Dear LPG

Some of my friends and I got talking one day not so long ago and the subject turned to how much income we really need to live on.  As you can imagine most of us felt that we could do with a bit more money than we were getting, but we agreed that, whatever our income, most of us seem to have worked out how to get by.  

However, a conversation like that gets you thinking and, as I made my way home having shared a lot of speculative possibilities about what I would spend an extra guaranteed hundred or so pounds a week on if I had it, the grey matter was still working on the conundrum.  

I suppose that I would be able to afford someone to do all my housework and cooking, which might be a good thing, and I could go on a few more holidays.   Better accommodation is often the next thing that those who suddenly feel richer crave, but I started wondering about if I would really want to leave my home.  Like many pensioners I now live alone in a home full of family history that I would be reluctant to escape, but I think that I might spend money decorating and getting a professional to deal with all those little things that have gone wrong.  After a couple of cruses and visits to far-flung parts of the world, I don’t even think that I would be interested in going on holiday more often.   

I think I would spend more of it on my family and, let’s face it, they are the people who will get what is left in the end anyway.    

It occurs to me that so much of the news we read is about those who are a bit richer and more famous than we are, but most of what is on offer tells of their successes and failures rather than the mundane aspects of their lives which I suspect are as uninteresting as the ones that so many of us older, poorer and less famous people have lived.  I bet that when they get to that part of their lives where they retire from the limelight, like us, the thing that they treasure most will be all the many memories. 

It might be nice to hire a chauffeur to drive me to the shops and my friends’ houses rather than all that waiting for a cab or a bus on a cold rainy day. But even that would just help us to cut down on the exercise that walking down the road affords, and the more talkative pensioners would miss out on those little conversations that happen when we pass neighbours during such a pedestrian journey.  

I was browsing the internet the other day and I came across a list of what is thought to be the average amount that a British pensioner lives on per week.  

A website article written in 2022 pointed out that 22% of UK pensioners are millionaires while, if everything was shared out more equally, the average pensioner would have had an income of about £349 per week.  We can all argue about how much fairer that would be.  Those who have saved all their lives to achieve their higher incomes would be against that sort of equality, while poorer pensioners might agree to a system where the odds were a little more even.  It is all speculation anyway… 

I also found a few videos which reminded me of all the things I have got; things that money can’t buy and I think that is worth sharing. 

Realistically, I think that I would get lazy if I had no housework to help me with my exercise routine and I would get bored into the bargain.  So now that I have finished speculating I thought I might leave you with my thoughts and some of the internet’s theories before getting back to reality… 

TK, Downham.

TK shares a little related information… 

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