make do and mend for tougher times

prepareathome

:bdaycake: Hope you are having a brilliant and not letting anything you hear stop your enjoyment:D

prepareathome

Kidcat I did consider the widnes one, but as I wanted a wool shop and looked on-line and went through all the shops in widnes but couldn't see one, hubby took me to the one in Page Moss as it was en route to Prescot where the wool shop is. Had an enjoyable time in there and money I would have spent in Aldi partly got spent on wool, instead of just buying the exact amount I wanted for DGD3 hats. Treated myself to yarn with sequins as been wanting to try them for ages, beads I can add myself but sequins need to be sewn individually. Bought a beautiful purple with matching sequins for a shrug for me and white with silver sequins to add a bit of glamour to DGD3 hats - one will be red and one navy.

Hugs and Love to allxxxx

kidcat

PAH - depending on what sort of wool you want there is a wool stall inside the market - may be worth having a look next time you are around.

Happy birthday 2tonsils

DD has finally brought list of stuff she needs to go away with school next week, so am now panicking about buying wellies, a case, slippers, proper waterproof coat and hat etc have been waiting for the list and am really disappointed they have waited until last minute.

rosieben

mardatha wrote: »

...Did you all see the Wartime Farm last night? I had it on but the bloody phone went all through it.

its repeated on Saturday at about 4pm, so you can watch it again, (unplug the phone!)

edited to correct misinformation

Bigjenny

Sitting here with my foot and leg in plaster. Got up out of chair and foot was asleep fell over and heard a crack, have broken a bone in my foot so will have to hop about on crutches. Hospital have loaned me a perching stool so that I can eat in kitchen as can't carry anything, grrr.

charlies-aunt

:cool: Spent a depressing day at a meeting - the topic of the day was the forthcoming changes to Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. :cool:

In this area, Social Housing tenants who are underoccupying by one bedroom will get a 14% reduction (approx £10-12pw) in Housing Benefit and those underoccupying by two or more bedrooms will get 25% (approx £17-24pw) reduction. The double whammy {for those who are not in the protected group over pension age} is a 23% (£5-6pw) reduction in council tax benefit.

Not good news here but a nearby council is reducing council tax benefit by whopping 33% :eek:

There will be top-up schemes for "exceptional circumstances" and "hardship" but the funding available is very limited - times are going to be very tough indeed next year

Popperwell

Bigjenny wrote: »

Sitting here with my foot and leg in plaster. Got up out of chair and foot was asleep fell over and heard a crack, have broken a bone in my foot so will have to hop about on crutches. Hospital have loaned me a perching stool so that I can eat in kitchen as can't carry anything, grrr.

Happy Birthday 2 Tonsils...

BJ:(

So easily done, hope that you are soon on the mend...

Popperwell

charlies-aunt wrote: »

:cool: Spent a depressing day at a meeting - the topic of the day was the forthcoming changes to Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. :cool:

In this area, Social Housing tenants who are underoccupying by one bedroom will get a 14% reduction (approx £10-12pw) in Housing Benefit and those underoccupying by two or more bedrooms will get 25% (approx £17-24pw) reduction. The double whammy {for those who are not in the protected group over pension age} is a 23% (£5-6pw) reduction in council tax benefit.

Not good news here but a nearby council is reducing council tax benefit by whopping 33% :eek:

There will be top-up schemes for "exceptional circumstances" and "hardship" but the funding available is very limited - times are going to be very tough indeed next year

Sadly many will be affected. I know that I will but I'm not opening that can of worms again...but that is on top of some benefits being scrapped or reduced. I think as smaller properties are rare around here, the lodger idea may have to be seriously looked at.

I'll leave it at that as I know many working or have some family living at home or need to be able to return to the family home will be hit too.

And should I live a few years yet and not be put in a home(I won't be a pensioner for approx another 12 years assuming they don't keep putting the retirement age back)

Guess I have opened the can but I will not go further.

annie123

D&#8517 wrote: »

Val how lovely to have friends like that my neighbours are great here but not really OS at all would love to have a jamming day or drying day with friends maybe when we have our meet up I could persuade Annie and Caterina etc

Wouldn't take much to persuade us Love your garden pics, mine's the same length but only just 10' wide and I don't have direct access to it being 1st floor but I use mine more than any of the ground floor maisonettes.
I need to tidy, clear, sort and sow tomorrow, once I've moved the spiders webs out of the way . They make them the width of the garden from plant to plant :eek:

smileyt_2

Bigjenny, ouch! I hope it heals quickly. And kidcat, I hope your tooth settles down. It sounds like your dentist knows what she is doing. Mardatha are you sure it's not your sweetie consumption that's causing the lack of iron? Perhaps you need to cut down on the sweeties and eat more kale? (I'm running away as fast as I can before you chuck summat at me!). Seriously though, I hope you're feeling better soon.

Charlies-aunt, I will be one of the people affected by these changes. I worked out that I will need to find £13.10/week after April if I need to claim benefits. I usually have to claim over the summer although I am going to do my very best to try and find a more stable job this year. It is very scary, and coupled with food and energy rises, a single person on JSA in a 2-bed property could well have to be finding an extra £20+/week this time next year to what they are now. How anyone is supposed to be able to magic up that from thin air is beyond me. I shall be scrimping every penny between now and next summer! They will be so scrimped they'll wish they'd never been minted :rotfl:!

Someone on the freebies board posted a link to free short university courses: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4188495 This one is for human-computer interaction but there are others on loads of different topics if anyone is interested. I have bookmarked about thirty :rotfl:so will have to whittle my selection down as there aren't enough hours in the day to do all those.

Now I have a question. Why do my stews always stick to the bottom of the pan and burn? I've just used some broth mix and even though I stuck it on the lowest heat (and I did pop in and stir it a couple of times) it still stuck to the bottom of the pan and burned. The top bit tastes ok and it won't be wasted as I'll scrape the burned bits off and give it to Tess (the dog who is a dustbin in disguise!). It's a stainless steel pan. Any suggestions to stop my stews/broths sticking would be gratefully received!

ETA Happy birthday 2tonsils!