We always have to save a little and spend a little, but some
people have trouble balancing the two, especially with rising prices for the
basic day to day necessities.
I think we find this out at a very early age, be it from
observing parents, or managing pocket money. As we grow older, we have to pay
for more things, some elementary, such as bills or food, and some more
secondary, like gifts and technology.
I asked my Grandma if she had anything to say about
budgeting and spending as a retired person in today’s economy. She responded
with a very balanced, thought-through answer, saying “There is no typical
teenager and in the same way, there is no typical pensioner” before continuing
on to say “Fortunately for me, I get other pension money, both from my work and
Granddad's work, to add to my Government pension and that allows me to be
comfortably off as long as there are no big emergencies.”
“In terms of budgeting, most of the work had been done when
we were younger:-
We both had jobs
where we didn't get some of our salary and it went instead into saving for a
pension so that when we stopped working we carried on getting a (smaller but
adequate) sum from our previous employers.
So far, my pensions
have kept on coming, so I have been luckier than some people who paid in just
as I did, but whose pension providers went broke and so they lost what they had
saved. Other unlucky things have been, for example, houses washed away in
floods.”
Grandma also talked
about how being comfortable financially often comes down to luck; if your life
is riddled with expensive accidents and damage costs, it’s going to be harder to
be well-off than someone who is careful and avoids damaging weather etc.
As a teenager, I don’t
have to keep up with electricity bills or how much the latest trip to ASDA
costs, like my parents do. Although my ‘needs’ (for want of a better word) are
not important and may be considered shallow, they do still exist.
Some teenagers do
earn a small amount of money and a typical, hypothetical teenager may worry about
whether they’ll be able to afford an album or some new jeans, concerned about
whether their allowance or wages will cover this. So even from a fairly early
age, we’re learning about what works when it comes to spending and saving;
which costs are priorities, which ones come second, and how to manage
everything.
I think it is getting
harder to keep up with costs, as prices are rising all the time, money becoming
thinner. In some ways it’s a learning curve, but not everyone can keep pace
with the escalating expenditures.
