It's STILL tough and not getting better - so how are we coping?

lilac_lady

"I did read about a further extension of this system that could work if you need to be disciplined: Let's play shop when you buy a big sack of rice or whatever, 'pay' yourself for it each time you use it, at the price of the smaller packs you used to buy."

What a good idea!

365days

Re the housing issue.

I can see it from both sides. The single person in a 3 bed house doesn't NEED a 3 bed house and the large family in a 2 bed flat would be better in said house. However, if that single person has found themselves single from kids leaving home and partner dying, they have worked all their lives. etc etc why should they give up their home to potentially some !!!!less family who don't understand that their children are there responsibility rather than the States. (It's ok I'm dressed in flame retardant clothing). However I know of one single person who is 'single' as her kids were taken into care. She still has the 3 bed house, huge garden. Is it fair she keeps that when another family are struggling with over crowding. The benefit sysytem in this country is all wrong. There are so many people working who are worse off than those who don't. I am a single mum, I work, I have a mortgage. Foolish me really. If i gave up working, had a couple more kids, and had my house reposesssed I would be hugely better off. So So Wrong. If i didn't work I would be housed, my kids fed (free school meals), I would get free school transport, I would of this year got a free laptop, I would of got free school holiday activities (even though I don't work...go figure!), My kids would of got a grant for school trips and after school activities the list goes on.

I'm intelligent and lucky enough to be qualified to earn good money though at the moment I have chosen to work in a lesser paid field. If I was unqualified then the toss up between working and not working would be a no brainer financially at least.

I suppose it boils down to working out who deserves what. Who is going to judge if the 60 year old (so not yet a pensioner) that has lived in their home for 40 years should move out to let a family in.

I certainly wouldn't want to be judge and jury on that one.

Rant over!



The government need to be very careful how they handle this for sure.

Hardup_Hester

I own my own house but I have a mortgage all be it a small one, when I retire I shall have to sell my house & move into a flat, I don't want to do this as I love my little house & my garden, but there will be no alternative. I'd like to over pay my mortgage & have made a few small payments but my pay is going down in September, so there is little chance of that

mardatha

I put by maybe a fiver a week off the food money and used that for the stash. I forgot to add in my whole cupboard full of Sainsbugs basic teabags
I drink a lot of tea and they taste fine to me, husband agrees. I would def hide them in the posh pkts because men are so stubborn
Re housing, it wouldn't be so bad if they stopped giving houses to halfwits like students or unemployed 16-yr-olds. Then the pensioners could be offered half decent houses in the same area.
Maggie Thatcher has a lot to answer for. Awful old witch.

eandjsmum

Austin_Allegro wrote: »

I haven't read the book but saw the TV version. I found it quite touching (though true to the period) that Mr Last only told his wife he loved her when they came close to death in an air raid.

Another good austerity book is 'Our Hidden Lives' edited by Simon Garfield. It's the diaries of a number of people from the end of WW2 until the late 1940s. Some very good insights into coping with austerity.

Ive read both Nella Last's War and Nella Last's Peace. I notice that ther was Nella Lasts 1950's on sale by am£azon. I havent read the Simon Garfield book bot I will have to now. I have just read Jane Fearnley-Whittingstalls article in this weeks Womans Weekly. Ive also read the second of David KInnistones trilogy( which covers the end of the war to the 1970s , I cant remember what it was called) So it looks as if I've a lot of reading to do - better get cracking:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Larumbelle

mardatha wrote: »

I put by maybe a fiver a week off the food money and used that for the stash. I forgot to add in my whole cupboard full of Sainsbugs basic teabags
I drink a lot of tea and they taste fine to me, husband agrees. I would def hide them in the posh pkts because men are so stubborn
Re housing, it wouldn't be so bad if they stopped giving houses to halfwits like students or unemployed 16-yr-olds. Then the pensioners could be offered half decent houses in the same area.
Maggie Thatcher has a lot to answer for. Awful old witch.

Thanks Mardatha. It is stubbornness, pure and simple, he won't even try the basics teabags, though I buy loads of other basics/value items without any complaints from him. Though I did have to be fairly sneaky originally, he's fine now. He's just got a psychological barrier regards tea, I think.

As far as housing goes, I'm not sure they actually do give students or sixteen-year-olds houses - they certainly don't round here! I get your point though, they do seem to give houses out to a lot of people who don't appear to deserve them.

Speaking of sixteen-year-olds, when I was one I was housed in a foyer project. If you've never heard of one, the best way I can describe them is sheltered housing for young people. You get a bedsit with a communal kitchen/communal bathrooms, and you are on a license to be there, so you have to keep a curfew and stay on the rails basically, attend your job or education regularly, regular drug tests if you're a user, etc. If you break the rules you can be booted out with 24 hours notice. That is where a sixteen year old is likely to be housed if anywhere, but there aren't nearly enough places for everyone who needs one (sound familiar...) They are dearer than 'normal' housing but as far as I'm concerned well worth the money, I may only have been there for a roof over my head myself but I saw first hand how foyers can help the most disadvantaged (and 'antisocial') kids turn their lives around.

Oh, and as for Thatcher? I don't want to start a political row here, but let's just say I've got my best dancing shoes ready...

mardatha

That would be better than giving them their own houses. Here you can also get married at 16. I did. LOL!

alec_eiffel

silvercharming wrote: »

I did read about a further extension of this system that could work if you need to be disciplined: Let's play shop when you buy a big sack of rice or whatever, 'pay' yourself for it each time you use it, at the price of the smaller packs you used to buy. This forms the seed money you need to buy other items in bulk as well as to make sure you can afford to replenish your stock when you've used it up..

I do this with certain things like laundry liquid. It has the two-fold benefit of saving the cash and making sure I do a full load each time to get the most for my money.

smileyt_2

About the housing - I live in a 2 bed HA house. I've lived here for 13 years, always paid my rent, contribute to the local society etc etc. I'm a single person but use the room for supported lodgings or to have family or friends to stay. Why should I have to move from my home, my neighbours, my community? My neighbours are my support system.

I agree with silvercharming - this is more about the lack of affordable or social housing and as usual the poorest have to pay the price. Why should I (or others like me) have to up sticks away from our social network just because some wealthy kn*bs change the rules? Why can't more housing be built on brown field sites? That way overcrowding would be solved too.

We are living more and more in a dictatorship state where the powers-that-be want to have total control over our lives and are only interested in money and lining their own nests.

:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

RANT RANT RANT!!

taplady

I too can see both sides of the housing debate. My father-in -law lives alone in a large 3bedroomed house(HA) as does his lady friend a few doors away. Both of their families have left home so that is the reason they are occupying such large houses on their own. These houses would make lovely family homes but neither of them are prepared to move into smaller accomodation or even to move in together as they have lived in their houses for over 40 years. I understand how they feel but also I can understand the frustration of the families on the housing waiting list.
I think every case should be looked at individually - there is no easy 'one size fits all' answer.
One thing that does make my blood boil is the huge houses and exorbitant rents paid for by housing benefits that you see in the newspapers:mad:
I think it was a big mistake selling off council houses and not replacing them, it was bound to end in tears. Where I live there are dozens of newly built large houses standing empty because families cant afford them and nothing affordable for the average family.