As The Workhouse Approaches....How To Do Everything To Avoid It, the Old Style Way

redlady_1

Happy Birthday Jedi xxx

Me, well I was a party girl, still am. Love my clothes and make up but have never been afraid to roll my sleeves up and get stuck in. I was doing a paper round at 13 and never looked back. My best job was a weekend job waitressing at the Packing Shed (remember that Mama67?!) and they were just the best bosses ever. I am still working full time and still studying. If I didnt my poison dwarf (my mum bless her) would have me pinned up a wall giving me a right hard time. You dont mess with the dwarf, even if you do tower above her!!! The work ethic and the making do we had to do when I was growing up meant I was able to manage on £15 per week whilst doing the house up. No one could believe it. Without her I would be nothing.

Seakay, well said. The amount of people who have to have a TV, mobile, internet etc. They are not poor. It's this "deserving" attitude that grates on me. No one deserves anything.

kate1974

anguk wrote: »

I've found that charity shops are becoming more expensive, especially the big name charity shops, I've seen things in there that are dearer than buying it new from the original shop! Smaller local charity shops are generally cheaper but I've found in ours the quality of things isn't as good.

Big name charity shop!
Only today I saw old Panasonic radio-tape-cd player.The price?£110.00-I'm not joking-when I regained my breath and ask shop-assistant-WHY is so expensive-she just said-it's vintage.You know what-we've got exactly the same Panasonic at home-serving us for nearly 20 years and never had a problems with it-so now I'm thinking-does it make me vintage as well and shall I allow our kids to use it?

trifles

:beer::bdaycake:Happy birthday,Jediteacher

ceridwen

kate1974 wrote: »

Big name charity shop!
Only today I saw old Panasonic radio-tape-cd player.The price?£110.00-I'm not joking-when I regained my breath and ask shop-assistant-WHY is so expensive-she just said-it's vintage.You know what-we've got exactly the same Panasonic at home-serving us for nearly 20 years and never had a problems with it-so now I'm thinking-does it make me vintage as well and shall I allow our kids to use it?

Cor!!!!! Time that shop moved into the Real World then. I have tape playing and c.d. playing facilities still and wouldnt even know HOW to download music from t'internet...:o

BUT....I well know that tapes are seriously old-fashioned/not very functional on the one hand and CD's ARE functional on the other hand (but deemed old-fashioned and well on the way to being phased out on the other hand).

So - just which planet does that charity shop live on then? - as I would literally throw away my music-playing facilities if I decided not to have them anymore - as I know they are considered "way beyond the pale" by 2011 standards...:rotfl:

lizzyb1812

Ceridwen

Thanks for the reference to Shirley Goode - I've got a couple of her books but had forgotten about them. "Goode for One" will be as useful as it was when I was formerly single - my copy has had so much use it's falling apart. I like her blog too but think the book is better. She sets herself a challenge to start with a budget for food of £15 for Week 1 with the aim of cutting to £10 by Week 4. Funnily enough, even though the book came out in 1987 there are still people on these threads with similar food budgets today! Maybe scratch-cooking-staples haven't risen as much as more modern foods? (Only joking )

Anyway, I'm sure you know all this but it might be of interest to others who haven't heard of her. The prices in the book are hilarious, eg 7oz chicken breast 75p :eek:

Thanks again

Lizzy

ceridwen

Well - actually the Benefit Cookbook is also 1980s and she quotes the price of goods back then - and there isnt that much difference to what food costs now.

I have a very strong feeling that people have got so used to very very cheap food prices indeed that they now think they are "normal". CRikey Moses!!!!! and I think a lot of us who were buying food back in the 1970s and 1980s have not "been able to believe our luck" with the level of food prices of recent years - because we remember how much we used to have to spend for our food back then....

