100 months to turn the money situation round

elantan

NorthernLas wrote: »

El - I would like to grow raspberries, but my garden is probably still under water just now . I have a blackcurrant bush that survives each year and a plum tree

Are they complicated??? like spring ones you don't cut the wood and autumn ones you do??? What sort are yours ...

OK, I'll de-lurk more regularly and probably comment more about your film. I suppose my gut reaction to the situation both social and economic is that with things like forums and t'internet, it is much more easy to spread information and voice opinion (like the governments U-turn on the sale of the national forests). Also the freedom of information act helps as well. The writers of the film could never have imagined that such things would exist and have the impact that they do (a bit like text msgs which were actually not for public use but a way to easily test mobile phones)...

Maybe there is hope that the UK (and the world) is not as the writers of the Daily Mail or The Sun see it and there are pockets of people doing their best for the situation they are in right now. The sooner we get round to teaching basic household finances along with decent sex education to 12-14 year olds the better...

It is a sad fact that my nephew's girlfriend has been awarded a 3 bed council house for her and her son (12 months old). She is only 19 herself and although they are not together, they have a working relationship and share joint care of baba. She did not complete the second year of her BTEC in business admin, and has shown no signs of planning to get a job. Nephew works what hours he is given in retail (he is only 21) and this is normally about 30 - 35. There is no way he can afford to buy a house, nor will he ever have enough points to get one from the council on his own. So his options appear to be 'dodgy landlord fodder' with his mates or to stay at home with Ma and Pa. Something is wrong somewhere ...

Re-lurking (and I'm not an insominac, I'm currently in the US and it is only 11pm over here) ... back to blighty at the end of the week

yay you came back ...

rasps ... well i have heard and read about the way you cut em for autumn ones etc but i have to admit i didnt understand what it was all about and i didnt have a clue what kind i had so i actually left them all till i saw buds appearing on the canes this year and cut off the ones with no buds ... other than that i just ensured i put manure in the hole and left it for a few days before i planted the rasps in ( apparently they love manure)

i agree with the birth of the internet it is much much easier to communicate ... somehow though the cynic in me is a bit cynical as to why the government stopped the sale of woodland but not the student fees rising, as more people were up in arms about that ..... was that done on purpose? incidently i do believe the woodland should never have been even thought about being put up for sale in the first place....

things are slowly changing here with the councils giving homes to young girls with kids ... i know that when hubby and i first tried to get a council house 22 years ago we were told we would have a four year wait and we did ... we had our son but because we were married we wernt deemed as needy as a single person with a child ...

i dont know what the answer is though in regards to education of our young people .... i do think we need to ask the young people themselves what they think would work cause i know what we curretnly have isnt working ...

when i previously did job number two we were asked to give protection to any young people that wanted them ... but staff members had expressed concerns that when they had tried this before parents had arrived at our place of work and became very abusive towards the staff... having found this out i took it upon myself to go and find out what the parents did think ... so i contacted a local home school partnership programme and explained what the situation was ... they readily agreed to me joining in as long as all the parents were happy

i joined in this 6 week programme that taught parents on sex education ( alot of them didnt have a clue ... it was scary) and how they approach their own kids regarding sex education .... i was shocked when time and time again there were parents there that seemed to be blinkered about their own kids ( the same kids that i had seen up to things) " no not my child "... and " i dont want my child to know any of this till they are atleast 16" i sat gobsmacked at some of the things that were being said... but they do have the right to protect their children so i respect that ...

so what is the answer to sex education in our country ? what is too liberal? too conservative ? i had our son when i was 18 ... i was married i had been trying to have a child for nearly a year before i fell pregnant ... he was no accident ( good or otherwise) i knew what i was doing and i have no regrets at all ... for us having our family young was important to us... but i am very aware that i am in the minority here .. i am very aware that alot of young people have children whilst they still are children...

my sister has 4 kids to 4 different men has only worked once in her life .. it was for 6 weeks in a care home ... has over £28k in debt to pay off ... my other sister has 4 kids to 2 different men .. never worked in her life ...

oh dear visitors just arrived will carry on later ....


speak to you all soon

elantan

right where was i lol ... i think the problem is a much deeper situation within society ... i dont know what the answer is but like you i really would love to think that there is hope ... i know there is a wonderful community here that help each other out in more ways than just financial advice ... i know i dont donate money to charity ( ok i do but very very rarely and only for friends) but i do give of my time ... which is something that is worth more than money ever will be ... when i go to the soup kitchen once a month both my husband and myself ensure we give the users of the service not only home made food but also time and practical advice .... we hand out clothes and furniture to people that need it ... we wash their clothes if they dont have a machine ... we sit and chat over a cuppa about what they want to ... so we provide a service that no money can buy...

i know that when i do work with my local volunteer group i provide continuity of care for young vulnerable children ... i provide a safe haven for them to be kids ... i have a chat with older members of the group so that they dont feel alone and so that they feel valued as members of society (which they really are) i play bingo and various other games with them to keep them active ...

i know that when i go to my local nature park which i love more than i could ever express here or anywhere else ... i know that i do work for the local community there ... i know that i try and teach local young people and older peole comapssion for nature ... i know that i try and ensure good habitats for various species of animals to have as safe and as good a life as i can ...

i know that i am looking into getting involved with guerrilla gardening .. i know that i am trying to get a local organic sustainable lifestyle for people that live within my community to enjoy and become involved should they wish to do so ....

i know that i dont do all of this so that i can get a pat on the back ... a well done ... a isnt she great ... that all means nothing to me ... i do this cause i want to work alongside my fellow human being to make the world in which we all live in a better place to be ...

but MOST importantly ... i know i am not alone ... i know there are so many people that are like minded ... there are many people that want to make a difference to the world in which we all inhabit and i know that newspapers like the sun and the mirror etc report on what they think will sell so that they can make money .... and the fact that the destruction of society is what makes money ... makes me sad

elantan

chevalier wrote: »

Hi elantan, belated happy new diary

Erm I think that for a lot of people banks were throwing money at them so they thought it must be ok to spend it. It is SO easy to jus see that you need to pay say £100 a month for a card payment, and not see how much debt that is actually. If you see what I mean.

