Here is a typical example of how pensioner home-owners have to cope with the added burden of the dreaded council tax.

Council tax costs £108 a month and water rates cost £39 a month. This is about 25 per cent of our meagre state pension, without counting fuel or food bills or house maintenance.

Our house insurance has gone sky high.

What then is left for other essentials, such as clothes or even the odd treat, such as a bar of chocolate or packet of pork scratchings?

If you have made provision for your retirement and are therefore unable to ask for extra help because you are just above the limit, you end up worse off than those who haven't bothered to save.

They seem to have to pay little or no rent or council tax. And they are eligible for many other benefits.

I have frequently been told you can't take it with you. At these prices, they must be right.

-Ron Wood, Brighton