It is tough NOW. So how are we coping

Larumbelle

Maccanut, I agree with dandy-candy that it is worth approaching the school about lost property. Or try to back of the local papers or advertising on freegle or gumtree?

My mum used to run a school uniform "thrift club" where you could donate or swap uniforms, and our school used to give all of the lost property to it (after a 'claiming day' near the end of term where it was all displayed in a long snaking row that we were all forced to walk around!!). She used to repair uniforms to sell, or repair peoples' own for a small fee. She even let the fifth form leavers swap (with permission) their old ties, blazers and rugger shirts for sweets/crisps/pop on their leaving day. The school thought it was great and gave her a disused mobile classroom to run it from. It was 'open' one day a fortnight but she was happy to take calls 'out of hours'.

alec_eiffel

The_Thrilla wrote: »

Hi unixgirluk

Yesterday, (Monday) there was a feature on Radio 5 Dead's Wake Up to Money programme at about 5:30 in the morning. They had someone from some society of charity shops who were having their annual conference. He was saying that the amount and quality of donations had gone down. Less people were giving their stuff to charity, and more were selling it on ebay or at car boot sales.

I'd agree with this. There was a brief spike in great quality donations after the "Mary Queen of Charity Shops" show last year but since then it has been dire. Donations have been poor due to people hanging onto things or selling at car boots, EBay and even giving it away on Freegle. Of the stuff that is donated I've found lots of very very old stuff (and not in a vintagey good way) and lots of stuff from cheap "fast fashion" shops and it's virtually impossible to sell. It's not good quality and was so inexpensive to buy in the first place people just won't pay even 50p for most of it. Very difficult.

The bad weather had a massive impact on donations early in the year too. Usually we have a mass of stuff after Christmas but this year there was nothing at all.

kunekune

Not exactly, but I am planning for hard times in a slightly different way. At the moment, we have one high income and one medium income (because OH can only work part-time). It's a high pressure life, we rely heavily on before and after school and holiday clubs, and the house is a total tip because OH is too exhausted by his illness to do housework and I'm working significantly more than full-time. But by my standards, I'm raking in the money. We will suffer financially, as we get DLA and child benefit, and it's unlikely we'll get any help when the time comes for OH to give up work. Fortunately, the special school my son is expected to go to for secondary - only half built - IS going to be finished, but I suspect that plans for after school care and the provision of transport will fall through. So we quite possibly only have a year of dual incomes left. So my belt tightening is actually to do with spending and being LESS OS!!! Rather than do what I'd prefer, and drop my working hours to spend time with my family and so forth, I have to carry on working my little guts out. It's intellectual not physical work but it's still demanding. The time has come to throw in the towel, get a cleaner, get someone to do the ironing, and possibly cook less from scratch! (OH hates slow cookers). It means I get no financial benefit from the consultancy work I do, but it'll still be there if our situation changes. Kind of keeping things ticking in the meantime.

We are trying to reduce costs as well, though. I think we may switch our main shop from Ocado to Asda!

Uniscots97

The_Thrilla wrote: »

Hi unixgirluk

Yesterday, (Monday) there was a feature on Radio 5 Dead's Wake Up to Money programme at about 5:30 in the morning. They had someone from some society of charity shops who were having their annual conference. He was saying that the amount and quality of donations had gone down. Less people were giving their stuff to charity, and more were selling it on ebay or at car boot sales.

Thats not good is it? But they can't offset a lack of donations with bumping their prices up. I gave up 6 months of my time to work for a charity and its probably the best experience I've ever had (have always wanted to do it and glad I had the chance). I think I got lucky though as it was a really nice group of people I worked with in a semi-decent area. Only now and again did we get donations that were only fit for the bin (1 bag was full of flies and it was carried into the shop!).

juliethemuse

we are really tightening our belts, no more takeaways in this house, i love fish and chips but to feed us all it costs over £20 a time, which is way OTT,
however i'm not mean , and i have over 70 pounds in the penny jar which goes towards the kids and grandsons christmas prezzies,
my eldest son is certainly learning the value of money he charged me a tenner to get a lift to the vets and its only a few miles,
i know the diesel needs buying but honestly! we looked after his huge rottweiler for nothing when he went on a course, and it ate us out of house and home, i ask for a lift and i get charged!
and my other 3 who still live at home are always hungry! my 21 year old must have a hollow leg, he constantly eats but never gets any fatter, ooh the injustice!!:)

Primrose

I started the belt tightening exercise a while back when we were having all the panics with the banks nearly going bust although to be fair, we already live within our income and try to manage our money as effectively as possible. I guess that this household is not terribly high maintenance in terms of having expensive hobbies, regular takeaways, lots of meals out and similar kinds of expenditure which can make a hole in your budget very quickly. If we have to, there are probably a few more savings we could make like giving up our daily newspaper, but having slogged away all our working lives leaving home early every morning, a leisurely breakfast with a quality paper is one of our indulgences. I also tell myself that it's essential to be knowledgeable about what's happening in the wider economy so that that we can hopefully be 'one step ahead of the game' if things start to go even more pear shaped than they are already.
I think that even people who do have savings behind them are becoming more thoughtful about their expenditures now. With the risk of inflation and loss of taxable benefits, lower allowances, etc. salaries and savings will just not be stretching as far as they used to and it doesn't take long, if you're not keeping a strict eye on your finances, to find that you're suddenly exceeding your income.