The way things are in the UK at the moment - ........ I don't know. I think it is whY I am reluctant to think about going back to the UK. I am not the most happy here in new zealand, but it is better than the UK is now in some ways.

On the other hand the level of domestic violence, child abuse, drink driving that there is here, is unbelievable, as is the uncaring attitude to these subjects, that absolutely horrifies me.

On the other hand I can let my 9 and 3/4 DS walk around the neighbourhood selling chocolates and only have a minor qualm about doing so. You can let them wonder on a beach and not worry. It is weird the attitude to children here. You have such extremes....

But it would be nice to be able to return to the UK without a qualm. And this isn't the case. I would worry about the attitudes that they would be already picking up in the uk....

Anyway this is all by the by.

I don't think raspberries are that hard to grow. Just make sure that you put netting over them as the birds like them too!
chev

hey Chev lovely to see you here ..

you have so much going on in your end of the world i hope it is easing for you all now..

i think your totally right when you say about banks were throwing money at people and a large proportion didnt comprehend that even t hough they only paid back £100 a month they didnt realise /understand that they still had thousands left to pay

i can totally understand your reluctance to return to the U.K i think i would be the same ... especially in a place where it appears a safer environment for children .... although the child abuse must scare you a little ...

every society has their issues ... and what one society doesnt treat seriously another does ... look at the drinking here in the U.K yes there has been a slow turn of the tide in acceptance ... it is no longer acceptable to drink drive ... alcoholism is becoming more highlighted and seriously dealt with ... but at the same time you just need to go into any city/biggish town at the weekend and see some scary sights ... our emergency services are stretched to the max ... the violence that erupts due to drinking can be horrific ... it's almost like the big elephant in the room though ... for some reason we know it is there but we choose not to talk about it ( some do it has to be said)

how does NZ deal with the issues that it has? what happens to drink drivers ? what happens in domestic abuse cases?

i am so glad that here finally domestic abuse against men has finally started to be recognised ... domestic abuse of any kind is unacceptable in my opinion ... 1 in 4 women suffer from it .. 1 in 6 men suffer ... there are 75,000 places within the U.K ( although i think it may just be England and Wales ... not sure) which has been deemed to be inadequate .. and yet for men ther are 32 places within the U.k ( could be England and Wales again though) this is fundamentally wrong ....but has been ignored for far too long ... and that needs to change



ok i will come off my soap box now lol

elantan

ok today what i have i done ... well i had a visit from a friend who felt guilty for not giving me a massage so she popped into give me a reflexology which was lovely .... just what i needed i think

planted some lettuce in the garden and had a tidy up

thats it so far ... hope you are all good

elantan

have been messing around with figures today ... and i reckon that for every £50 i pay extra off of my mortgage i save £36.30 in interest ... it makes it more worth while seeing it like that ... so instead of going out for a meal so many times a month ... maybe cut down a few and payit to the mortgage .... hmmmm think i am gonna play with me figures

boredofbeingathome

elantan wrote: »

have been messing around with figures today ... and i reckon that for every £50 i pay extra off of my mortgage i save £36.30 in interest ... it makes it more worth while seeing it like that ... so instead of going out for a meal so many times a month ... maybe cut down a few and payit to the mortgage .... hmmmm think i am gonna play with me figures

I think those are definitely figures worth going for El.

elantan

today i got my mail in ... it appears that the nationwide dont have many people that try and pay their mortgages off that wee bit faster .... their computer systems dont seem to understand the simple calculations .... i had asked them to reduce my terms which they have been doing i must say in their defence ... however my new fixed rate term comes into effect in April and for some reason they put the term back 4 years .... so i have had to phone up and sort it out yet again ... that's been three emails ... two phone calls and one visit into a branch to try and fix this now ....

anyway while i was there i explained to the person i was chatting to what it is we are trying to do ... so whilst there she gave me figures to pay the mortgage off in 8 years ( which will work out 8 years two months .... 100 months being 8 years 4 months) .... so the upshot is i am getting new paper work out to change the mortgage term to 8 years .... bringing me in line with this challenge .. it is going to mean that i need to pay extra to the mortgage every month but i think that that is doable ....

elantan

on the home front ... i am having slight issues ... nothing too serious ... more a recognition of my reactions and behaviours ...will post more later as i need to head out to the shops to buy clothes for florida .... i had planned on being much fitter by now so that going round the parks would be a breaze but that didnt happen sigh

redsquirrel80

That sounds great re the mortgage - nice to find a helpful bank person!

When are you off to Florida?

hypno06

elantan wrote: »

on the home front ... i am having slight issues ... nothing too serious ... more a recognition of my reactions and behaviours ...

Hope all is ok.....you know where I am if you need!