EDIT: just reached that book off my bookshelves (yep...yet another book I have in my "library"....) and its "How to feed your family for £4 a day - the benefit book" by Bernadine Lawrence and to quote:

3 bags wholemeal flour - £1.59 (its possible to buy Basics flour for that sort of price now in 2011)

1 tin dried yeast - 55p (think it was £1.04 I just paid per tin today?? - but my salary has risen to rather more than twice as much since then...)

tube tomato puree - 26p

455g brown rice - 52p

1 litre vegetable oil - 49p

1 tin tomatoes - 20p

1 lb carrots - 20p

12 eggs - 90p (and I expect she meant battery eggs!!)

Bunch bananas - 60p

Now - bearing in mind that this edition of the book is from 1989 - then I expect these prices are a lot cheaper than we are currently paying in 2011 in real terms....

Now must just have a check re cheese - as I noticed today that Sainb*rys had pack of Basics Feta Cheese for only 50p. I seriously couldnt believe how cheap that was - so off for quick checksee - and she put 70p for 225gr of Cheddar cheese back in 1989 and these 200gram packs were down as less than that now in 2011 (21 years later!!!!).

No wonder the farmers are selling off large chunks of our countryside for development..........blast and double blast ...

kate1974

ceridwen wrote: »

Cor!!!!! Time that shop moved into the Real World then. I have tape playing and c.d. playing facilities still and wouldnt even know HOW to download music from t'internet...:o

BUT....I well know that tapes are seriously old-fashioned/not very functional on the one hand and CD's ARE functional on the other hand (but deemed old-fashioned and well on the way to being phased out on the other hand).

So - just which planet does that charity shop live on then? - as I would literally throw away my music-playing facilities if I decided not to have them anymore - as I know they are considered "way beyond the pale" by 2011 standards...:rotfl:

That chain has around 40 charity shop in Bristol-and I strongly suspect they think about themselves as desiner outlets-don't get me wrong-they provide money for local hospice-but I stopped buying from them long time ago-I just can't understand why charity shop has to have sliding doors and have shop re-fit every year.The stock is good -and so expensive!You can easily find thing so much cheaper on Ebay and Amazon these days.
I do know how to download music off Internet but I really feel attached to our old Panasonic-it was the first thing that we bought together after our wedding(and my sewing machine was the second!) and it's totally child-friendly-but when DD6 finally moves to digital technology instead of throwing it away I'll keep it-you never know-one day it might make us really rich!

kidcat

Charity shops are busy pricing themselves out of the market as far as I can see, we offered a local charity shop a whole load of furniture - now ok it wasnt new but still had loads of life left and would have been ideal for someone starting out with nothing - yet they refused it all. The driver said he thought it was madness he had assumed that the idea of charity shops was to sell stuff cheap to those who couldnt afford new, yet they turned down a van full of furniture.

lizzyb1812

I had the Bernadine Lawrence book as well - 1st job after uni and on "apprentice" wages.

There's a book, sadly out of print, called "Round About a Pound a Week" that looks at the family lives of poorer working families in London in about 1890. Not the poorest families - these had work and earned about a pound a week which had to pay for everything. Not at all comparable to today but very interesting. For instance, a lot of income went on insurance to pay for medical bills. One woman was a kitchen assistant or something similar before her marriage and knew how to stretch her food budget - as a result her kids were less likely to be sick, ate better and thrived.

I love what I call social history - the lives of real, ordinary people are fascinating.

Lizzy

ceridwen

Yep - I've read that book...

I like social history too - museums as such leave me bored stiff - but the "living" version on the other hand...yep:D

I do get my mind in a twist though reading through social history stuff and trying to compare what my life would have been like then compared to how it is now.....:rotfl:

Okays..hmmm...would have had to get married I guess then....as I wouldnt have had the freedom to stay single if I hadnt met Him (unlike in the late 20th century) - but how to stick to having no children back then...or told hubbie "Thats it mate - you've had yer chips after 2 and there will be no more hankie-pankie for you then"....

...mind boggles again for the second time this evening...

..'Tis a lot easier nowadays to avoid getting dragged down into extreme poverty than 'twas back then...so thats something to be very thankful for....