Under Construction @ Keele 2016 Volume 2 Issue 1 | Page 62

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produced’ by people their own age,40 suggest there is no need to sacrifice anything,
everything is available to all people as long as they employ their ‘technologies of the
self’.41 However to an older person these actions are imperative to their identity,
wellbeing and survival.
Furthermore, because the older people grew up in a period of limitation their
subjectivity has developed in accordance with an ethos of thriftiness. All of the older
people within this study demonstrated a thrifty attitude towards purchasing goods,
believing they should wait for items until they could afford them. For example, Ronald
saved for a car until he was in his forties, Dorothy worked long hours to buy a house
and Flo saved ‘half a crown a week’ to save for a bike. As Martha aptly summarised,
‘living within [her] means….[was] old hat for people like [her]’, as she, along with
many other people now in old age, were brought up to only buy items when they had
the money after prolonged periods of saving. This is not to argue that the older
people do not consume at all, as they do purchase goods from outlets like Marks and
Spencer and British Home Stores, but in contrast to younger people