The jobless are no shirking scroungers – you try living on £65.45 a week

dopester

PasturesNew wrote: »

Most people don't "choose" where they live, but are driven by events and/or family and roots. It's quite difficult to be mobile in Britain these days. If houses/rents were cheaper it'd be easier to move about. But it's not. You can plan moves if you have money, or you have a long-term plan to move (say a year to get sorted/arranged), but it's all just so darned expensive.

How do you come to be living where you do?

a) That's pretty true.

b) True - but if needs must, an individual could take measures to find cost-effective accommodation near areas of employment/opportunity. A few years back I stayed in a great little bed & breakfast (own key to room/tv/nicely heated) in Camden Town with a full english cooked breakfast served in the morning. It's still only £17.50 per night in 2010. LOOT online is packed with house-shares, bedsits and studios in London from £50 a week. Maybe I'm wrong in thinking individuals should have some savings to back themselves up for all manner of uncertainties, until securing new work.

http://www.loot.com/advert/bayswater-w2/2958614

c) Family and roots and friends + cheap rent, but if circumstances required I'd have to give those up to travel and live closer to where the jobs are. I wouldn't expect the jobs to come closer to me, or to be given free extra money to level the playing field against those who were geographically advantaged. My father did it before me, around the UK and abroad. I stayed over in many a cheap bedsit dive with him, during school holidays, in the North as a kid.

lostinrates

dopester wrote: »

If you choose to live somewhere remote, where public transport is patchy, and where it's easier to have a car... I don't see what cause you have to complain if your circumstances change and you're struggling for money, or jobs in the local area.

I think Carolt rents her home. She can move easily enough if necessary.

If you own a home and don't like the fact JSA doesn't allow you enough money to run a car, then sell your home and move to where more jobs are. If you rent, give notice and go rent where there are more employment opportunities and better transport links. The government isn't going to pay extra JSA and luxury money so people can have cars to get around in, because they've chosen to live somewhere in the sticks. It's ridiculous. You live in an area where you choose to live.

In the main, dear, I agree, as I went on to say. there will always be exceptions to this being a rule of good sense.

another aside, to follow on from PN's thing about trains I think the last train to out here is shortly after nine/nine thirty pm on a friday night. It takes the same time to drive to the West End when there is little traffic and is cheaper. What we do, now I only have the truck, is DH trains to the nearest place where late night trains run too (army city) and I drive an hour or so to collect him and drive home. Expensive, time ridiculous.

carolt

PasturesNew wrote: »

I just checked online. The town where there's most likely a job near me is half an hour by car, at a cost of £3 each way, or it's 1.25 hours by public transport costing more.

Taking a "normal working day" of 9-5.30pm, by car I could leave home at 8.15 and be home by 6.15, (minimum 8:30 to 6:00), or by public transport it's 07:20 to 19:00. So it's an extra two hours by public transport per day. Often buses will either just drive past you, or simply never come... and you've no idea they're not coming, they just don't turn up.

And the following post, about the lad at Aldi...welcome to my world.

I do spend far, far longer than people with cars getting to places. Not a problem - it's sociable, environmentally friendly and good for me - I walk far more than people who drive. Long journeys to work are handy - I do lots of marking/preparation on the bus, which I couldn't do if I was driving (obviously), even if I did get there quicker.

Sometimes they don't turn up - it's a !!!!!!, but being philosophical about it helps.

lostinrates

carolt wrote: »

And the following post, about the lad at Aldi...welcome to my world.

I do spend far, far longer than people with cars getting to places. Not a problem - it's sociable, environmentally friendly and good for me - I walk far more than people who drive. Long journeys to work are handy - I do lots of marking/preparation on the bus, which I couldn't do if I was driving (obviously), even if I did get there quicker.

Sometimes they don't turn up - it's a !!!!!!, but being philosophical about it helps.

