How I Live On: £8,370 a year scrimping on food and showers as I wait six extra years for my state pension A Waspi woman explains how she has been surviving since getting news that she’ll have to wait longer for her pension

In our How I Live On series we’re finding out exactly how people in the UK spend, save and invest their incomes to meet their costs and achieve their goals. The aim is to build an accurate picture of financial life in Britain at a time when unemployment is at a record low but wage growth is stagnating.

Marking the equalisation of the state pension age this week, we speak to 64 year-old Carol May from Hertfordshire, who has been surviving on casual work and benefits since 2012 when she discovered she still had six years to wait until receiving her state pension – rather than one.

Monthly Income

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Occupational pension: £155

Job Seekers Allowance: £165.88

Housing Benefit: £351.62

Gift for choir membership: £25

Occasional dog sitting: £21 (avg.)

Total: £718.50

Monthly Outgoings:

Rent on a one bedroom flat provided by charity: £351.62

Bills (including council tax, utilities, contents insurance and TV license): £96.21

Food: £85

Petrol: £80

Motoring: £54.33 (including insurance, road tax and servicing)

Phone, broadband and TV: £47.90

Mobile phone: £31

Choir membership: £25

Payments for council tax arrears and benefit overpayment: £25

Total: £796.06

Amount left each month: -£77.56 / -£17.90 per week

In society, men and women are unequal. Women still earn less for doing the same job as a man, they have lower workplace pensions, lower state pensions and if they have a family they often have to put their lives and careers on hold for decades.

So with all that inequality, to say that the state pension age must be the same for both men and women in the name of equality is, to be frank, a load of crap.

I found out I wouldn’t be getting my pension until 66 instead of 60 five years ago, at age 59. I was working with a woman of the same age and one day she just said:

“You do know we don’t get our pension until age 66?” I said, “No, I didn’t know that.” I had never been directly notified.

It was huge blow as, like a lot of other women my age, I had relied heavily on my husband to make arrangements, which hadn’t worked out.

Throughout our marriage he was a farmer and the main earner, so I trusted him to take care of the finances. And he did: he set up two pension funds, one for him and me, and then he set up a whole load of other investments for our retirement.

However, ten years ago on Christmas day he walked out and, because he was a tenant farmer and not an owner, I was left homeless and bankrupt. I had nothing: everything was in his name.

During the divorce I tried to claim some of it but just at that time legal aid was withdrawn for divorce cases, and I didn’t have the money to fight him in court. So he took it all.

Bankrupt and broken

Back then I was a therapist and eating disorders coach, but because I had a breakdown as a result of the divorce I couldn’t carry on working, and so I lost my business as well. I still owe council tax from that time, which I’m paying off slowly, as well as £10 a month to Epping Council for overpayment of housing benefit for over a year.

Since then I’ve worked as a receptionist at a GP surgery, a farm hand on my son’s farm and for the past two years I’ve been unemployed. I’ve been claiming job seekers allowance for 13 months and it’s been an awful experience: apart from one woman, the people at the job centre treat me like I’m a stupid, lazy scrounger.

That pays £76.56 every two weeks, which is my main source of income. I also receive a small pension for my time working at a county council when my children were younger – which is £155 per month.

I also get housing benefit, which pays for my rent directly. My flat is owned and managed by the Margery Maplethorpe Trust, which helps over 55’s like me find affordable accommodation. Again, though – I found them purely by chance through a newspaper advert.

I also earn a little bit of cash doing the odd dog sitting job, while a good friend of mine puts £25 a month into my account every month to pay for my membership fees to the local choir.

Kindness of friends and family

Friends and family have really been my lifeline through all this. From my cousin who paid for my car – which is my only means of getting around out here in the countryside – to the friend that secretly paid for a hair appointment for my birthday: without them I would have taken the pill by now and ended it.

But you’ve got to keep going and I do what I can. I’m very careful with everything I spend. I keep the electricity bill down by only heating the lounge overnight in the very coldest months, while I’ve saved a lot on water by not flushing the toilet every time and taking fewer showers – now I only pay £11 a month.

With food I’m particularly careful: in the winter I make big batches of soup while in the summer I eat a lot of salads, rice and tinned fish and I always make sure I get to the supermarket when they put reduced stock out for sale. If I know I’m going to be out all day I’ll always take food too – I can’t afford to be buying sandwiches and coffees.

Still two years to wait

I’ve also sold a lot of my belongings over the years, from clothes to furniture. Some of it has gone for heart-breaking prices, like an antique dresser that sold for £40. I can’t say I’m sad to see it all go, though – there’s something to be said for living with less.

I’ve still got two years until I receive my state pension, plus I should also get pension credit – so things will get easier then. In the meantime though I’m working with the Shaw Trust to help me set up my business again – however it’s funded by the EU so, I don’t know what’s going to happen to that after March.

I’ll also continue to campaign with Backto60 and Pension Reformers United, both of which are fighting to have the changes to state pension age reversed and compensation paid to women like me that have suffered so much as a result of the move. I hope we can help as many women as possible get through this.

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