£11k cost for OAPs

The cost of being a pensioner amounts to almost £11,000 a year, new research has found.

Over-65s in Renfrewshire on average spend just over £200 a week on the essentials needed to get by.

The cost mounts up from spending on the basics, such as food, clothes and bills.

But it’s cheaper to be a retired Buddie than a retired Londoner.

Paisley pensioners spend around £ 10,830 a year, whereas their southern counterparts splash out £13,400 annually.

The analysis, from Key Retirement, also found that the average retired household spends around 14 per cent of their cash on housing and fuel — which equates to around £1,500 a year — slightly less than what is spent on food and non- alcoholic drinks, which is £1,560.

Any spare cash is used for entertainment and eating out, with around £1,600 a year of their budget going on leisure spending.

Dean Mirfin, technical director at Keyretirement. com, said: “The basic cost of being a pensioner demonstrates the importance of saving for retirement and generating income on top of state pensions.

“Over- 65s own property worth more than £1trillion and are sitting on spare cash, which can be used taxfree to boost their income, particularly when inflation is rising and interest rates remain at historic lows.”