A new 'tougher' thread... and so it continues

born_blonde

We will endure what we have to endure and remember the millions out there who have not discovered MSE and literally have not a clue what to do.

I have a friend who has 4 children and 2 trolleys! at Asda every week and does not believe it is possible to cut back.

Each child has a different tea and when she opened her cupboard there where 15 boxes of cereal as they all like something different.

I'm trying to help and give her ideas but some days it's very hard. ( especially as neither she or her husband work).

suzybloo

Evening folks - I posted on Sunday that I had taken a step forward with beating the tougher times ahead by approaching, through the local council website, a new community garden project - I am a wee bit taken aback - I will copy a bit of the email I recieved back - and maybe someone will give me their opinion, incase I have misread or mis-interpretated it.

quote
'I'm project co-ordinator for this project to restore a walled garden in the grounds of the hotel to provide produce for it.

The idea is to have anyone to be involved who is interested from all walks of life.

There isn't room to have individual allotments unfortunately, but I was reading yesterday that ******** Council have set aside money towards the idea.'
Personally I think the hotel should be advertising for a gardener and not preying on the 'community' idea. I understood a community garden was for the benefit of the community and not to enhance some business' profits by getting cheap labour. To say this has got my dander up is an understatement!!!

Will advertise myself for an allotment - I wouldnt have any issues if the produce was going to charities or old folk but to a hotel - yes and a really expensive one that you dont go to unless you have bags of money is not on.

Sorry for my rant - its tough for us all but we dont profiteer out of other folks!

kidcat

Suzybloo - that would really get my goat too. Why can the hotel not pay for and run its own garden? Especially if its to provide produce for the hotel to use. How ridiculous? Is it worth a letter to your MP complaining that council money is being squandered to enhance private enterprise rather than spent on basic council services.

grandma247

Hello everybody i have just found you, I thought the other thread was a bit quiet.

GQ you could have frozen the chilli. You can freeze meat raw once and then cook and freeze it once.

I haven't caught up yet. I have been busy the last few weeks. I got dd and partner to help me do some decorating and other work in the house. I can only do a little each day myself since my car accident but the physio is helping. I knew they were struggling to pay their car insurance and also knew they would not just accept the money so I devised a cunning plan for them to do a list of jobs in exchange for the money. Dh has had massive overtime due to the changes in solar panel payments coming so has not had any time to do the work himself. I now have a decorated front room with a new carpet ( I have only waited 7 years). Also the stairs hall and landing are now half decorated. Then it will be on to the dining room. Hopefully by the end of the winter we will have done the whole house in case we feel able to sell next year.

Selling will depend on how things are with the economy,jobs etc. We will just continue to try and pay off as much money as possible on the mortgage. If we really pulled our belts in tight and nothing else changes we could be M F by the end of next year. We will have to see.

ginnyknit

ETA re red lentils - these were £1-10 for 500g in Asda today - is it just me that thinks that's expensive?[/QUOTE]
The lentils in Mr T were £1.99 for a huge bag in the foreign aisle recently.

Bobbykins

Soozybloo - I agree that doesn't sound right at all!:eek::eek:.
It might be worth double checking with the project co-ordinator though, before contacting your MP, just to make sure he/she hasn't made a typo?
It could possibly be that the idea is to provide produce "from" the hotel's walled garden, rather than "for" it. A simple typo that could change the whole meaning IYSWIM?

suzybloo

Many thanks for your replies, I will see what they say if they reply to my email, but certainly if they dont I will forward it on to the local councillor, and ask them to clarify the situation. I did say I think that they may wish to consider removing 'community' from the wording if the project was for the benefit of the hotel, and not the actual people in the community, as it may be misconstrued.

BTW I bought the big 2kg bag of red lentils Ginny mentioned and they are great - half the price and no difference at all.

maryb

Can't believe I didn't find you before this. And now I've got 6 pages to catch up on!! I thought the other threads were going a bit quiet but for some reason I missed this when I looked at the thread index to see what was new. Glad to have found you all

PolkaDotsAndLace

Well I've received a letter today saying I'm not eligible for contributions based JSA - and I know I can't get income based because OH's income is a bit too far over. Definite tightening of the pursestrings then. We did have a good sitdown tonight and went through the finances (he already knows I've been cutting down a lot) since as I said I don't want us to be spending all of his wages. He did make me feel a lot better though by reminding me that now we live together it's really a joint income, and that when I was working and he was unemployed I helped him out a lot.

I still have a jobcentre appt tomorrow, it's probably pointless but will go anyway with the letter and see if there's any way forward, and shall see if they can advise me if I'm eligible for anything else (i.e. council tax reduction, unlikely I think but no harm in checking) It does feel a bit gutting that I've worked pretty much all the way through from the age of 16 till 25, albeit a lot of it part time through uni, and I'm entitled to nothing.

Still, I feel better now I have him on board with such things as meal planning, grocery budgeting etc. And I can thank small mercies that I do have a small income from DLA, if it wasn't for that I'd have nothing coming in and no savings (since all my savings have been from not spending that up till now)

fuddle

So much running through my mind again, nothing major but annoying niggly things.

I have my neice's christening (through marriage) on Sunday and need to get a gift. I hate to say it but it's sticking in my throat somewhat. They are very snobby and 'keep up with the Jones'. They have invited 250 people to the christening which to me is bizarre. Do they really know closely 250 people? Do they really want to spend a joyous date celebrating the christening of their little one or a good party and presents? Call me cynical, and I am, but I'm right this time as my mother in law is taking the baby home to her house very early in the afternoon so it's parents can have a good "£$% up with their friends.

So it's really irritating me that I have to buy a gift for parents who are no doubt expecting masses of gifts. I have had a word with DH who is in agreement that we will only buy the baby a memento of it's day. A token gift with the words christening on it. I'm not at all bothered whether the parents think I'm stingy or scoff at a small token - it shouldn't be about the gift, it's not who I am.

Another irritant is that the 'bones' in both my bras are sticking out. I know it shouldn't bother me but as I'm rather large up top I need decent bras and decent bras cost - £25-£30. I haven't that kind of money to spend right now so going to have to sew the bones back in and hope it holds.

I've also cut my hair last night. Does anyone else do this? I haven't been to the hair dressers for about 5 years. I don't know how I do it, especially the back but I manage it. It looks decent too.

My family (in-law side) do all their business via facebook and at the moment it's all about the christening and what they're wearing that's new. I haven't got any thing new, would love to but haven't. I'm trying not to get down about it but I can feel the sadness and 'it's not fair' coming in. I don't want to look like the poor relation and to be fair I won't but my clothes are going to be a subdued in comparison. My excuse, should I need one, is that I'm wearing a jumper dress and boots because it's December and cold.

As you can tell I have nothing to grumble about really - shesh if that's all that's worrying me then happy days but sometimes irritants just ruin a mood.

Kids off school with the strikes, looking forward to checking in with you all more often today.