Sheila Cornell, who lives alone in a small house in Lincolnshire, relies on the state pension and says she wasn't able to turn her radiators on last winter. Many Britons are retiring with almost no savings, few investments and no income aside from a weekly state pension of £221 or less. In fact one in five rely on the weekly payment as their sole retirement income, according to financial services firm Abrdn.
Sheila Cornell, who lives alone in a small house in Lincolnshire, is one of these people. During this winter she didn’t turn her radiators on once, relying on a small electric heater to keep warm. With no family to offer support and just a basic state pension of £156 a week in addition to pension credit, the 80-year-old describes her financial situation as “very uncomfortable”. It helps that she owns her house outright, she said, but the state pension is not enough to keep her head above water. “I’ve already cut back on everything,” Sheila, a former legal secretary, sai