A WORRIER

I can understand why Nobody has this insecurity. When I was on my own, with a small child, after my first husband left I was desperately hard up despite working as a solicitor. All the bills for the matrimonial home fell on my shoulders as well as feeding and clothing a growing child. It was a very long time, after I had remarried, before I felt able to buy anything for myself other than essential work clothes. That sort of thing stays with you.

My own income is smaller than my husband’s as due to being contracted out I don’t have a full state pension and my personal pension provider, on whose advice I was contracted out, went bust leaving me with a much reduced pension pot and few years left to bolster it. Yes, I have variable irregular income from shares etc but I am very much reliant on our savings and I am not extravagant or self-indulgent. We have plenty in assets but I have Nobody’s anxiety, to a much lesser degree, should I lose my husband. When you have literally had to account for every pound spent it never really goes away.

I can only say, Nobody, you are well off. You have savings and additional money each month to add to them. Probably like me your extravagances are small, but try to find pleasure rather than guilt and worry in them, as I do. You will be fine.

Nobody I can send you my address . We're managing on £1060 before bills etc. After the health problems I've had/got, I intend to enjoy as much as I can, whenever I can

I may be able to understand where OP is coming from, but if this is merely financial “insecurity” I would respectfully suggest that £2k per month is more than an adequate cushion to cope with eventualities such as the following

At the moment Food and energy prices are rising day by day. A visit to the dentist, optician or chiropodist isn’t cheap and these are all services that we may need as we get older

Go and help at a food bank to get a perspective on how fortunate you are.

pieinthesky I certainly understand where Nobody (OP) is coming from as well. Old habits do die hard, I dislike waste, excess spending; will always be 100% saving for any eventuality and end of life care. Rational to me.

I can understand where Nobody is coming from. At the moment Food and energy prices are rising day by day. A visit to the dentist, optician or chiropodist isn’t cheap and these are all services that we may need as we get older. Following a fall and subsequent injury I have had to pay for private physiotherapy as the hospital physio was minimal and even the consultant agreed with that. Also once you have retired there are very few opportunities to increase your income unless you are very lucky with a Lottery or Premium Bond win. I like most people of our generation were brought up not to waste money and old habits die hard. My mother and mother in law were always reticent to spend money on themselves as they got older although they had spare money as they used to say they didn’t need anything.

NotSpagehetti, thank you so much for your kind words which I will take on board. I will try hard to do this and your suggestions too. I hope I have a few years left yet to enjoy what I've saved for all my life.

Thanks for returning Nobody.
I wonder if you could maybe invest say, half of the "spare" cash and call the remainder your "slush fund" for treats and extras.
If you find you are using it for things you enjoy then you can nudge some of the remainder into your little slush fund the next month.

You probably just need to feel you have a system in place that won't leave you desperate.

I'm hoping that you are newly retired and will be able to relax a bit more once you can see that the sky hasn't fallen in.

So sorry for delay in getting to read all these posts, however I have been at two hospital appointments today. Firstly let me say that my name was chosen when I joined the site only today was taken as the name I had wanted which was SOMEBODY (which we all are) wasn't available and first thing came into my head was NOBODY, hope that clarifies things as to the name. Secondly, I do have family and they are taken care of for the future from my husband and myself. I have looked at all the replies and think there may be some truth in that my worry/fear lies deep within as my mother and I were on our own for most of my childhood and we could not afford to buy anything other than what was needed, no treats or very few. It may stem from that. I don't have any other issues that some people seem to think, I hope that clarifies that theory. I am very happy with my life in all respects apart from that one thing which I hope to be able to sort out. It's been an eye opener reading all the replies but I suppose I should have expected negative along with positive remarks. I wish you all well.

Why are you all so money obsessed?

Because the OP's worries were about money and we were answering her.

Money has nothing to do with how you worry

Money has a lot to do with how people worry! Rich people can have health and family problems like everyone else, but I'd say the main worry for most people is one of finances - if you can't guarantee the roof over your head it affects the whole of your well-being.

Why are you all so money obsessed? Money has nothing to do with how you worry

@M0nica
1) At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, the thread purports to be about worrying about OP’s finances
2) I think it is entirely unreasonable of you to accuse posters of being money obsessed when OP herself chose to write about money
3) more than one Gran has agreed with me that while OP is probably attributing her worries to money, it would not be unreasonable to suggest that there are other underlying issues.
So we are not you say “money obsessed”
OP may have issues of insecurity, health or even relationship worries - who knows but we have in many cases suggested she might seek help with her anxiety problems.

I don't know how old Nobody is but if she is my generation, and grew up in a time of rationing, make do and mend, scrimping and saving, she may not have come to terms with the relative comfort and financial security she should now be able to enjoy.

