Super Scrimpers

lostinrates

RAS wrote: »

LIR

I read your post and had got to point to http://www.leedsurbanharvest.org.uk/

and http://www.growsheffield.com/pages/groShefAbund.html

I spend a certain amount of time each autumn in a hard hat with apples bouncing off various bits; they hurt like hell if they get your boobs and I have not worked out how to fix a hard hat there yet.

The best - caught in the tarp and unbruised or picked - go out as straight distribution to charities. Most of the rest goes to juice because we can process a large amount relatively quickly and it keeps for ages. All voluteer stuff.

RAS, do you have advice on how to start a scheme like this locally? The council? Local ag college? Letter to the paper? I hate seeing the wastage when people go hungry.

Carolyntia

GreyQueen wrote: »

The downside of this long-hours culture is the huge toll in can take of some very willing and hard-working individuals. I have friends whose wellbeing gives me grave concern because of the amount of work they do and the stress they are under. Know a high-flying "functional alcoholic" or two whose drinking is kept under the radar of their employers at the mo but who are teetering on the edge of catastrophe. These particular people are single and paying mortgages and if they slip from functional to non-functional, they will lose their homes.

Unfortunately I work in one of these wonderful industries that insists on working it's people into the ground. I know that quite a few of my colleagues are functional alcoholics and in knowing this I keep a close eye on my own intake - it would be very easy to go down that road. The other thing we see a lot of is people dying not long after they've retired. It's very sad to hear about....especially when they've told you all their plans.
I've spoken to my boss and HR about possibly cutting some hours or having a less stressful job and I'm looked at as if I'm mad. The upshot is that they've decided to make my job position more technical and therefore they need to move me.....not much open for me at the moment so they might have to make me redundant....:mad:

CFC

GreyQueen wrote: »

Not quite sure where you're heading with this one.

If I was well enough to work fulltime (and I'm not) I'd earn £18k gross. As it is, I work half a week and earn half that. I work in a callcentre and work at a manic pace, along with about a million other Britons in other call centres. I have a computer program monitoring my performance by the second and a huge 3 second gap between calls. Monthly performance reviews and the potential for a supervisor to be silently listening into my calls as I work, as well as being secretly-shopped. It's such a high-speed and stressed environment that we battery hens frequently return to our homes and have to lie down and twitch.

x

1) Where I was heading was in response to this part of your earlier post

Expenditures tend to track upwards with income, so that it's a rare person in the higher income brackets who doesn't have greater outgoings than a person on more modest income. Part of this is the natural human urge to have more, part is the social expectation that lifestyle reflects income. If you have to entertain colleagues or would-be business contacts professionally you can hardly invite them around and give them a tray on their lap. If you work crazy hours, have a lot of responsibility and have studied for years to be able to do the job you do, you'd like to have a comfortable, quiet home to spend your time in.

Simple - if a person can't afford what they want, they can't afford it. If that person has to invite colleagues for food or drinks and can't afford a nice house, they need to entertain them outside. Nobody can spend more than they have, whether that is 10k or 100k and expect to be solvent long term. Anybody would like a nice comfortable quiet home, but if you can't afford it, c'est la vie!

2) This was exactly one of the points that I made - you don't need to be earning 100k to be working extremely hard and to be extremely stressed. Therefore working hard and being stressed are not good excuses to go spend beyond your means, even if you earn 150k! (the general you, not you personally!)

LIR exactly the point - if you cannot afford to make big donations then you can't do so, despite other people's expectations. Good on you for offering practical help instead, if they don't like that they will have to lump it.

GreyQueen

GroinSexyPavement wrote: »

I thought the tip about putting candles in the freezer was a good one, if it works.

I was also shocked to learn what the average family (with 2 kids) spends on their food shopping every week- me and OH spend more than that and there's only us two. Though I wasn't sure if they were including toiletries, cleaning products, any pet food etc in that as we do. Must get back to the GC and try harder!

