It is tough NOW. So how are we coping

wigglebeena

JillD, might an arthritis charity (or one specifically for ankylosing spondylitis) be willing to subsidise your husband's gym membership? If you don't ask you don't get...

mardatha

I know my daughter had the same thing re tax credits, they said she had been overpaid for ages and she owed them £3000. HUGE lot of correspondence, (she is a very tough scorpio and never loses her nerve or backs down which is just as well with these people !) and after about 2 years they said ok its our fault.There is a forum somewhere that deals with this and they advised her, maybe you could find it .
I had a great time last night when I was bored. Bit ill just now so on the couch in nightie and REALLY bored LOL-- I was in an american survival forum, their approah is hysterically funny. We are sitting here all captain mannering growing veg and they are sitting there "hunkering down", buying up "ammo", waiting for "TSHTF" and "TEOCAWKI", while quoting the bible. Haven't had such a good laugh in ages !!

mardatha

TY Ceridwen pet. Will read that site after my porridge The world seems divided into two lots --those (like my RV) who say "oh no you canny do that" and those who FIND A WAY like my dad ..:)

ceridwen

"resourcefulness" is my other middle name Mardatha:D .

I am coming round more to thinking that I must try and reframe "problems" as "opportunities" if its at all possible. The obvious one - that I had to learn years ago - was to reframe "Heck...:eek: I've just been made unemployed" around into "Well - at least I have more time to do what I want when I want". So I guess thats a useful sorta mindset to have.....

back to the gardening and the pondering around substitutes for wheat and fruit - which would appear to be two of the main foods we are likely to have problems with getting in the future........:cool: I've got me a coupla fruit trees now out in t'garden......now wheat....thinks....wheat.....flour.....MY BREAD! MY PASTA!....oooh my head hurts.....

JillD_2

NoahsPennilessMummy wrote: »

I appealed against this and it took about 6 months to hear anything from them but in Jan we got aletter saying they had listened to all the phone calls and investigated it and it had been their mistake so we no longer owed them the money:beer:

So don`t give up hope anyone appealing at the mo

Wow! How did you start off the appeal process ? Did you just phone and say I want to appeal please ?"
Its got to be worth a try. It was DH's business partner that was told about the way we were supposed toreport his income, they pay themselves the exact same way, there are 3 of them that own the business and they all get the same money etc. their tax credits have been stopped too So I dont know if HMRC would say we should have asked independently (cos like yeah we all have time to wait in a queue on the phone for 20 minutes needlessly :rolleyes:)

But we have nothing to lose so I think I will get hubby to phone - he is more diplomatic than me, i will jst get cross or cry

Thanks for the advice

JillD_2

chrisbethany wrote: »

Well done JillD. Once I gave up any sense of misplaced pride ("Why should I? ...")

I so kow what you mean, all week I hae been giving it "its not fair, we slogged our guts out, how can we be worse off after all the effort, why should I have to buy cheapo veg when I want to buy luxury things bla de bla de bla" ad it is such a negative way to think, casues nothing but stress.

I've had a really good few days now plotting what to do, got a fabulous reply on my "growing my own veg" post so am all fired up over that too

wigglebeena

Ceridwen, I'm told maize is quite easy to grow. If you could find someone/some way to mill it, at least you would have maizemeal for pancakes.

JillD_2

kittie wrote: »

Lovely and inspiring post and poster Jilld. You are doing fantastically well

I would agree with all the comments re curtains, you will be surprised at how much warmth gets generated by body heat and the curtains will keep it in the room. If push comes to shove and time disappears, then use tacking low down and pins higher up where little ones can`t reach. You can always do a pristine job in the summer

I find that energy saving is fairly easily accomplished by a few simple tweaks: preparing one pot meals for two days. Saving fridge energy by defrosting everything in the fridge. In the evenings, keep the living room/tv room door shut, our wireless thermostat cuts the heating off pretty quickly if in that room and it stays at 19 or so all evening. Use
http://www.imeasure.org.uk/ as it will give you advance warning re your usage

Tyanks for your reply.
I even dreamt about making curtains last night :rotfl:
Loving the thought that they dont have to be pritine, I am a terrible perfectionist and yes I would have had none and freeze, but yes you are right I can just tack or whatever.
My main problem is what curtain rail or whatever to go round a bay
And how to make the full length ones not just get pulled down by the baby. Thats why blinds might be safer, then again she wont be a baby forever. Hmmmmm

I havent seen imeasure.org thanks for that.

Someone once mentioned some sort of leak test to see where your heat is going (literally). Does anyone kow of how you get such a test done ? Someone comes round your house and measures something in each room and they identify draughty areas etc. I dont know more than that though.

JillD_2

wigglebeena wrote: »

JillD, might an arthritis charity (or one specifically for ankylosing spondylitis) be willing to subsidise your husband's gym membership? If you don't ask you don't get...

Hadnt thought of that, will def look into it
is swimming helps massively, he had a week where he didnt get to do it because I was ill or something, he could hardly move by the end of the week. Maybe we should buy that villa in Spain with the outdoor pool..............:rotfl::rotfl:

Flip I have so many things to do now!
Sort curtains for play room
Appeal against tax credits decision
Look into subsidy for DH swimming
Dig a vegetable plot

Good job I gave up work

One amazingly good thing - the car was MOT'ed yesterdya and it passed hurrah!
And oh a second good thing, I am doing a £25 fee mystery shop this morning so some free food!

ceridwen

Thinks...didnt someone mention earlier using plastic "milkbottles" for foodgrowing purposes? Ah....I can now picture what they mean:

http://farminginsuburbia.blogspot.com/2009/01/winter-sowing-my-new-experiment.html