central heating<\/a> for hot water in the morning, \u201cand that\u2019s costing me \u00a325 a week.<\/p>\n\u201cI don\u2019t know what else I can cut down on apart from being in the dark all the time\u201d with the lights off, she said, adding that she already restricts the number of clothes washes she does, for example. <\/p>\n
Ms DeBurgo, who is a widow and lives in a rental property in Oxfordshire, said that she \u201ccan\u2019t remember the last time I had a piece of beef or lamb\u201d because of the expense.<\/p>\n
\u2018Giving with one hand, snatching away with the other\u2019<\/p>\n
She said that she could not see a \u00a3500 increase to the state pension making a material difference to her \u201cbecause that\u2019s barely going to cover the cost of the rise in energy. We\u2019re coming up to the winter months now when I\u2019m going to need to put my central heating on,\u201d even if just for an hour in the morning and evening like she did last year. <\/p>\n
\u201cEven then, my bill was exorbitant, so goodness knows what it\u2019s going to be this year. And the 4.7 per cent is not until next April anyway, so I\u2019ve got this winter to get through.\u201d<\/p>\n
She is concerned that the increase to the state pension will push her over the income tax threshold. \u201cYou\u2019re giving it with one hand and snatching it back with the other,\u201d Ms DeBurgo said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey should not be taxing it. We\u2019ve worked all our lives; I\u2019ve worked from the age of 16, the only benefits I\u2019ve claimed have been pension credit.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she was also \u201cdisgusted\u201d to learn that her state pension was going to rise by 25p a week when she turned 80, as this is not even enough to buy a Freddo chocolate bar. <\/p>\n
Head of influencing at charity Independent Age Amy Dodge said that many will be \u201crelieved\u201d by the news of the likely state pension increase. <\/p>\n
\u201cWith costs continuing to rise on everyday essentials like food, water and energy, we know that the state pension is a vital lifeline for many, especially for the one in five single pensioners who rely solely on it and other entitlements.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are however increasingly concerned that the full new state pension is edging closer to the frozen personal tax allowance threshold. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis cannot be allowed to happen. Their budgets are already at breaking point and cannot be stretched any further.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe UK Government must ensure the personal allowance stays above the value of the full new state pension so that the value of annual uprating is not eroded.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Department for Work and Pensions has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yvonne DeBurgo said that ‘it gets very difficult at times’ for her to cover her costs A pensioner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[114,3154,268,85,46,12316,266,267,1003,16247],"class_list":{"0":"post-27824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cost-of-living","10":"tag-finance","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-pensioners","14":"tag-personal-finance","15":"tag-personalfinance","16":"tag-state-pension","17":"tag-triple-lock"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}