Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

Muggings aren't as common as more discreet thefts. If your card is gone from your bag and you don't know about it for a while? Cards are commonly taken in burglaries, a passing acquaintance who is one of the Met's scene of the crimes officers told me. Sophisticated thieves lift cards from purses and wallets and leave the rest behind so as not to alert the owner that they've been robbed.

I'm a trained telephone cashier and take card payments all the time. Everything you need to do cardholder not present transactions on the phone or online is on your card. They don't need your pin, they need the PAN (the 16 digit number), your name as displayed on the card, the expiry date and the 3 digit security number off the back.

And that's all they need to go shopping.

Perplexed_Pineapple

GreyQueen wrote: »

Evening all.

Fuddle, I'm nearly 20 years older than you and when I started work a paypacket was a small manilla envelope with a folded up payslip and actual coins and notes. Even typing this feels like a blast from the past.

GQ, my first pay packets were like that too and I think I'm a bit younger than you! It was a great feeling to have actual cash in your hand that you had earned yourself, a real sense of achievement for the youngsters we used to be :eek:

GreyQueen wrote: »

I'm a firm believer in KISS (keep it simple, stupid) as a way of managing life. Any fool can over-complicate things but it takes the consistant practice of intelligence and commonsense to KISS.

IMO, you won't go far wrong in this world if you run every change someone is proposing that you make in your life through the How will this complicate my life? filter. If people are promising to take over some functionality from your life to make everything easy-peasy for you, you can bet the farm that it will be anything but.........:rotfl:

Completely agree, there are so many almost unavoidable intricacies to modern life that if you don't chop out the unnecesary stuff it can take over your life. One of the biggest culprits in this regard is the car - there's insurance, road tax, MOTs, services to sort out even before you've put petrol in the thing and gone anywhere.

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Me too, except when buying online, and even then, I use a pre-paid card, topped up with cash.

Online is the one place I prefer to use a credit card - if you are defrauded or simply get a dud item there is a lot of protection from the Consumer Credit Act. I've never had to use it but if there was an issue I'm hoping it would make things much simpler to sort out.

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Proper Hurricane Lamps are brighter and cheaper to run, for the same amount of light output.

Plus, they put out quite a bit of useful heat.

Heh, my new lantern arrived today:
http://smartgreenshop.co.uk/index.php/powerplus-bear-led-camping-lantern.html
It's amazing! Compared to my old wind-up lantern it's like having a hand-held lighthouse. It feels pretty robust and between the car charger, the solar panel and the wind-up function we should be covered. It's not compact enough for a BOB but for in the car or house our lighting is sorted. (You may have gathered I'm quite chuffed with it). Of course there's still the Maglites to use as blunt instruments a dozen other small torches and a selection of candles as back-up :rotfl::rotfl:

GreyQueen

PP, I agree about the car. I haven't owned one since 1997 and can well remember the stress and worry of running a 10 y.o. Fiesta on a very small income.

Every rattle, funny noise, strange rubbery burning smell was a cause of concern. I fretted over that darned thing more than I did my own health. One bill after another, with every trip out fraught with the risk of a thrown stone cracking the windscreen or a carpet tack in the gutter causing a puncture. It was like having a drain hooked into my bank account and money just slurped away.......

Such bliss to get rid. If I need a vehicle, there's a friendly local hire company half a mile down the road which gets my business. Everything there is under a year old and they even have (be still my beating heart, they are my most favouritist things - TRANSIT VANS).:rotfl:

A Transit is a shed-on-wheels. The perfect prepper vehicle.

ragz_2

Perplexed_Pineapple wrote: »

Heh, my new lantern arrived today:
http://smartgreenshop.co.uk/index.php/powerplus-bear-led-camping-lantern.html
It's amazing! Compared to my old wind-up lantern it's like having a hand-held lighthouse. It feels pretty robust and between the car charger, the solar panel and the wind-up function we should be covered. It's not compact enough for a BOB but for in the car or house our lighting is sorted. (You may have gathered I'm quite chuffed with it). Of course there's still the Maglites to use as blunt instruments a dozen other small torches and a selection of candles as back-up :rotfl::rotfl:

