Good week/bad week

By Rebecca Law, Media and PR officer

This was a bad week for older people’s bank balances as insurance giant, Aviva, reported that a quarter of those over 55 have to survive on £24 a day or less. The Real Retirement Report showed that older people are facing an increasing struggle to balance the rising cost of living with a small, and often fixed, income, little or no savings, low interest rates and large debts. Many older people consequently have been forced to cut back on basics such as food, as well as using their car less, buying fewer clothes and cancelling holidays.

Worryingly, 25% of the 10,000 people surveyed have just £500 or less saved in the bank, 40% save nothing each month, and 80% claimed to be “worried, concerned or terrified” about meeting potential future care costs.

The report highlights the importance of keeping up pressure on the government to act on the recent recommendations laid out by economist, Andrew Dilnot, in his Fairer Care Funding report. Millions of pensioners currently live in fear of incurring unlimited bills for care in later life. Dilnot’s suggestions will see a fairer split between the individual and the state to meet care costs, with a suggested cap on individual contribution of £35,000. Ministers are due to publish a white paper on their recommendations for care reform next April.

Thankfully, it’s not all doom and gloom out there. This was a good week for 81-year-olds Mary Lyness and John Akings. The pair, who were childhood sweethearts, lost touch when John joined the RAF at the age of 15. But, after 65 years apart, the couple reunited, and rekindled their relationship, through the internet.

Mary received an email from John after she was given a laptop for her birthday – their first contact for 65 years - and this week, tied the knot in West Yorkshire. Thrilled, Mary told the Daily Mail: “It makes us feel 21 again. It’s great that we found each other. I was so scared to meet him at first because I now have so many wrinkles, but my daughter said “he will have wrinkles too”. I’m so glad I met him because he’s still good looking, he always was.” Click here to read the full happy story.

This story comes in the wake of new research released this week by Age UK and the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which shows that even though older people have come to the web more recently than younger people, they are using it to greater effect. That’s really positive news but the report does also highlight that despite this, there are still 5.7million older people who are not online.

It’s older people who have the most to gain by being online. Those who are not part of the e-world lose out on a great number of benefits, from keeping in touch with family and friends, saving money on goods, pursuing their own passions and hobbies and getting access to better services. Clearly we need to take steps to enable more older people technologically, by helping them to appreciate what technology can do for them. Whether they want to see pictures of their grandchildren, keep in touch with their family, download knitting patterns or identify wild birds, we need to tune into their interests, and help them see the benefits for themselves.

Good week/bad week

Have this week’s events brought good news or bad for older people?

By Rebecca Law, Media and PR officer

This was a bad week for pensioners living on a fixed income as figures published by Prudential revealed that inflation cuts the real value of their funds by 60%. We have commented before on how pensioners are hit hardest by inflation, which is higher for food and fuel.

Older people need to keep their room temperatures higher than younger people to stay healthy and are also, perhaps because of problems with mobility, likely to spend a lot more time indoors, pushing the proportion of their income they spend on these up even further. In effect, this means, according to research by Age UK, that while average annual inflation recorded by the Retail Prices Index has been 3.1% a year since January 2008, pensioners have suffered annual inflation of 4.6%.

The figures lay bare the potential crisis we have on our hands since someone retiring this year on an annual income of £16,600, would find the same figure to be worth only £6,700 in 20 years time. You can read more about this in this Daily Express piece.

Still, this was at least a good week for James Bond, Jay Kay, Paris Hilton and anyone else with a soft spot for a stylish motor. Now, as you get older, you’ll no longer have to worry about trading style for practicality as 38-year-old engineer, Andrew Wylie, has created a range of mobility scooters modelled on some of our most iconic vehicles. Scooters which look like a Jeep and a classic Land Rover are apparently already on sale and “The Harley Davidson, particularly, is causing quite a stir”. At 8mph, the scooters, obviously, don’t have the speed of their full-size counterparts but does mean they’re ideal, as Wylie claims, “if you’re looking for a disability vehicle ...[that you] don’t need a licence to ride”. Check out this article in the Daily Mail to take a look.

Good week/bad week

Have this week’s events brought good news or bad for older people?

By Rebecca Law, Media and PR officer

Bad week: It looks like it’s a case of hard cheese for those looking forward to a bacon sandwich at the weekend. The cost of living in Britain was laid bare this week with the consumer price index showing staggering price increases compared with this time last year. With the price of flour up 40%, butter up 12.9% and back bacon up 9.2%, it looks like our porcine weekend treat might just be enough to break the piggy bank.

The sharp increases in not just food, but clothes, transport and energy bills caused the CPI to increase to 4.4% this July. We’ll all feel the effects of these price rises, but it’s older people, who typically find themselves living on either fixed or declining incomes, who will be hardest hit.

According to an article in The Telegraph this week, those aged between 65 and 74 are most exposed to petrol, electricity and food price rises, while those of 75 and over will suffer most once the new double-digit energy price hikes come into effect later this month.

This was however a good week for Scotland’s oldest woman, Janet Roberts, who marked her 110th birthday. Janet is the granddaughter of William Grant, the creator of Glenfiddich, making her the matriarch of the Scottish whisky industry, and meaning that she quite literally has whisky in the blood.

Could Janet be living proof that a little tipple does us no harm? Perhaps, but Janet, who, determined to prove herself in a typically male-dominated society by studying at two universities and persuing a legal career, attributes her longevity to “hard work and moderation” - perhaps not quite the response that some might have been hoping for. If you would like to learn more about Janet’s history, here’s the full article .