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It isn`t tough for us. We are OS and we COPE
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A very good point. How many of us are truely 'hard up'. I reckon most of us have wardrobes full of clothes that would last for years without the need for buying new clothes (except for undies!!!!). Most of us have TVs, computers, furniture etc etc that do not need replacing for years...children don't need half the toys they have these days.....I could rant on and on about consumerism but I won't.
I would encourage everyone to try growing their own fruit and veg...when it was snowy and difficult to get to the shops, I felt better knowing I had sprouts, leeks, parsnips, chard in my back garden to eat!! I also avoid buying anything that is not in season...supermarket tomatoes taste foul compared to home grown summer ones.
Obviously there are many things out of our control: petrol/tax/unemployment etc etc.....but my main point is we are spoilt compared to past generations... and we need to get back to a more simpler way of life, this will help us cope with hard times.
End of sermon:oLike a lot of people, I have enough that I can hunker down and use the resources I have by me, but it bodes ill for the economy if we all have to do it. Shop-keepers and shop-workers need to have their livings, too.
Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
John Ruskin
Veni, vidi, eradici
(I came, I saw, I kondo'd)
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libertysurf wrote: »To be truly saving money please now eat the foxes
[Foxes broke into our guinea pig hutch - and broke my DD's heart as well]
Awww, I love foxes but I'd probably feel differently if we had small furries too. (We have cats and the foxes are pretty wary of them.)
It seems a shame NOT to eat roadkill, I hate to think of anything dying for nothing but I guess it depends on whether you know how long it's been there. Our new route to work will be through a park populated by deer but I believe if they are owned by the Queen she is allowed first dibs so I probably won't be doing any off roading in thereMake £25 a day in April £0/£750 (March £584, February £602, January £883.66)
December £361.54, November £322.28, October £288.52, September £374.30, August £223.95, July £71.45, June £251.22, May£119.33, April £236.24, March £106.74, Feb £40.99, Jan £98.54) Total for 2017 - £2,495.100 -
Hi
Yesterday while I was in our local big shopping centre I walked past 6 shops before I saw one with a customer in ( its a busy one too and unheard of not to have customers in at all times) Its very worrying and only a matter of time before shops start to close.
People have already started to cut back after the VAT rise and the price rises that are happening every day and as said earlier a lot of people could manage perfectly well on what they have for quite a while. Unfortunately this means shops close, jobs go etc Its a downward spiral.
Oh well, on that happy note I better go do my ironing
Cuddles:)
June NSD 8/150 -
Hello, Justamum, I've also heard that you shouldn't pick up roadkill that you, personally, have run over, but that if you pick up something someone else has hit, that's lawful. Perhaps OldStylers with access to cars could hunt in convoy in rural areas? I always found that on the country roads, if you're discreet, you can blag the odd pheasant for the pot. Knew a frightfully posh gel once who'd do that; she knew the landowner and would gleefully cry "Dinner's on So-and-So!" when she'd made a killing. The upper crust are truly shocking at close quarters.
Read somewhere about garden snails that they were imported as a foodstuff in Roman times and escaped into the wild. You're supposed to collect them and be careful that they've not been feeding from plants known to be toxic. Once collected, they should be fed on clean food like lettuce for 2-3 days so cleanse their systems before you eat them.
This won't be a dietary staple at Shoebox Towers as I have a real problem with rubbery-textured foodstuffs. I was wandering about on the coastal plain of northern Crete a few years ago and I saw an old geezer in an olive grove collecting snails by the handful from a pile of rocks in the corner of the grove. If you read the classic wartime book "Ill Met By Moonlight" the escaping Brit servicemen were contstantly having to hide from Cretan locals who were out on the mountainsides whenever it rained gathering snails.Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
John Ruskin
Veni, vidi, eradici
(I came, I saw, I kondo'd)
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I don't know if things have changed.I certainly hope so but in the 1980's, NOTE NOT 1880's, I was on my own with three kids for a little while and was on benefits. I got about £16 a week plus child benefit and a little from dh if he had it.
