2023-10-19 04:00:00
A retired bookkeeper, mother of four children, manages to live on the pension of her late husband, who traveled the great outdoors of Quebec all his life to install electricity poles at the time when our cities were still plunged into darkness.
“I have my pension from Hydro-Québec,” confides to Journal Fleurette Massé, 89 years old, mother of two girls and two boys. This gives him a little more than $2,000 per month to pay for his residence.
“I also have money saved, a little, but not much because I have never lived in abundance. But I feel in abundance because a little thing gives me pleasure,” adds the resident of Vallée-du-Richelieu County, who worked in a garage in her younger days.
Like her, more and more seniors have to roll up their sleeves to make ends meet. Some achieve this more easily, others more difficult.
Even if the FADOQ Network welcomed the federal effort in the last budget, the assistance with groceries and dental care, the association would have liked the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) to also be improved.
“A person under 75 who only receives Old Age Security and the GIS benefits from an annual income of only $20,575, which is below the official poverty threshold of the federal government,” denounced the FADOQ.
“I’ll manage to arrive”
According to Fleurette Massé, who is approaching her 90th birthday, you have to impose iron discipline on yourself. “I manage to arrive,” she sums up, with a smile on her lips.
When asked what she does to get by at the grocery store, she replies that she only buys what she needs. “You need protein,” she says.
“You also have to have fun to keep your morale up. Morale is very important because it is the heart of life,” she insists.
Once or twice a week, Fleurette goes down to the first floor of her residence to treat herself to a dinner in the dining room.
She says she is happy to be healthy enough to still be able to get some fresh air. When The newspaper met her last Monday, she was returning from a training session to learn how to prevent blood pressure.
“We weren’t rich, but we never lacked money. My parents were the same thing,” she concluded before continuing her walk.
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