I must say, if I hadn't already found this website, that programme would not inspire me to start scrimping- I'd be terrified of turning into one of the oddballs on the show. Why aren't they showing any 'normal' thrifty types??

Normal? Never claimed to be normal........:rotfl:TBH, I think thrift and reduced-consumerism is deeply threatening to some people and their response to their discomfort is mockery. There's been a few times that I've had someone remark on my lifestyle in such a way as to scorn what I do and say that they would never do X, Y or Z.

I've been tempted to tell them I wasn't asking them to do what I do, I'm not a covert recruiter for the Thrift Army, but have managed to resist the urge to be lippy.

I'd say go your own way and when someone gets all indignant because you've afforded a nice holiday (or whatever floats your boat) grin and say it was your thrifty old-style ways wot did it.

ceridwen

Carolyntia wrote: »

Unfortunately I work in one of these wonderful industries that insists on working it's people into the ground. I know that quite a few of my colleagues are functional alcoholics and in knowing this I keep a close eye on my own intake - it would be very easy to go down that road. The other thing we see a lot of is people dying not long after they've retired. It's very sad to hear about....especially when they've told you all their plans.
I've spoken to my boss and HR about possibly cutting some hours or having a less stressful job and I'm looked at as if I'm mad. The upshot is that they've decided to make my job position more technical and therefore they need to move me.....not much open for me at the moment so they might have to make me redundant....:mad:

Ooh dear...:(

I dont blame you a bit for taking a very realistic assessment of the "state of play" in this type of job. You are being very wise to keep an eye on your health and be aware of being fit enough to enjoy your retirement at the end of it all. So - good for you for being so aware.

I'm sorry they've "taken it the wrong way" re your wish to cut some hours/have a less stressful job. I think you were being perfectly reasonable to ask for that - so I'm sorry they've not accepted this.

Is Aberdeen still a bit of a "boom town" place to be? Are there other types of career jobs available to you (but not of such a stressful nature) - or could you afford to downshift to more of a "standard job" type job or something?

[Deleted User]

GreyQueen wrote: »

I'd say go your own way and when someone gets all indignant because you've afforded a nice holiday (or whatever floats your boat) grin and say it was your thrifty old-style ways wot did it.

Absolutely spot on there, I am a widowed, slightly disabled O.A.P which sounds really as though I'm on my last legs, but in fact I enjoy life as much as I can I have a weeks holiday in the spring (only came back last Saturday from a fab week in Herefordshire) that cost me a share of the cottage (£100)plus we both took most of the food from our store cupboards. I took a frozen chicken out on the Saturday we went and it did my friend and I three days for dinners plus sandwiches for lunch when we were out touring.So apart from the petrol, which we shared and a little bit of fresh fruit and veg and milk our holiday was reasonably inexpensive.I did treat her to dinner on the last night because she had decorated my spare room for me three weeks previously.We are both pensioners ,but she is a bit more mobile than I am, and can climb step ladders (me, I'm the coffee maker )
In August I shall be away for two weeks with my DD and tribe on the Isle of Wight I always go with them on the family holiday and pay half towards it as with five children she would not find it easy to afford a two week seaside break.We rent a cottage and again take stacks of tins and bits and pieces with us to help out feed the tribe.I start collecting extra tea, coffee ect a month before we go using 'Bogoffs' and we collectivly save all of out Tesco vouchers towardss a big shop once a year on holiday so the food bill is virtually covered.I have an English Heritage subscription that four of the children are on so we get to visit places which don't cost a great deal last year we all went to Osbourne House with the kids and my DD came in as my 'carer' (free because of my mobility problems) and we only had to pay for son-in-law.So with our home made picnic it cost us very little for a nice day out. I am a frugal person by inclination, and always have been and would rather use my saved cash towards my holidays .Great fun with the family tribe in August.This year we have got a place 100 yards from the beach in Ventnor it also has a large verandah over looking the sea so I can sit and read or knit if I feel like it and will actually be able to see the kids from the cottage.
I find it a challenge to make my money streetch a bit further as it means I can have a nice holiday plus it won't break the bank. My income is probably around 12k a year but I can live fairly comfortably on that,admitedly I don't have a mortgage anymore which helps, but I do run a car which I change every three years.
My late OH and I decided 15 years ago to downsize from our house in London to one a quarter of the size down in Kent .Its reasonable to run with the utilities not costing a lot, and we had it insulated as soon as we moved in and everthing done that needed to be replaced so we had no big bills .I am close to both of my DDs properties so I don't have far to go to see them ,even when I stop driving (which age and infirmity will make happen eventually) it won't be to hard to get about.I live within five minutes of the train station and about the same to the buses. We planned and looked to the future when we bought this place and its three minutes from a small shopping precinct where, if I had to, I can buy all my groceries. I don't think we could have picked a better location really but we did a lot of research always bearing in mind that we wern't always going to be so mobile as we were 15 years ago.Just as well really as it turned out.
To those on 100k plus who are strugggling I would say if you can downsize to a reasonable size property as life is far too short to waste on bricks and mortar .My youngest DD is 42 and she and her OH have already decided when the tribe are off hand they will buy a smaller place (they have 4 beds at the moment )to enable them to enjoy their retirement without permanantely being in debt to a building society.

