Preparedness for when

[Deleted User]

I'm not sure I agree, that we are worse off than our parent's generation.

By the time my father got paid, he was lucky to have anything left, from his previous pay.

By comparison (and I'm not on a huge wage), I've usually got some money left, come pay day.

ragz_2

My brother in law made Acorn coffee this weekend, he says it's drinkable, but not particularly nice. Now I am pretty sure it has no caffeine so I am not sure why anyone would bother making it if it doesn't even taste good? Has anyone else tried it? GreyQueen perhaps, on one of your bushcrafty jaunts?

Hubby just picked up a 3 man ridge tent (not canvas unfortunately) for a fiver off facebook, always handy to have tents around.

Just restocked the food stores with a mountain of tinned tomatoes but discovered I am down to our last 4 tins of beans, which is rather scary!

Still haven't got any fuel for my lovely Feuerhand lantern, I know someone here told me what to put it in and where to get it but sieve-like brain has lost the info. BedsitBob, was it you and if so could you tell me again please?

I'm not sure I agree, that we are worse off than our parent's generation.

By the time my father got paid, he was lucky to have anything left, from his previous pay.

By comparison (and I'm not on a huge wage), I've usually got some money left, come pay day.

I certainly know it is a lot easier for me with three children than it was for my Mum, these days you can buy school uniform in supermarkets for a fraction of what we used to pay, with ebay and stuff you can get things seconds hand that were maybe harder to come by back then, there's more 'cheap' food brands - not a good thing maybe, but still...

craigywv

hi all I been prepping this weekend added yet more candles at various stages of usage from car boot sale for a few pence each.......they hardly even been lit!!! and I got more tinned goods focussing on meats and fish for next few weeks. pound shop doing stewed steak and ye old oak ham for a quid..obviously.so want more tinned fruit next week as son loves the pears have a great weekend all xxx

bluebag

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

I'm not sure I agree, that we are worse off than our parent's generation.

By the time my father got paid, he was lucky to have anything left, from his previous pay.

By comparison (and I'm not on a huge wage), I've usually got some money left, come pay day.

I see where you are coming from, but the gap is narrowing instead of the widening it had been doing.

My parents expectation was that my generation would have an easier time of it, and indeed that had been the case for quite some time.

I do think that things are going in reverse now and rather quickly.

mardatha

What I think makes a big difference between the 60s and now, is that then you could pick and choose your job.. where to work what hours to work etc. If you started a job on the Mon and didn't like it, you didn't go back and just found another one to start on the Wed. Also there were lots of cash in hand jobs, if you needed money for something then you just took a second job for a bit. I think there was much more potential to get on and make money. I found the 70s really dire and even now I don't like thinking back to my life then. But I survived and that's why I'm in here now

pineapple

Re the cost of coal I get those Excel stove nuts for the stove. The bunker isn't big enough to store fuel for the year - I would have to have half the rear patio stacked up with bags as well!
I find it works out more expensive than the gas ch. :mad: There again - it is a 'different kind of heat' - if that makes sense. First heat from the hearth just seems to feel so much better. Second after using CH in the evening, my house is back to freezing in the morning - unless I put the heating on again. But if I've had the stove on, the heat seems to permeate the entire fireplace wall - that and the stove continue to give out heat - even if the stove has gone out.
In winter I probably don't spend much more on heating than in the autumn - because I tend to leave the stove on for several days at a time and there is no energy wasted on heating up/cooling down, plus there is a saving on kindling.

GreyQueen

Never tried acorn coffee, ragz. Don't even like regular coffee so it won't be on my to-do list. One thing I recall about my reading about acorns is that they require extensive processing, usually in the form of leaching, to take away the tannins which make them so bitter. Think there may have been something about processing acorns in Ray Mears' book Wild Foods? Must check it out again from the library.

Can't you also make a coffee-substitute out of the dried roots of dandelions?

My recollection of the 60s-70s was that clothing and footwear was much more expensive in relation to earnings than it is now. Supermarkets didn't do clothing, there weren't the cheap companies like Primarche, charity shops didn't exist as such and as for car boots -no such thing.

Mum recalls that what secondhand stuff there was about her young day/ early married life was absolute rubbish. It requires an affluent consumer society to have more than it needs in the first place and to be able to pass on stuff in good condition for others to use. She'd have loved to have been able to go carbooting, it would have made our lives so much easier than they were to have cheap goods.

Family cast-offs weren't much good as both brother and I were taller and older than our nearest rellies; even today I am a head taller than my closest girl cousin.

I think that a lot of our slipping standard of living has been disguised by cheap goods; cheapish foods and cheap-cheap stuff on the high street, and decent stuff available secondhand or even free for the asking.

Now, the wheels are coming off the bus for a lot of people as their wages are static or falling and the essentials like housing costs, CT, energy bills and foodstuffs are going up; wander over to Frugal Queen and look at her table to several energy companies' price rises in the last 5 years; it's all + 40-50%.

Am in my hometown this weekend. Unremarkable market town, pop about 25,000, I doubt you'd recognise the name if I'd post it (and I won't ). No big industries, just small ones, retail, few hotels for the few tourists and business travellers.

Gawd, but it's depressing on the high street. Even the charity shops are closing for lack of business. Such shops as there are there are the discount chains, bookies, pawnbroker etc etc.

Up on the industrial estates, the bigger factories aren't hiring and there are plenty of smaller units standing empty. This is a very working-class town, a bit rough, but no slum. It's flat because a lot of people have almost no spare money after paying their bills.

Thing is, the economists think it's clever to have wages low and keep the costs down for employers, then others look around and see they have no customers, and other people lose their businesses. Downward spiral.

I know that I spend very little that isn't in the cheapest discount stores or the charity shops. I'm not prepared to drop £3 on a beer or £6-8 on a cinema ticket, and know plenty of people in the same boat.

Heck, I seldom even darken the door of "proper" shops. I'm wearing some shirts that Mum has turfed out of her wardobe as things she no longer uses and a pair of cast-off shoes from a pal.

They're very good quality shoes, btw, of a much higher quality brand than I've ever bought for myself, but I won't be buying any more until they've worn out.

craigywv

I love your posts GQ always so imformative

westcoastscot

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

I'm not sure I agree, that we are worse off than our parent's generation.

By the time my father got paid, he was lucky to have anything left, from his previous pay.

By comparison (and I'm not on a huge wage), I've usually got some money left, come pay day.

Are you supporting a family Bob? Your father was possibly supporting himself, his wife and at least you

[Deleted User]

Back on an old hobbyhorse, I think our youngsters would make a much better go of life today if they were taught housekeeping, budgeting, cookery, needlework, gardening, childcare etc.etc. It must be so difficult to make the right choices if you just don't know what the right choice is!!!