A childhood memory forever engraved in my mind is that of my mother, handing over her salary to my father each month – and him handing her back a ‘stipend’. It was the 1970s, and my mother had bagged an enviable government job as a police officer, yet she could not apparently be trusted to spend her own cash.
Almost five decades later it would seem that she was actually rather good with money – it was my father who wasn’t. When they both retired, my mother had far more savings than he did and this has enabled them both to live a comfortable retirement.
