Countdown to Freedom

brizzledfw

Try and keep your hours down

Have a good week

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Morning, grey old day but surprisingly mild. Hounds are walked, lunches made and Mr T is leaving shortly.

Dinner for this evening is already made and I did extra potatoes yesterday, so the only thing to add is fresh veg.

Mortgage paid and offset added to - back on the road

Tilly x

Eager_Elephant

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS wrote: »

I haven't mentioned Food-banks for a while but their needs keep rising. At some point, I'm hoping there may be a healthy debate between increased usage of Food-banks and benefit changes. I'd urge anyone who can, to donate something - none of us know what lies around the corner and those struggling to cope can swiftly move to not being able to cope.

I have to agree that no politician seems to have mentioned that the increase in use of food banks is in line with crisis loans disappearing.

As you probably know if your benefit was late, you had just spplied for benefit or some other crisis happened you could apply for a crisis loan which then had to be paid back.

So if there are no crisis loans where do people turn?

And as for Short Term Benefit Advances (these are meant for people who have made a benefit claim and it is waiting to be assessed but you have as much chance of getting one of these as winning the lottery. Excuses such as your sick note is with the postal section and not with the assessing team so it doesn't count as a complete claim and I can see a new claim came in but as I can;t see the document it might not be completed right so no you cant have help!!
No wonder the DWP are saying how well they are doing with not having to give out STBA's!
Also some decisions take 24hrs, well that is no good if you have no food (or electric/gas)

Don't get me started on sanctions!!

I also work for an organisation that has to make decisions on whether people get help - nobody wants to ask for help but a lot of them have no choice. I have only seen 1 person try their luck and he was sent away but everyone else is genuinely in need.

I think it is a great idea that you are thinking of volunteering for CAP.

We have CAP in my area but the feed back we got was that people who are non-religious felt uncomfortable when asked if they wanted to pray etc plus people were asked for donations after 6 months - I appreciate they are a charity and need donations to keep going but very few people are out of debt in 6mths and again they felt pressurised into donating (not that the worker pressurised them but more they felt guilty for having help and thought they should donate as they had the benefit of time and knowledge from the worker).


Hope you can keep your work hours reduced - I thought 45-50 was a lot anyway so I dread to think what you were doing.

Thistlewhistle

Re the discussion on food banks, they're such an important prt of every day life in our neck of the woods.

In our SW group recently, we had a sponsored slim but we tweaked it slightly so that members / supporters gave a tin of food for every pound lost, and at the end of the six weeks we had an absolute mountin of food which we donated to the local food bank. It took 6 cars to move all the boxes out of our venue!!! It was an amazing contribution and the food bank were so grateful. They let us know that we'd be helping hundreds of people in the local area. It was easier for people to support us by just adding an extra tin of something to their trolley rather than handing over hard cash.

Thistle x

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Morning Eager_Elephant, thanks for posting. The whole benefit system needs a shake up IMO.

Thanks for the information re praying. Whilst I pray daily, I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable asking a non Christian whether they wanted to pray. Early days though so will continue to explore/discuss.

Thistle, what a great thing to get your club to do. That must have been a good motivator as well. Hope all is well with you

Best wishes, Tilly x

ETA - just wanted to add that I'm anything from perfect, I swear way too much, lose my temper etc but I do my utmost to live my life without regrets. My past had way too many of those.

gallygirl

Thistlewhistle wrote: »

In our SW group recently, we had a sponsored slim but we tweaked it slightly so that members / supporters gave a tin of food for every pound lost, and at the end of the six weeks we had an absolute mountin of food which we donated to the local food bank. It took 6 cars to move all the boxes out of our venue!!! It was an amazing contribution and the food bank were so grateful. They let us know that we'd be helping hundreds of people in the local area. It was easier for people to support us by just adding an extra tin of something to their trolley rather than handing over hard cash.

I'm back at SW tonight with a vengeance and I will do this myself. Obviously I'll be contributing so much I'll be able to run the foodbank on my contributions alone :A.

greent

When I went to SW a few years back we had a post-Christmas food collection for the local FB - I remember taking in several jumbo bags of Kettle Chips - we all had a clear out of excess goodies after Xmas which would be tempting us if they stayed in the cupboards - it also meant that the FB got a good donation of 'treat' items as well as basics which we topped it up with


