really old style living?

katholicos

ginny, it certainly feels like things are getting harder by the day. I've been stockpiling for months on clearance food and special offers because i knew these even harder times were coming, but it kind of takes your breath away when the stark reality of serious financial hardship bites. I'm going to have to raise funds somehow, I can't keep paying the bank charges for being overdrawn. I've paid off thousands of pounds of debt over the years ....some of which was inherited debt from my ex who cleverly had all the bills put into my name before i left him - wasn't that good of him? Still, that was nearly 11 years ago and i'm finally on the home run and then I'm stuck at the last post...i keep trying and trying to get this overdraft down, chipping away at it and then another bank charge comes rolling in. Heaven knows how bad things would be if i wasn't living frugally!

ginnyknit

Yes Katholicos sometimes you have to run to keep up with yourself don't you. Bank charges are crippling and they seem to be a law unto themselves - you just get sorted and they take something out a day early and land you with a charge. I think the only way will get through it is by doing what we do so well - pinch every penny till it squeaks - read that on here, not claiming its my saying but its blooming good

apparently baby milk went up this week by about 75p a tin, now its over 7 quid! my daughter was annoyed especially as Mr T ran out of it for 2 weeks??? Milk tokens didnt cover the cost before now its even worse. My Dd walks miles to buy the best priced stuff for the little man luckily she still shares everything out(clothes and equipement) between her large circle of friends and I am really proud of her. Today she lent her gifted baby walker out and bought a travel cot for here 12 pounds (used once by previous owner) I think the Princess is about to take the Queens crown :rotfl:

Hippeechiq

This is the thing - we can try our best to budget, but items no longer go up by 2p or 5p, it's 10p, 25p, 50p, 75p and often more. A favourite ploy of A$das seems to be to Rollback the price of something for a couple of weeks, and then not so much as Roll Forward as Fast Forward it afterwards :eek:

This item hasn't gone up by much, but an example is their own brand BBQ Ketchup......been £1.18 for a few months, then they rolled it back to £1 for about 3 weeks, and now it's gone up to £1.28. You think how many items we all buy when we shop - that only has to happen to 10 items, and you're down a quid, and lets face it, most things go up by more than 10p a time. We're on a hiding to nothing, we really are.

We all know that the cost of cheese, bread and milk has soared, but I think the item that I've noticed that has rocketed out of all proportion, is Baked Beans....a 4 pack of H3inz Baked Beans, £2!!, and they have been £2.18 at one stage...... I mean.....WHAT?!! they're baked beans fgs! and it was kind of overnight too wasn't it? I've stopped buying them on principle.

By the way - I'm a Lakel@nd Plastics virgin :shhh:

ChocClare

Don't get me started on butter. That's gone up 30p for Tesco's bog standard in the last few months. 30p! Racketeering, I calls it!

Our wholesaler had on special offer for 76p this week, but they'd sold out, otherwise I would have bought a case of 20 and bunged it in the freezer.

seasalt_2

I have really noticed prices going up here too or - another ploy - the price stays the same but the pack size shrinks. The Co has done this with pork loins (three instead of four in a pack) and also prawns - used to get a 200g special offer pack for £2, went down to 180g, 165g and now 125g.

Cheapest butter here is £1 and that's on special offer!

Kiwisaver_2

Oh crikey don't get me started on the price of bread and dairy products again, I could weep at the stupid prices we pay for them. We have more blooming cows than people: something like six million cows among four million people and we still have to pay £1.90 ish for 2 Litres of milk. It comes to something when 2 litres of Coke is considerably cheaper. The price of milk on the global market is like gold and just keeps going up, I think we should all be investing in room to keep a cow or two. :rotfl:

I was looking at an old notebook I had kept with prices jotted down and was really quite shocked at how much things have gone up in the past couple of years. Ultimately I think financially we must all be going backwards, wages haven't going up any in the past two years, yet the price of 'stuff' seems to go up by the day.

I did my bit today and planted out my first seeds for the Spring, lettuce, tomato, peppers, pumpkins and runner beans :T

mardatha

Ultimately I think financially we must all be going backwards, wages haven't going up any in the past two years, yet the price of 'stuff' seems to go up by the day.
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This is it eh...and it wont get any better anytime soon. I would def keep a Jersey cow if I could. They are nice natured and dainty. Or possibly goats? Although they seem to be a bit of a PITA from what I hear

Red_Doe

I`ve kept goats in the past, and yes, they are a pain to keep..constant escape artists and eat everything in sight! On the plus side, they give great milk and meat.
In the spring I`m stocking the croft with sheep, just as daft as goats but not so nimble so I stand more chance of catching any escapees.

mardatha

Some people use sheep milk in cheese and in soap - are they easy to milk ? I'd drink it if it was free

Red_Doe

I don`t know, never milked a sheep I`ll be keeping them for meat and hides primarily.