£210 billion. That is the astronomical cost of keeping Britain working - and Chancellor Rishi Sunak is shovelling out extra billions by the week. Money we have not got but will have to pay back over years.
It set me thinking about money, spending and saving, and what it has meant in my life.
I have been lucky. Rosemary and I had good homes and a happy life bringing up our family, with no real money worries.
I was much better off than my grandparents and my parents.
When my grandfather died young, Granny Dymond was left with six children, the youngest a baby, and my mother and her brother Walter had to take over. Then came the first war and hard years.
Life was not easy for Mum and Dad when they married after he came back from the war and their family was growing up in West Ham and then Wandsworth.
Money was short, especially when Dad was off work ill for months,
My first experience of handling money was my 'Saturday penny' pocket money.
It did not burn a hole in my pocket. I was off to the sweet shop and it would be replaced by sweets, often a Mars bar, considerably bigger than today's.
My first windfall was a sixpenny piece , a reward from Mum and Dad for doing well at Cave Road infants school. This time it was the toyshop.
In those days, unlike today, we youngsters, even if we had money, had little to spend it on.
A memeorable treat for young Bob was a shopping visit with Mum to Capham Junction and a 'sit down' ice cream in Lyons cafe. Twopence If I was lucky I even had chocolate sauce, halfpenny extra.
My money earning days started when, at sixteen, I became the Penarth Times reporter. My first wage, fifteen shillings a week.
Finance became more important in 1952 when newly married Rosemary and I moved into our first home, 52 Cardiff Road Caerphilly. It cost us nothing, it was provided by the South Wales Argus as my Rhymney Valley district office.
A money milestone in my career was reaching £1,000 a year and then years of freelance work with national papers and BBC broadcasting boosted my pay - always in guineas, not pounds.
Rosemary and Bob at Ayers Rock (Uluru), Australia
My switch from reporting to a new, long career in public relations provided a comfortable lifestyle, especially after retirement when Rosemary and I enjoyed travelling.
Now my savings are paying for me to enjoy living comfortably in Sunrise.
How different life will be for today's young people, struggling to find work and to repay vast debts.
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