I advertised a piece of furniture in a local shop because I needed the money to pay a bill. That ad prompted a visit from someone in social security and he told me I should have informed them about selling as it would affect my benefits! It was not an antique and I did not get much for it. It reminded me of earlier times when they used to put stickers on your funiture.0 -
I think you're right. We've become so used to a high standard of living with material possessions our grandparent or great grandparents could never have dreamed of. They've become such a background to our everyday living that many people would struggle to copeif they were deprived of their washing machine, microwave or TV, yet for most of her adult life my mother had none of these.
That is the big difference today. Being OS is really just paying lipservice as we now have to take all mod cons into account. Hence the communication on this thread being so vital. It is all about getting the message across that we really can survive without what is taken forgranted by so many. I suppose it is to foster the aim of becoming simpler in our needs and providing the knowledge so it can be done. Trouble is that today there is so much brain washing by the big supermarkets and the big companies eg you have to have this or that to get a job done. No you don`t
There are still genuine older OSers about but the clock is ticking and who will pass it on then?0 -
we ll have hard times alright 1920 s old style hard times and those who have prepared will weather the storm better i look after my family by being aware and knowing whats going on i think difficulties don t just happen to other people who live a long way away so i don t bury my head in the sand.with all the different economic events past few years nothing is a surprise to me.0
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At the risk of incurring wrath, and cluttering, I am a little confused as to how one identifies threads which are allowed to wander a bit, and others which must remain rigidly on track. For example, I mooch in and out of the Shabby Chic thread, and if you just counted threads which had useful information in, they would make up a small proportion of the overall thread, mostly it seems to be thank yous or praise for something someone has posted.
This thread, although it may wander, does tend to stay on track, and perhaps the occasional waver is due to people showing their support for one another during what many are finding a very difficult time. I wouldn't come to this thread looking for a list of tips, without comment, and I think that the more conversational style is what keeps a lot of us in OS rather than elsewhere. The threads which are JUST for information are clearly marked as such.
That's my two pennorth, I'll shut up now. Please don't move us
Sorry, going to cause more clutter. I so agree, this comes up every time this thread runs. I really don't understand what the issue is with having a conversational thread that has the basic top of it being "tough"? The thread works and whilst their are occasional blips (the last one really because of the paranoia of being off topic) it works and it remains around a central topic.
To say that Old Style is just "domestic science topics" seems so wrong to me, there is so much more than this contained on the OS boards.
OS is a whole way of "being", it's a way of life, to me it's about a more simple way of life, it's about coping with what life throws at us with the support of others. I lost my mum very early and I find the practical and pragmatic advice of OS'ers so very valuable that I feel kind of bereft without the support of the thread.
I also read other OS threads that wander, I read very many threads on other MSE sections that wander from their original purpose. I don't understand why it is this thread that is picked on?
There are loads of threads with practical hints and tips, the thread won't be for everyone, in the same way that the daily thread isn't for everyone and in all the other sections it seems to be OK, but not here.
I'm not having a go at the moderators, I know it's a thankless task and it's one I do elsewhere. Presumably this is a policy decision that has been passed down and I know you'll tell me to go elsewhere but it feels so much like nobody is listening to us and I don't understand why this one thread, seems to be so disliked by "the establishment"?Piglet
Decluttering - 127/366
Digital/emails/photo decluttering - 5432/20240 -
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/sean-ogrady-egypts-troubles-look-likely-to-give-us-all-a-new-oil-shock-2198993.html
Interesting article in the Indy about the potential oil shock. He says that 2% of the world's oil goes through the canal but 8% of the world's traded goods.
So that means that 92% of the world's traded goods and 98% of the world's oil is unaffected? Any 'oil shock' under such conditions would be entirely bogus.0 -
very good chance Suez Canal will shut people need to know information so that they have resources etc for their family they can cope with dearer petrol higher food prices that they don t get a great big shock out of the blue like i said extra tins of baked beans for us YES OLD STYLE AND YES TIMES ARE TOUGH STILL ON TOPIC0
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