Stop feeling anxious about running out of money.

Stop feeling guilty about having money -probably far more money than your parents ever had.

Write out a list of things you would like to do that you haven't yet done. If some of it involves spending money - so what?. If you've got the money and you want to go on a Caribbean cruise, do it. If you want to give more help to your family, do it. If you want to donate more to charity, do it.

You can't take it with you when you go.

I know that now, I have been told it several times. However, I still think that very few people (I could almost say "Nobody" - which is the username chosen by the original poster) have even £2000 a month spare after all their bills have been paid.

I think NOBODY has £2000 pm surplus, not £20000

Same here,
I would think that I was in seventh heaven to have £2000 a month to live on! We all have different concerns obviously.
I switch from panicking that we won’t manage to thinking ‘whatever, who knows how long we will live’.
We have small income compared to others, not too bad compared to some. Try to be reasonably frugal but life really is too short. There’s always equity release as a last resort even in our very modest home.
Feel guilty at times that we don’t have massive amounts to leave as inheritance but never owed anyone anything and will try not to leave problems behind for our AC. We have paid for our funerals , very basic but won’t cost them anything is the hope.
Oh well, first world problems. We don’t know how lucky we are, however meagre our monthly income.

Urmstongran

pascal30

Elegran

Am I alone in finding the OP's username significant? Is it April 1st already?

My first thought was that NOBODY on Gransnet genuinely has £20,000 a month left over after they have paid their bills, and as for worrying about running out of money, surely NOBODY can get their knickers in a twist when they have £240,000 a year spare to put away in a contingency fund.

Quite!!!

Erm ... it’s £2k a month.
Not £20k.
😁

Yes I realised that but I find the post a bit unbelievable really..

Apologies Maw I’ve just noticed you had already pointed this out!

pascal30

Elegran

Am I alone in finding the OP's username significant? Is it April 1st already?

My first thought was that NOBODY on Gransnet genuinely has £20,000 a month left over after they have paid their bills, and as for worrying about running out of money, surely NOBODY can get their knickers in a twist when they have £240,000 a year spare to put away in a contingency fund.

Quite!!!

Erm ... it’s £2k a month.
Not £20k.
😁

The way I’d look at this is yes, you spend but also do remember that money will be continuously topping your bank back up via your monthly pension payments.

Try to relax now and enjoy your lifestyle. It’s a shame not to!

You’re very lucky, Nobody, that you have £2000 left over after all your bills are paid, to do with as you please! I have £1000 a month to spend. That £1000 has to be enough for bills, food, toiletries, clothes etc. Needless to say you don’t have my sympathies - you have nothing to worry about.

I wonder if you are recently retired Nobody?
I feel you are a bit discombobulated.

It's always hard to change the way of doing things and once you start yo be anxious it can be hard to stop.

Some strange comments on here... It's not exactly spare money though is it. OP says housekeeping, clothing, meals out and any 'treats' come out of the £2,000 so not spare. So OP why not set aside a certain amount for housekeeping. Then divide the remaining sum between DH and yourself to buy clothes and treats each. Meals out together come from both allowances so go halves if eating out together. Anything left goes over to the next month or donate to charity etc. It would work best to pop the personal allowances into individual accounts. I think this would really work for you OP because you will be responsible for your own pot of money. You can save or spend as you please.

Somewhere along the line thrift and a modest way of living dovetail with care of the planet. And, yes, I am one of those people into recycling, local produce, not buying new when old can be fixed. I use my bus pass, buy sensibly but healthily and I rather enjoy it. My bathroom and doors are 60 years old and my sheets are 70 years old but of such good quality that they will make their centenary. You need to be the type though and my best friends are all the same.

Except she doesn't have £20,000 a month and she has recognised the dichotomy between her more than comfortable life and her irrational worries.

Why are you all so money obsessed? Money has nothing to do with how you worry. As I said above I recognise her problems as being similar to an uncle, whose insecurities arose from an unhappy and stark childhood, that he had a secure Civil Service pension and, a considerable sum of money in the Building Society, could never assuage his fear of ending up penniless.

Riverwalk

None of us know how long we'll live so have no idea how long any savings or assets will last - the only sure thing would be pension incomes, well as sure as anything can be.

Within reason I think sometimes we just have to live for the day and splash out, be it a holiday, new clothes, theatre ticket, whatever you can afford at that time.

We have just one life and should make the most of it - we're a long time dead.

Riverwalk, None of us know how long we'll live so have no idea how long any savings or assets will last - the only sure thing would be pension incomes, well as sure as anything can be.

True. We never know. Nor does OP, her point really.

There may be a need for our savings, out beyond what we now see - thus the urge to save. I'll not spend frivolously; never have, won't begin at nearly 80.