I volunteer for (am in fact the treasurer and a trustee) for a small local charity which works in a similar principle to fbanks (referral basis only for crisis positions) - but we help families with baby items, toiletries, clothes etc - and maternity clothes and toiletry packs. Our referrals are often benefit gaps, but we also help domestic violence families (fleeing with very little), pregnant women released from prison, families where the primary carer has changed and others. We try and help everyone who is referred - we don't appraise the need - that's already been done for us. It's a growing demand - 19 referrals in for Easter week alone - and we only operate in our county, and primarily in the city. It's a sad situation in this day and age when a family struggles to meet basic needs after a roof over their heads (food, heat, clothes, a cot and bedding) x

SJ1

Hi there Tilly

V inspired by you, going to go to the garden centre at the weekend and buy some things to grow. I have always wanted to do this and I think that the children would love it. I don't have much of a garden but there has to be a little spot somewhere for some leeks, potatoes, tomatoes and some salad. Is there anything else you would recommend. At our old house I tried peas too - but that wasn't the best experiment ever and sweetcorn which didn't really work for me. Let me know!

Also question to you, and anyone else who can help. We are just about to remortgage. I definitely want to fix but I can't decide whether to fix over 5 years at 2.84% or for 3 years at 2.04%. I intend to both shorten the mortgage term and overpay as we are presently paying 4.99% but on my numbers we could overpay quite a lot more on the 3 year just because of that % difference. Problem is then I could lose out possibly on the rates. Really not sure what to do about this - any help gratefully received and sorry for nabbing your diary for a question but I think you also had this problem at one point?!

Going to spend an evening looking at raised beds (a little one should contain the madness) and cloches!

SJ

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi SJ1, good to hear from you, hope all is going well with you and the family.

If you have one raised bed, it can grow more than the same size in the ground, if that makes sense. Raised beds can be exploited more as they have all the right conditions normally.

A few pots with tomato plants in would be easily doable. They're attractive and you could have them together, or dotted around etc. that should keep you going from late August to late October.

Peas, broad beans, garlic, mange tout, French beans - I'm a bit late with some of this stuff at the moment but beans are in, peas I've had to start again as the dogs ate them. These take more room, but a couple of larger pots with say 3 canes in, two seeds per cane, would enable beans, peas/mange tout to grow. They're attractive and the kids would love picking the peas and eating straight away.

Herbs: coriander, rocket, dill, parsley, mint - stuff I grow often in pots, although I do have some in the raised beds.

Potatoes, use potato bags or the large ikea bags with some holes in the bottom.

Radishes, pea shoots ie cut before they grow, meaning no canes and smaller pot, would be greet for salads.

Courgettes, ridiculously easy to grow - two seeds per large pot, or one plant, keep well watered - massive array of things to make with themand lovely flowers as well.

All above is easily achievable but I think leeks need more room so maybe avoid those. I'm sure more avid gardeners will come along with their thoughts but hope that helps.

Basically anything which is more expensive in the shops aim to grow - onions which are cheap, carrots etc, I buy - although I have put onions in before, late, and they've been great.

I can't help you on the mortgage question but good luck.

Best wishes Tilly

tattycath

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS wrote: »

Hi SJ1, good to hear from you, hope all is going well with you and the family.

If you have one raised bed, it can grow more than the same size in the ground, if that makes sense. Raised beds can be exploited more as they have all the right conditions normally.

A few pots with tomato plants in would be easily doable. They're attractive and you could have them together, or dotted around etc. that should keep you going from late August to late October.

Peas, broad beans, garlic, mange tout, French beans - I'm a bit late with some of this stuff at the moment but beans are in, peas I've had to start again as the dogs ate them. These take more room, but a couple of larger pots with say 3 canes in, two seeds per cane, would enable beans, peas/mange tout to grow. They're attractive and the kids would love picking the peas and eating straight away.

Herbs: coriander, rocket, dill, parsley, mint - stuff I grow often in pots, although I do have some in the raised beds.

Potatoes, use potato bags or the large ikea bags with some holes in the bottom.

Radishes, pea shoots ie cut before they grow, meaning no canes and smaller pot, would be greet for salads.

Courgettes, ridiculously easy to grow - two seeds per large pot, or one plant, keep well watered - massive array of things to make with themand lovely flowers as well.

All above is easily achievable but I think leeks need more room so maybe avoid those. I'm sure more avid gardeners will come along with their thoughts but hope that helps.

Basically anything which is more expensive in the shops aim to grow - onions which are cheap, carrots etc, I buy - although I have put onions in before, late, and they've been great.

I can't help you on the mortgage question but good luck.

Best wishes Tilly

Thanks for posting this Tilly. I didn't realise courgettes were easy to grow-I managed to kill my cucumbers when I last tried to grow them so I will try courgettes this year. I'm a bit late getting my seeds in. I must try to get some planted this week.