Gwenda Rose loves visits from her great-grandchildren. Nowadays, though, if they’re over for the day, she will skip a few dinners so she can afford to feed them.
The week or so before their adored trips, the 84-year-old will perhaps have an egg for breakfast, and salad or beans on toast at lunchtime, and nothing more for a few nights.
Widow Gwenda has lost around half a stone in a year as the cost of living crisis has forced her to cut back on groceries. “You get used to it,” she says, sounding almost defeated.
“I try and act as normal as I can. I don’t want them to see I can’t give them anything, so I will go without so I have something to give them.
“It’ll be the odd day the week before they come.” She adds: “But I have cut right back anyway because food is so dear now.”
Despondently, the pensioner, who lives near London’s Heathrow Airport, says: “It’s so expensive to eat as you used to eat. You get used to cutting down and you don’t have an appetite.”
Distressing new figures gathered by the charity Independent Age reveal 10% of over-65s have gone without meals simply so they could afford to spend time with their grandchildren.
Yvonne Bailey, 77, from Oxfordshire, admits she can’t feed her grandchildren at all when they visit, and skips meals most days anyway to get by.
They are now young adults, aged 20, 22 and 24, and with embarrassment, she admits they bring her lunch as well as their own.
The retired receptionist, who used to give them food parcels for university, is so stretched that she can’t even buy them birthday and Christmas presents any more.
“They know things are tight for me,” she says, admitting on the day we speak she has only eaten a couple of rice cakes. She will have a jacket potato with beans for dinner.
“I used to cook for them, or buy us fish and chips. I do feel embarrassed but they tell me not to.
“They are my grandchildren and I love them to bits, it’s normal life to be able to buy them a present, or feed them, but life is not normal any more.”
More than two million people aged 65 and over are known to be living in poverty, with at least a million more experiencing financial hardship.
Independent Age’s new survey reveals the impact worries about bills are having on older people.
Some 17% are avoiding socialising because of costs, and the same number admit their mental health has been affected.
While 14% have lost sleep over financial woes. More than half are concerned about their financial stability over the next year, and one in 10 use loans to survive. John Palmer, Director of Policy and Communications at Independent Age, says: “Every day, we receive harrowing calls from frightened older people who are worried about their finances.
“These findings clearly show why our renewed focus on financial hardship in later life is desperately needed.
“Millions of older people are being financially squeezed and the stress of this can be incredibly damaging to mental and physical health.
“We urge all older people struggling financially to reach out to charities such as Independent Age, or friends and family.”
For Gwenda, a former restaurant supervisor who worked until she was 75, having visits every few months from her four great-grandchildren, boys aged nine, seven and four, is a delight she would never want to miss.
She relies on her state pension, plus two payments a year from her late husband’s pension, a Personal Independence Payment and pension credit. But it no longer stretches as it did, and she has near to nothing left each month.
Gwenda says: “I feel very sad. I thought I would be happy and secure in my old age, which I’m far from – everything is so dear.
“I haven’t been sleeping. You think how will you manage to pay for everything? Sometimes it’s too much to handle.”
She then reveals: “I have friends who go out and ask me and I cannot afford to go. It has impacted my mental health. I have anxiety at the moment.”
Yvonne, who worked from age 16, also lives on her state pension plus pension credit and disability living allowance. Last month she was left with £9; this month she fears she will hit nought.
She shrugs and says she will just have to go without something else. But she is not sure what.
“I’d love to have a chicken salad and new potatoes,” she says. “But now that’s a treat.”
* Independent Age has a free helpline to check if you are eligible for certain benefits such as Pension Credit or Attendance Allowance. These can transform lives. Call 0800 319 6789 or visit www.independentage.org
