Source: Radio New Zealand
The pension only covers the basics. (File photo) 123rf
The increasing cost of living is hurting most, but those on fixed incomes have even less room to move with some forced to forego coffee and meat.
Petrol and oil prices have crept exponentially higher after the war in Iran, while statistics show pharmaceuticals and electricity also keep putting pressure on the wallet.
Pensioners were just one group on fixed incomes struggling to make ends meet.
As a single pensioner living alone – you’d get $555.15 a week.
It’s slightly less if that person was living in shared accommodation.
Whereas a couple who were both eligible get $427.04 each a week.
So when bills, insurance, petrol and other expenses add up, something has got to give.
For 85 year old Wieland, that’s coffee.
“I have no extravagant tastes or anything, so I’m quite happy with that.”
But household costs were going up each year.
“So when that insurance renewal time comes around it’s a real hit and it gets bigger and bigger every time”
He said when you’re on a fixed income, that limits the amount of money you have to spend throughout the year on power and food.
“We think two or three times before we spend any money.
“We don’t go out eating, for example. We can’t afford that.”
He said they were in an okay position but only because they think long and hard about any spending.
They take the bus or walk – he said the last time he filled the car was around Christmas.
“I try to put away $100 a week into the savings account. But that doesn’t happen very often.”
And when it comes to food, they do a supermarket shop every 10 days or so, spending up to $300.
“We always go for the cheapest stuff if we can find it.
“If we do buy coffee or tea we always think do we need that, can’t we do tea instead of coffee or coffee instead of tea and that sort of stuff?”
Takeaway coffees are normally off the menu for Wieland. (File photo) 123rf
They own their own unit and keep a running budget to know where every dollar goes.
“We are quite set up and because we think about spending quite a bit before we do the actual spending, we are not too badly off.”
Another retiree, Angela, had a government and university pension, so was feeling quite fortunate.
“But quite honestly, I don’t know how families and people can survive in today’s financial climate and the way in which the prices of commodities have gone up so steeply in the last year or so and more so in recent times with fuel problems.
“I don’t know how they survive on just an old-age pension.”
As a widower on her own she said it would be impossible for her to manage on just that pension.
Like Weidland, she didn’t live extravagantly and managed to save some money growing her own vegetables.
She’d lived in New Zealand for 54 years and fondly remembered when she could get a litre of milk for two cents.
“And I know that things have gone on and that costs have increased and money doesn’t buy as much.
“Of course, over those years, my salary increased accordingly.
“But I can’t say that my pension has increased at the rates that all the other expenses have increased.”
When it comes to food nowadays, she’s worse off than most, living in a small coastal area with only one supermarket and no competition.
Angela said given the current fuel situation she expected those prices to just keep climbing.
” I don’t eat as much meat as I used to.
“That’s partly personal choice and partly because of the astronomical cost of it.”
She found power to take one of the biggest chunks of her pensions.
“I’m a low user of electricity at my home, but the much larger proportion of my electricity bill, for example, is the line charges.
“I don’t know how they can justify all the line charges, but they do, and there’s nothing you can do much about it”
But despite the financial challenges, and the complications of living in a small coastal community, she knows she must spend money sometimes.
“But you know, you can’t live as a hermit. You’ve got to actually be prepared to splash out occasionally.
“And I can afford it, but I try not to give in to it very often.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand