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If things get tougher?

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  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 12,492 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    I snuggled up on the sofa under a fleece last night and dozed off as I was so comfortable. Grhhhh I missed most of frost. It is surprsing how much warmth builds up in the living room just from the tv, its only a 36" lcd tv too

    I had to go to T yesterday but I am very picky these days. I went past a small stand of beer with some very large gold boxes of lily o`brien chocs at half price. I don`t think I dithered because I have heard that these are top quality chocs and at £6.99 they will make a good present. That is the 3rd half price saving into the christmas store now. It is joining the quality street (bogof) and big tin of biscuits for cheese at £2.99 :D I refuse to buy any christmas luxury at full price from them and I`ll do without me nuts if I have to :wink:

    It was very quiet in T and hardly any decent reductions anywhere. I bought 2 cox apple bags but they will only last days as they are ready to eat right now. I bought some more tins of pilchards in tomato at 61p. They take me right back to the 50s and my mum used to get them a lot. We children loved them particularly with chopped fresh onion and chips and peas. My own famly was dished up lots pilchards in the 70s/80s. I used to make things like shepherds pie but with pilchards and the children always happily eat it . Last night we had mashed pilchards, actifry chips (2 tsp olive oil) and broccolli and sprouts. Really nice too. I noticed that I only ever see oldies buying pilchards. Try them, but not on their own. Use salad cream, +/- onion etc. Be imaginative as they are a fantstic cheap source of protein and a tin is enough for 4
  • sammyjig
    sammyjig Posts: 243 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    Essex-girl wrote: »
    I think a lot of stuff will come back and thats no bad thing.

    However I really hope I dont have to make fake bananas out of parsnips!!

    We have a little museum locally and they have a war time front room with the weeks rations on the dining table - that is really scary.

    Which museum please Essex-girl. I would love to take my kids to show them.
    :)Do more of what makes you happy:)
  • thriftlady_2
    thriftlady_2 Posts: 9,128 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Combo Breaker I've been Money Tipped!
    This is what the rations looked like when put together for 5 people. I forgot to include the sugar in this picture which was 8oz per person.

    There's no meat there either. This was rationed by price rather than weight. Very roughly you had about 12oz a week. Families would often pool all their meat ration for one decent sized joint on a Sunday. Sausages weren't rationed but didn't contain much meat. Offal and game weren't rationed either. Nor was fish.
  • oldMcDonald
    oldMcDonald Posts: 1,945 Forumite
    Ooo, thriftlady, I had forgotten that thread of yours. We home educate and I remember using your thread when we 'did' WWII - we spent a week on war rations and every now and then DH or I would shout 'Bomb!' and everyone had to stop what they were doing and run into the dining room for 1/2 hour, pretending it was our Anderson shelter! (yes, I know 1/2 hour was a short time - it was just to give the children an idea :))

    I'm off to look for that thread again, there was a load of useful information in there :)
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 17,413 Forumite
    10,000 Posts I've been Money Tipped!
    As a previous OP said it will seem to hit a lot of people harder as they have become accustomed to a higher standard of living .I grew up during and after the war and so the 1970s wasn't that much of a big deal to me .We had almost no credit then, and everything was bought for cash. Large items maybe, like furniture was sometimes bought on HP but I was always frightened that we couldn't pay it off so never used HP. In fact I still have the old bedstead that someone gave me in my spare room for my DD when she came out of her cot, and she is now 41!! it had been used by the lady in question for all of her five sons so it was a pre-war iron bedstead. Obviously I have had different mattresses on it over the years ,but its still the comfiest bed in my house.
    Obukit has got it right ,try cutting back now, and it won't seem quite so hard. The 'spend now pay later' brigade will find it the hardest and with Christmas looming ever closer its time to try and say NO to the expensive toys that will be flooding the market.
    I was watching T.V. at my DDs house yesterday with some of my small grandsons and every advert was pushing toys at the children There wasn't one toy under £50.00 !! I have seven granchildren and there is no way I would, or could spend that sort of money ,I just couldn't justify it to myself.
    I adore my grandkids, but sensibly I don't think it would do them, or me any favours. They won't go without, but they won't get plastic rubbish that will be broken by Boxing Day either.