Hard to be philosophical if its a job interview! I agree: generally I think city dwellers are fitter than country side equivalents, for the same reasons. Walking to the bus/tube might not seem like a lot, but its more than walking to the car generally.

Lotus-eater

lostinrates wrote: »

generally I think city dwellers are fitter than country side equivalents, for the same reasons. Walking to the bus/tube might not seem like a lot, but its more than walking to the car generally.

I've never thought of that before, you might be right. As you know I live deep in the countryside and everyone around me does alot of walking around in the fields etc.
But I can't think of anyone in the village (under 60) that couldn't walk for a few miles over the lanes.
I more think it's down to social class, not where you live.

Jomo

lostinrates wrote: »

Hard to be philosophical if its a job interview! I agree: generally I think city dwellers are fitter than country side equivalents, for the same reasons. Walking to the bus/tube might not seem like a lot, but its more than walking to the car generally.

I would have thought country folk would be fitter than city dwellers...

lostinrates

Lotus-eater wrote: »

I've never thought of that before, you might be right. As you know I live deep in the countryside and everyone around me does alot of walking around in the fields etc.
But I can't think of anyone in the village (under 60) that couldn't walk for a few miles over the lanes.
I more think it's down to social class, not where you live.

I think its become more about social class, in a weird reversed way: e.g. fitness used to be a side effect of hard physical :eg for women scrubbing pots/floors, hauling pails of water etc instead of sitting doing embroidery: now its the women who could aford to embroider who are the most fit : gyms, yoga, private pilates and tennis lessons...Madonna :eek:.

walking is free, but unless you have a dog or another reason, slogging hrough dark lanes no pavements is miserable much of the year, and the wet/muddy fields like wise. Glorious in the spring/summer/autumn. Fewer people seem to walk now. My parents/dad and I used to go for long walks once every weekend with the dogs...getting lost often:eek::o.

I can't talk...we're playing with the new wii fit today: I'm very conscious there is practical stuff we could be doing outside instead....but the weather is grim.


I'd say here it works out pretty evenly across classes though, I think. the appearance of aging is perhaps different though.

Jomo

lostinrates wrote: »

I think its become more about social class, in a weird reversed way: e.g. fitness used to be a side effect of hard physical :eg for women scrubbing pots/floors, hauling pails of water etc instead of sitting doing embroidery: now its the women who could aford to embroider who are the most fit : gyms, yoga, private pilates and tennis lessons...Madonna :eek:.

walking is free, but unless you have a dog or another reason, slogging hrough dark lanes no pavements is miserable much of the year, and the wet/muddy fields like wise. Glorious in the spring/summer/autumn. Fewer people seem to walk now. My parents/dad and I used to go for long walks once every weekend with the dogs...getting lost often:eek::o.

I can't talk...we're playing with the new wii fit today: I'm very conscious there is practical stuff we could be doing outside instead....but the weather is grim.


I'd say here it works out pretty evenly across classes though, I think. the appearance of aging is perhaps different though.

House work still exists doesn't it?

People still scrub and clean don't they?

Well I hope they do :eek::eek:

lostinrates

Jomo wrote: »

House work still exists doesn't it?

People still scrub and clean don't they?

Well I hope they do :eek::eek:

yes, but its less demanding, what with hot water on tap, and hoovers. I actually quite enjoy housework...:o but the ease of detergents and hoovers mean even on wet days like today when I mop every time the dogs go in and out, its easier than it would have been years ago.

edit: the difference is I guess, those ''embroiderers'' have to push a hoover around too now.

Lotus-eater

lostinrates wrote: »

I'd say here it works out pretty evenly across classes though, I think. the appearance of aging is perhaps different though.

Well to be totally un PC, here the social classes make up a huge difference. In the upper levels I don't know anyone that is unfit. In the lower levels it's split between some who do nothing, drink and smoke too much and some who work very hard all the time and are as fit as a racehorse.
Middle classes are generally something between the two.