I have bookmarked her blog but I haven't read much of it lately. What I do remember reading during my initial stint was that she has very little in the way of savings and wouldn't feel comfortable with the hassle of managing investments. Financially that's her downfall.
But I think her financial downfall is largely trivial. She seems like she's in great health both physically and mentally and has an active and varied life. Her most valuable asset is her mindset.
I agree that most of the time you hear the typically negative glass-half-empty/glass-smashed-on-the-floor/woe-is-me news stories of how hard pensioners have it. Many of them do. But many of them are also inactive, have poot diets, are overweight, drink too much and smoke and have an attitude that life has overlooked them or kicked them whilst they were down and now they are just rotting away.
Ilona could easily have the same attitude. But she doesn't. She rocks. She actually hasn't had any financial advantages at all so the people in the comments that moan about how lucky she is are retarded. When you're basically a frugality Rambo/McGyver/Chuck Norris you don't have luck. Why? Because you ate luck for breakfast with some home grown salad or yellow sticker products.
