I’VE just renewed my Freedom Pass. That’s the free pass oldies living in London get for the buses and Tube – they’re brilliant.

I get such innocent yet enormous pleasure out of not paying, then jumping off and onto another bus, still not paying. Obviously I could afford to pay, and the savings are piddling, but that’s not the point. Every time I get on a bus, I beam as if I’ve won the lottery .

Taking care of course not to be a “Twirly”. You have to use your pass after nine, otherwise the driver says: “Too wirly.”

My new pass now runs until the end of March 2010, so that’s a real incentive to hang on. I’d hate to pop off, before getting my money’s worth out of it.

My ambition after that is to get to 2011. By then I’ll be 75 and you get a free TV licence, which will save me, let me see . . . actually I don’t know what I’ll save. I pay by direct debit, twice in fact, for our Lakeland home as well as here in London.

Isn’t that awful? I moan on about the price of things and yet when it comes to it, I don’t know the price of things. It’s the saving I like, whatever it is I’m saving.

There aren’t many advantages in growing old. Your body starts wearing out, bits you never knew you had or even used fall to pieces and you can’t run or do hills. But personally, apart from that, I don’t feel I’ve slowed down, grown less greedy or less energetic. New pair of knees, that would help a lot.

Normally, I never go on about the state of my health to people younger than myself. I made that vow years ago. You’re old, they’re thinking, what do you expect. That’s what I thought, when I was young and oldies twittered on. I save my moans for my contemporaries. They’ll listen, so they can tell me about their boring problems.

But there are many advantages to age, oh yes. There’s also free prescriptions, free eye tests, senior discount rail passes, discounts at the cinema if you go at the right time, like in the middle of the afternoon.

My barber, Chris of Goddess, usually charges £10 for a short back and sides, but if I go on a Tuesday, pensioners’ day, he charges only £6.50. Life’s good. Worth sticking around.

The financial advantages are not so good. National Savings & Investments’ so-called Pensioners’ Bonds are a nonsense, no better rates than lots of others. Those ads from building societies promising the over50s special deals are rubbish as well. You can always get better elsewhere, if you look around, regardless of your age.

I gave up years ago having investments that were “with profits”, or tied to some foreign stock exchange I’d never heard of, asI always seemed to lose money. Now I go for guaranteed fixed rates, however modest, that’s when I can be bothered at all. Keeping it under the bed, that’s got harder with age. Can’t bloody bend down like I used to.

I do have one NS&I Guaranteed Equity Bond, which is due up later this year. I took it out five years ago when the FTSE 100 index was 3,847. It’s now around 5,700, so I could do really well this time. I only have to cling on another few months.

My children don’t like it when I go on like this, about clinging on, or when I say no, I’m not buying another car, this one will see me out.

I call it realism, not pessimism. Anyway, I’m looking forward to not having a car. Nasty things, just clutter up the roads.

But hey, I have a long time to go yet – and I’ve now got another incentive to live to a decent old age.

I have a friend, Frankie, two years older than me, who is a very keen skiier. He’s told me some amazing news. In Austria and Switzerland, ski passes are free for the over80s. Isn’t that great, positive and life affirming?

Okay, so I don’t ski, but that’s not the point. When I get to 80, I’ll definitely take it up. If just to save money.

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