Its tough, it will get better and guess what its freezing brrrrr!

ceridwen

BTW - Does anyone know what time today the Action "kicks off"? When do they start reading out the results of the Comprehensive Spending Review?

valentina

It's on BBC Parliament (sky 504 I think) after PMQ, at 12.30pm
Also BBC 2/BBC news channel from 11.30am

JoJoB

Oh sammy, you must be exhausted! I don't know how you manage to stay so cheerful.

ChocClare - that's interesting about your husband's position, and sounds very similar to what has happened to my OH in terms of getting rid of the whole department of pastoral care. Assume they are going to get the lecturers to absorb all the extra work for no extra pay - or get agency admin staff in for £8 an hour. He is in a union but don't think that will do him any good as they are the ones who made the recommendation to cut the department! So have effectively paved the way for mangement to do it easily. We shall just have to wait and see how it all pans out, but I have a nasty feeling he'll end up doing his old job but not getting paid for it!

I know £18 K isn't the worst salary to live on, so we will manage. But about £250 a month will go on rail fares now (which will go up even more in the next few years) and we are paying into a dmp, so that effectively brings it down to about 14-15k. We'll be ok, and I'm just grateful that at least he has half a job left (though for how long?!!!!). I had just started entertaining thoughts of saving up for a new bathroom/kitchen (both are mouldy and falling to bits), and we had put a deposit down on a holiday next year. Nothing fancy, just 5 days at Butlins out of term time so got it for £250. We can manage that, but now I am worrying about getting the train fare together to get there and spending money etc.

I will have to do some number crunching later and figure out exactly how much income we have after bills. I seem to remember he was bringing in about £1,300 a month on half a job, so I think we will have 400-500 a month for his travel and household groceries.

On the plus side he will have all summer off again, so no train fares then and lots of time together as a family. And it might be possible for me to get a weekend job (as his days change from semester to semester it makes me getting a job midweek difficult). But live in a very economically deprived area so don't know how easy it- would be (400 applicants for the latest job offering at Aldis :eek:).

Oh well, it's an adventure isn't it!

Rowan9

Hello folks. I've been reading through the thread and picking up some great tips as well as admiring the real support everyone gives each other here:j.
We've had quite a tough year financially, partly due to our own decisions and partly those outwith our control. Anyway, we've gone down in income by...hhmm...probably two thirds. However, DH started a new job last week after a year of redundancy, so we are really grateful for that. Lower salary by far but jobs are pretty hard to find! i'm not working at the moment, having given up a fulltime job as a college lecturer to do a PhD. Did one year but have pulled out. If I could spend virtually 100% of my time on it, it would have maybe been manageable . However, I found myself permanently exhausted and unable to do much else. So....a bit of time out and then hoping to pick up some teaching hours somewhere.
House-wise, we relocated back to my beloved Scotland :T and the joy I feel at living across the park from my DD and a short journey away from DS far outweighs the financial stuff.
Sad to think of the loss of Kinloss. My family is farming, from Moray, and know that many of their friends are from the base and work locally in hospitals etc. There will be a huge loss of spending in that area as the RAF workers have a good salary. On the news this morning they said (I think, although it sounds incredibly high) that a third of the school kids at Forres Academy are from the base.
Looking forward to joining in with you all and getting our spending down a bit more. I have jars looked out for making some chutney for Christmas feasts with cheese and cold meat, and also to give as presents. Will also look out the knitting needles and make a couple of hats.
Loving the wedding day/ rings memories!
W

mardatha

What bugs me to hell is that none of the govt shower have EVER experienced such misery and worry as we see daily on this forum. And yet they're happy to dole it out to others. They never see the worry and unhappiness and sleeplessness they are causing. I know we keep each other cheerful and have a laugh but look at the worry behind it. I think we should bring back the guillotine !!

