why he has handed over his pension to a fund manager as surely Daddy you would make a better return than they do. No idea what to do. His brain os fine his body less so. I literally days ago got mine to buy a £2 million retirement home in a village sort of thing, I think it depreciates in value the longer he lives, he will begin to need help I am thinking. Am getting over the shock he agreed. I just hope he doesn't change his mind, as he is in a far too big place now, high fall risk he is much better off near people and on one floor. It is hard aging parents. Especially men. My sympathies

It does sound wearing, and you could absolutely win the arguments if you wanted to, as I'm sure you can 'erupt' too and refuse to be shouted down, plus you hold all the cards - she needs your help and you can easily say you won't help her if she brings this up again. But if you've no appetite for that, which is how it seems, then just chalk to up to being displaced rage from the fact she's blind and not got long left so is angry about that really, not this money nonsense. People like to have something to moan about and this is her big thing now.

As people get older they lose understanding of money as it is an abstract notion. I have this with my parents who think I must be loaded as my house cost 8 times what theirs did- in the 1980s!!!! Also my dad often comments on how well my son is doing making £17 an hour as Dad was working years before making that. I just nod and smile.

I do remember them talking about their parents and grandparents doing similar and changing decimal money into the old money and proclaiming they couldn.t afford things when they easily could.

Try to distance yourself from comments as they are not personal to you and just nod along although I appreciate its not easy

Its a valuable skill to let things go in one ear and out the other. You basically have three choices
1 stop helping her
2 learn IOEAOTO
3 allow yourself to be wound up

your choice really. You can't change what she does, only what you do.

I dont agree with the older people "cant understand". She can see the hundreds of thousands in her bank account.

Neither do I. It's patronising and infantilising to assume that elderly people can't understand how numbers and money work.

They must also realise that, by their late 80s, they're highly unlikely to be needing to worry about financing that many more years.

Like the old saying about 'none so blind as those who refuse to see', I'd also say there are none so poor (in their enjoyment of life) as those who have plenty of money but prefer to live like they don't. So many genuinely poor people have no alternative but to live like that; so why anybody would choose that lifestyle is baffling.

RPI finished in 2011. The increases are not CPI and therefore much lower.
Her pension I suspect was one of the very last true final salary schemes. That no longer exist.
And the final salary pension does not give you an income same as your earnings ever.
And not to forget, when used in negotiations for any salary increases the pension was always pointed to as in ‘well you get this eventually’ so only half a percent. Except they changed it and changed it and changed it.
Now it bears no relationship to the scheme this lady was on.

Well OP that's why she's well off, she never got into the habit of spending.

Having just spent years working in a job helping the elderly with benefit claims ( Attendance Allowance etc ), I've seen this a lot. they begrudge paying anything out for care, gardener etc whilst having often hundreds of thousands in the bank. Seriously glad I have finished the job now. Most of them loaded yet still wanting to claim every penny of benefits they can just because they can.

Young people today do have it easier today than that generation when they were young. Dad 88 had no toilet and shared a communal toilet block at the end of the road which his mum had to clean out once a week on a rota. He made 'snowballs' from asbestos dust in the street blowing from the factory over the way. Many people from that street died later on from asbestosis. His mum was injured in an industrial accident which broke her jaw and knocked out her teeth. She was sacked. His brother with downs syndrome wasn't allowed to be treated for treatable conditions and died as a toddler. I could go on all day. Obviously his food was rationed so no take away coffee for him!

Is this ireland?
Many public service pensions are extraordinary.
The country is nearly bankrupt from them.
Its why irelands services are so shit apparently.
My friends parents are both retired school principals in their late 80's and their pensions are eye-watering.
They are retired nearly 30 years.
She and her sister are set to inherit a fortune.

So grateful for mine, from a job I left 15 years before I retired (early) - so even with all those caveats which meant I made nowhere near a full contribution, I get a healthy monthly income which increases every year, and will last for my lifetime. Mind boggling for younger generations.