SunshineBear

Interesting discussion.

Just want to add my 2p worth about envy.

I don't think it is really envy when we comment about high earners and money management I think it has more to do with our own projections.

For example my projection would be "If I earnt that amount I would not have debt I would have managed fine and have a lot to show for it"

That said If I cant manage what I have who is to say I could manage more.
My conclusion is that we spend according to our surplus and if we overspend our surplus we will no doubt do that WHATEVER the amount.

SB

GreyQueen

SunshineBear wrote: »

Interesting discussion.

Just want to add my 2p worth about envy.

I don't think it is really envy when we comment about high earners and money management I think it has more to do with our own projections.

For example my projection would be "If I earnt that amount I would not have debt I would have managed fine and have a lot to show for it"

That said If I cant manage what I have who is to say I could manage more.
My conclusion is that we spend according to our surplus and if we overspend our surplus we will no doubt do that WHATEVER the amount.

SB

Well said, SunshineBear, couldn't agree more. Sometimes I look at the amount of money some people I know get thru and how little there is to show for it and wonder if they're using banknotes as firelighters or something equally insane.......

An affluent friend of mine stated once; "EVERYONE lives up to their income" as if this was a universal truth like gravity.

"Not everyone." I temprorised but didn't want to get into an argument with my friend who has so much more than I do (all of which is hard-earned income due to his extremely valuable skills, no one in this world gave him a free ride btw).

I know plenty of people who underspend in order to do other things eg fund an early retirement, pay the mortage off years early, saving to go travelling/ to help their family/ to support a cause which fires up their enthusisam.....loads of reasons, really.

Like my own parents. We used to eat a lot of cheap sausages when we were growing up. They could afford steak now but choose to have nicer sausages! They don't feel that they're sacrificing anything but every few years they replace their car with another modest, carefully-sourced 18 month-year-old one paid for from savings rather than with car finance. They're happy.

SunshineBear

I think you're right. Maybe "MOST people live up to their income" The problem has been excessive materialism and the banks throwing money at anyone no matter what their situation. You have to fight to stay free of it.

Sadly it's a fight that I seemed to have lost..........








............until now!!

Never again will I allow myself to get in this position.

Softstuff

SunshineBear wrote: »

I think you're right. Maybe "MOST people live up to their income" The problem has been excessive materialism and the banks throwing money at anyone no matter what their situation. You have to fight to stay free of it.

I think a lot of it is about people thinking they "deserve it" or to paraphrase the advert they think they're "worth it". People have a list of things they think they need, I've found it surprising to remove quite a few of those things over the past few years and discover what is actually a need. The only thing I removed from our lives, noticed lacking and reinstated was toilet paper. Wine was never on the list to remove incidentally .

But then again I think I'll always be thrifty regardless. I find a bit unpleasant to be otherwise, too wasteful.