Hippeechiq

jediteacher wrote: »

Lurker here!

I've been reading this thread for a while and have finally thought that I must join in.

The budget has effected us as I'm in the public sector - primary school teacher. I work part time since having my little girl. The budget has really stuffed us. My wages are frozen and I know people think I get paid a lot but we honestly don't. The hours are tough despite what people think about holidays. Even though I work three days officially I still actually work the other two days unpaid! I could go on for ever about the wrongs that are said about teachers but will probably only offend people.

Anyway, I really need to join this frugal living as we do have debts to clear and with the cost of living going up (we barely cope now!) we really need to tighten our belts. We have no holidays, rarely go out and if we do it's to friends and don't drink.

Will sit down today and meal plan and sort out our income and outgoings. We did not benefit from the drop in mortgage rates and had to renew our mortgage during the high rates and are now locked in for 5 years.

My grandmother is Polish and survived the war. She was imprisoned in a concentration camps but with the help of a priest she escaped and fled to England. As a result of this she is excellent at making things stretch so will have to ask her for some more tips. The downside to this is that she still has the same mentality that she had in the camp and will throw nothing away even if (food) is well past eating. She's 82 and a real gem. Infact she's my hero and can never truly appreciate what she went through. :A

Anyway, if it's ok with you guys I would love to join this little community.

:wave: Hello & Welcome jediteacher and what an inspiring post about your grandmother

Mardartha agree with everything you have posted above 100%, but then I usually do, because everything you say always makes sense, has a valid point, or both.

I live in a town now, but spent the first 40 years of my life in deep rural countryside. 20 minutes to the nearest small towns, 30 & 45 minutes from decent sized ones, so I know all about the costs of travelling to work - and even grocery shopping - and these things should come into the equation when you're expected to apply for jobs a long way away. Why is our petrol one if not the most expensive in the world?

DH is officially on a 4 day week as of now with a possibility of reducing to a 3 day week if things don't pick up.

Sorry to hear that mama67 and anyone else who is receiving the same kind of news :grouphug:

tiff

Re your final point Primrose, I recently took my eye off the ball when I found out I was being made redundant (felt like giving up) and havent been keeping an eye on food expenditure and other bills and found we were going overdrawn so I've now switched on again. Things dont appear to be as gloomy as last year when banks were calling in overdrafts and reducing credit limits etc but we're not out of the woods yet.

If we hadnt cleared our credit cards in the last year, we would be in trouble with my redundancy looming and we also had to replace our car recently using most of the savings that we had. I sooooo need a job!

maccanut

smileyt wrote: »

Hi Maccanut

You need to get yourself down to your local Citizens Advice Bureau, or your local welfare advice service (some Councils have them) - you can't take what the DSS (DWP now I believe) say as gospel as a lot of them aren't trained in benefits. Or try this website as a starting point http://www.turn2us.org.uk/benefits_search.aspx but still try and get some advice from an advice agency. Hope that helps.

friend has given me her sons blazer which has saved us quiet a bit, school expects the kids to wear shirt and tie every day which isn't to bad but what gets me is the t-shirt for 12 pounds:( i've said to dh i will just buy plain ones,have to leave it for a few weeks as my lovely ds is taking a stretch again:eek: and eating everything in front which is not bad as i cook from scratch everyday but after tea he comes back for second thirds and fourths so im trying to get myself into a habit of baking alot as he likes home B just like his dad and grandfather, going to look into what you said see if we can get anything else,last time i went in they kept me there for and hour and a half and had to pay someone to look after dh and when they looked at computer oooh your dh is housbound and you are caring for him duuuh:mad: thanks for nothing i told you thhis when i came into the office to be made to feel terrible . rambeling agin thanks smileyt
blessing
abigail

Primrose

jediteacher - your grandmother sounds a wonderful lady and I'm sure you can learn a lot from her. When you hear the stories that people like her can tell (and I also knew a lady who suffered similar circumstances) it makes us realise that however hard things may seem to us now, they are quite easy by comparison. One of my grandmothers bought up 6 children single handed with a husband away in the first World war, and even when he returned, he suffered long periods of unemployment. She learnt every trick in the book of necessity, to survive and those habits never left her. When she died and her house was cleared out, every single spent match since World War 2 had been saved in jars for future possible kindling to light fires, even though she had long since had automatic ignition gas fires installed! Frugality like this is a habit difficult to shake off, and I often think of my grandmother, and even my parents in WW2 when I find myself hoarding short lengths of string and elastic bands.