For the past eight months, I’ve been renting an apartment for £4,000 a month, eating at fancy restaurants a few times a week and spending £400 on designer shoes without a thought.
I’d never have classed myself as a big spender before but, after finding out I have ten years to live, I plan to enjoy life to the fullest — without worrying about the price tag.
My life changed after I caught Covid in 2020. I was 69 and in the best shape of my life: I was a member of a gym and I had a personal trainer. I was the kind of woman who ran past people up the escalator.
But after I got the virus, I was hospitalised, then bed-bound for five months. When I eventually began leaving the house, I kept fainting, despite having no history of it, and ended up in A&E three times.
One nurse joked I deserved a VIP pass because I was there so often, but the reason was far less funny. I had heart failure and needed cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT), where they insert electrodes into the heart, co-ordinated by a pacemaker.
After finding out she has ten years left to live, Carole Railton plans to enjoy life to the fullest, without worrying about the price tag
Half a million people in the UK have pacemakers, about a third of them, like me, for the most serious kind of heart failure. In our case, the machine beats the heart for us, and is the only thing keeping us alive.
The life expectancy for those with this highly invasive device makes for gloomy reading — I’ve been told I have around ten years.
Before the surgery, I’d decided to sell the three-storey townhouse in north London that I’d lived in for 32 years as I could no longer climb the stairs.
I decided to rent — with a decade left, what would be the point in tying up all the money I had in a purchase?
The estate agent showed me a luxury rental in Wapping, east London, and I fell in love. It was on the Thames, all glass, with an incredible view of the Shard and Tower Bridge. I could see boats going past and cars and planes.
Yes, it would be miles more than I’d ever spent on property — at £4,000 per month I was going to be blowing almost £50,000 a year on rent — but it was well worth it.
My house sold for £1 million, and I started doing the maths for how much I’d need to enjoy each year of the rest of my life. I don’t have any family to give my money to, so I had ten years to blow my budget.
An accountant advised me: ‘I want you to spend £10,000 on yourself before you do anything else, to have a different perspective on life.’
Carole says she spends money on things that make her feel good, which, she admits, is primarily food
Changing my spending habits has been liberating. It’s not that I’ve not lived a boring life. On the contrary, I’ve visited 100 countries and worked in 47, including in recruitment for companies such as IBM and Xerox.
But prioritising my own wants, without worrying about the future or how much I’d have left in savings, was completely new.
As I no longer own a home, when I have a problem like a leak, I just ring the landlord to sort it out. It’s one of the greatest luxuries of my new lifestyle. As are the cabs I take everywhere — I gave up my driving licence and almost always take taxis instead of public transport.
I got rid of all of my furniture as I don’t want anyone to have to sort through decades-worth of my belongings. I toyed with getting a chef, but then realised I no longer had cooking utensils and preferred eating out anyway.
The rest of my £10,000 splurge went on luxuries I’d never dreamt of having. I threw out my tired John Lewis sheets for a Ralph Lauren set, which cost around £400, spent hundreds on exotic ferns for my balcony and got my make up done at Nars, where I now buy all my beauty products.
And I’ve spent hundreds on posh nightwear (the glass walls mean I can no longer go around without clothes on), and custom-made jewellery that won’t disturb my pacemaker (I can’t wear metal).
I spend on things that make me feel good. That’s primarily food. I go out for a lovely meal every few days — my favourite is a fish restaurant that overlooks the Thames.
I’m on track to blow through the money two years faster than I planned, but I’m not worried. If I need to, I’ll rent elsewhere for a bit less.
I was due to teach at a university in Bangkok before I became unwell and I would still love to make that happen. If I do take off for Thailand, I’ll be bypassing business and going right to first class.
Focusing on myself, together with the lack of stress I now feel about money, has also made me feel better health-wise. A month ago, I couldn’t walk for five minutes. Now I can and I’m hopeful it’s a sign of things to come. I’ve lived a full life, but I believe my next few years will be my best yet.
- As told to Charlotte Lytton