    I think that things will get a lot worse over the coming months, fed by the rampant consummerism that has been fed to the public by the media . believe me you can live without a new Plasma t.v. or Hi-Fi ststem.
    My t.v. is 19 years old and works perfectly well. Why should I buy a new one , it won't improve the programmes.The Government is pushing digital t.v. at folk and a lot of people believe that they will have to buy new t.v.s to cope with the switchover Totally untrue .I have a basic cable system and it won't make a scrap of difference to me.

    This site is great for making folk realise just how much you can 'do without' and 'make do and mend' as my Mum and I did years ago.
    As long as I don't have to eat snoek or Woolton pie I will be a happy bunny
    So we turn down unneeded heating, and switch off lights, it's no hardship its commonsense. Re-using things makes more sense than binning things . Instead of having Jamie Oliver telling people how to cook a steak or salmon why not have an 'ordinary' cooking programme to help folk who have grown up thinking everything comes from a tin how to cook basic items from scratch . I see young Mums buying ready made meals for their families and I wonder if it is lazieness or just ignorance (through no fault of their own) that they don't cook. There are countless programmes on t.v. about cooking but almost none about basic skills cookery. The government are keen to get Basic skills in English and Maths at children why not the same for cooking It would save a fortune on landfill for a start as there would be less thrown away .its no good moaning about how much is binned show people how to cook from scratch and there will be less waste.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 12,492 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    things won`t generally be as bad as in the 70s but for the ones affected now and for the whole of 2009, it will be more devastating now that there isn`t much in the way of council housing. The ones facing repossession and those with a lot of debt and maybe facing redundancy are going to be very badly affected. There was more cameraderie in the 70s and in the post war years, when people were in the same boat and I don`t see that in the uk these days, apart from on the os threads

    There is talk of a recession but it has not really hit home for a lot of people yet. There are recessions and recessions and a deep recession leading to depression is absolutely devastating for much of the working population
  • dND
    dND Posts: 801 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Pilchards are a strange item aren't they. If asked "do you like pilchards" I would probably say no but pilchards in tomato sauce, heated and mashed and spread on toast are lovely as well as being a good source of calcium.
    Aiming for a Champagne Lifestyle on a Lemonade Budget
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  • sammyjig
    sammyjig Posts: 243 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    I am the first to admit that we were guilty of buying on credit and ran up some debt. Luckily I found MSE and we are slowly but surelysorting it out. I think that the people that will be hit hardest are the ones who haven't had their "lightbulb moment".

    Can I be a bit dim and ask what the difference betwen a recession and a depression is?
    :)Do more of what makes you happy:)
  • recession -a temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced.

    depression - a long and severe recession in an economy or market

    Think 70s recession (we recovered relatievly quickly); depression 30s (went on for most of the decade.....)

    Quick way to to remember it is if you're fed up you withdraw (into a recess) but if you withdraw for any length of time you are depressed..... (that's what my economics teacher used to say anyway).
    But I'm going to say this once, and once only, Gene. Stay out of Camberwick Green :D
  • Ooo, thriftlady, I had forgotten that thread of yours. We home educate and I remember using your thread when we 'did' WWII - we spent a week on war rations and every now and then DH or I would shout 'Bomb!' and everyone had to stop what they were doing and run into the dining room for 1/2 hour, pretending it was our Anderson shelter! (yes, I know 1/2 hour was a short time - it was just to give the children an idea :))

    I'm off to look for that thread again, there was a load of useful information in there :)

    This gave me a bit of a giggle. Did something similar with molecules when I did Brownies and we were doing our science badge - talk about organised chaos!

    Story regarding the eating of rabbit during the war. My Mum was 10 when war broke out. She liked rabbit stew but she said that evey Monday she would come home from school and the washing would be on the line and the enticing smell of rabiit stew - "oh rabbit" she'd think and her heart would sink. She sad that by the end of the war she gone right off it and we once badgered her to make it for us. Guess who was the one person at the dining table who didn't have any...... (mind you 6 years of it would be a bit waring...)
    But I'm going to say this once, and once only, Gene. Stay out of Camberwick Green :D
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