Is that really white light? We have one for camping and power cuts (without the solar charging bit) but I can't stand the light, I make DH put a pillowcase over it. I grew up with candlelight and those white LEDs really annoy me (old fashioned torches had a nice warm glow), but they are in everything now

The cash thing got me the other day when I didn't have enough to buy a top from the charity shop, since then I have vowed to never have less than a tenner in my purse and am considering keeping cash in the house but nervous about that (though probably safer than the back having it!). DH uses cash as he gets paid cash and although I used to make him give it to me to put in the bank (he used to have 'problems', all sorted now) I trust him enough to keep it now and he pays cash for everything. Now he hates using cards and always texts to let me know if he has had to. However all my money goes into the bank so I have to remember to take some out and we only have one free cashpoint in the village...

Perplexed_Pineapple

Hi Ragz, the light is whitish but not really white if you know what I mean.. I understand what you mean about LEDs compared to older torches but the fantastic longevity of LEDs combined with the power usage is one of the best advances in modern kit IMO. I got one of the LED upgrades for my 6-cell Maglite, it isn't particularly brighter (although it is whiter) but the batteries now seem to last forever which given the price of good D cell batteries is not to be sneezed at.
I'm posting nonsense on here because I'm having a few days off after car accident at the weekend (the other party has admitted liability which is a weight of my mind). It's frustrating because there is so much to be done but too many aches and pains to do it and should be resting up and recovering really.. grrrr... :mad:

ragz_2

Ahhh I was going to post about maglights... glad you mentioned it, Perplexed Pineapple! I haven't got a torch, not a decent one and would really like a maglight, saw them on amazon for under a tenner (only want a little AA one D cells ones, while lovely to hold are probably a little OTT for my needs) but then realised the LED ones were twice the price, I imagine they are worth it though?

Ignore the stuff 'to be done' - resting and recovering is very important, try to...

pineapple

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Me too, except when buying online, and even then, I use a pre-paid card, topped up with cash.

Do you use this with companies like Amazon? I've been thinking about this myself but even more so with unknown suppliers. I hate firing off my card details into the ether. This way - if my computer got malware or there were some dodgy dealings - the damage would be limited.

pineapple

GreyQueen wrote: »

Every rattle, funny noise, strange rubbery burning smell was a cause of concern. I fretted over that darned thing more than I did my own health. One bill after another, with every trip out fraught with the risk of a thrown stone cracking the windscreen or a carpet tack in the gutter causing a puncture. It was like having a drain hooked into my bank account and money just slurped away.......

As the owner of a similar aging car - so well put... I'm running the current one into the ground and am at the point where each bill is a judgement call as to whether to keep it going.
It would be difficult without a car - where I live - though if I'm honest I would chiefly miss the spontaneity it gives me. But if push comes to shove I've worked out that after factoring in running/maintenance costs it would actually be cheaper to regularly hire a car a couple of days each month and as cheap once a week even (but without the black cloud of unexpected expense hanging over your shoulder).

pineapple

It's that time of year again.
The strategy at the mo is simply to buy at least 6 months worth of whatever I'm running out of - over the next two months. This is as much to do with winter prepping as anything else. It also includes things like having some replacement fire bars on hand for the solid fuel stove, winter service for the car etc.
That said I'll be keeping an eye on the Syria situation as there have been claims that US is considering wider action than originally specified. Quelle surprise ..
Bulk basics are a good way to go imo - expensive at the time but ultimately cost/labour saving. So another 5 litre container of 12% vinegar for starters....:)

Butterfly_Brain

I am another who only leaves enough in the bank every month to cover DD's. I use cash for everything, the double glazing installer didn't like having to take over £2,000 in cash but I said cash or lose the job and he grudgingly took it, but he told me that the banks charge them to deposit cash, this is a conspiracy between banks and governments. They are itching for us to have RFID chips implanted in us so that they don't even need to issue cards........number of the beast anyone?