hermum

I do hope that the cuts aren't too drastic, if mine gets cut much more I don't know if I will be able to survive. I lost my job 3 1/2 years ago through ill health, so went from a decent salary, I picked up about £1100 a month after pension & council tax was taken out & also earned £60 a week working in a pub. I get IB at the moment & am so scared that they will say that I have to go onto JSA as that will be £25 a week less & as I find it really difficult to go out & can't be around a lot of people so I just don't know what sort of job I could do. I tried for months to get the answers on starting up a home based business, ebay or something similar but everyone who I spoke to couldn't tell me whether my mortgage interest would get paid for a few weeks or if straight away I'd be on my own. Anxiety sets off my main illness so it's scary to think, just go for it & hope for the best.
I've cut everything to the bare bones, no TV, watch a few things online if I really need to hear peoples voices. My phones gone, no heating on yet.
I have a few thousand of debt as it took about 2 1/2 years to sort out my mortgage interst payments so I had to borrow to pay that, after I'd sold all saleable things, my kitchen, range cooker & a couple of antiques. By the time it was sorted out, I had a nice back payment but then my daughter had her accident & it went on staying over in Spain to look after her.
I'm glad that my daughter is now a grown up, CB cuts & no EMA is going to have a disastrous effect on most families. We're rapidly heading towards a society of have & have nots again.
What I don't understand is why the pension age keeps going up, if people want to stay working, great but there are going to young people who never manage to get a job while older people who would love to have time to do other things now have to work longer.
As things get more automated there's going to be even less jobs, a machine that takes the place of 20 people is good for the employer but not so good for society.
Morning moaning done.
It's a nice sunny bright day here in Devon, Mum's coming over & we're going out for a couple of hours.
I hope that everyone has a good day & the announcements don't impact too much on everyone on here.

littleowl

ceridwen wrote: »

Then how do they propose to square that circle?:cool:

The Government has told the BBC that the cost of them covering this free TV Licence must come from the "surplus" salary paid to their highly-paid employees (ie those earning well into 6 figures). Agree with that - but that alone wont be sufficient to cover the cost of those free TV licences. I was wondering where the rest would come from anyway.....

More cutting on actual production of tv programmes coming up (so more "cheapie" tv programmes - rather than the quality stuff the BBC used to know how to produce so well) and repeats..endless repeats..and more people deciding they might as well not bother to buy a TV Licence as there is so little worth watching..
.

The BBC could cut BBC3 I have never seen so many dreadful programmes advertised on a BBC channel - it was intended to appeal to 'youth' but appears to be 'dumbing down' at its worst. That would release a large amount of finance.

jackieglasgow

I just heard on the radio to prepare for half a million public sector job cuts, now its no wonder they are cutting benefits, they are trying to be like Jesus and feed the extra 500,000 from the same pot as they already have. Not going to happen, is it? Not to mention the tax and NI contributions and general spending those half a million would have put back into the economy. Nuts. Hopefully it won't be as bad as that, but they need to pull their 89billion pound deficit back from somewhere. Like madartha said, none of them have ever had to suffer hardship like that in their adult lives, and lets not forget they all benefitted from free University education to get to the position they are in now. Makes my blood boil.

taplady

Morning! not had much chance to post lately as have had altered work hours - more days at work but shorter hours - 80 miles a month more petrol to find too but I'm happy to have a job that I love.

DH is a milkman and I can see that it is one area where people will be making cutbacks out of neccesity but we shall just have to see what happens. At least we are now debt free which is a huge weight off our shoulders now.

Our main worry is DS1 who lost his job a while back and has a large overdraft to pay off. He's been doing a radio show but it doesn't pay anything other than expenses but is good experience etc. He's just admitted he's going to have to give it up and find a proper job now.
He's got an interview this morning for a 3 month contract covering sick leave so fingers crossed for him please! if he gets it it may well lead to more work eventually.

(((hugs))) to sammy, jojo and everyone else who needs one x

JoJoB

On a happier note, Thatcher's in hospital.