Preparedness for when

westcoastscot

I'm the same GQ - I car share with my youngest - it belongs to him - and never go anywhere that I dont need to - gone are the days of a day trip to somewhere. Likewise a holiday has been out of the question for the past 3 - 4 years, and I rarely go elsewhere but Scotland, and then only to England. Costs are steadily rising, and although I am getting a payrise in April, 1%, it will nowhere near cover the loss in actual income I have from the increases in everything that I have no choice but to pay.
Now I consider myself to have a very small life - and I do - especially compared to colleagues and neighbours, and if I'm struggling then how are they managing to maintain their lifestyle? by and large, it has to be debt.

I'm seriously concerned about that water-cannon business - more so than anything else that has happened in the past couple of years - as I wonder what they could possibly cut that they envisage needing it??? The majority of the people I know are really struggling day to day already, and I see at work how little resilience we have and how quickly things can spiral downwards if more than one things goes wrong at once. I think this is the first time in my life that i've actually been pretty concerned and looking to build even greater contingency into my life.

S_Wales_Saver

Craigy iPads are the worst on this site. I've hit the spam button more than once. Thank goodness for the not spam button.

TPTB are not looking at local gov workers obviously ( what think you GQ?). After 4 years wage freeze and 1% this year ( with the threat of redundancies) I fail to see how we could possibly be better off!

Toe rags all!

mardatha

Please keep an eye on this advert Ginny and everybody, I'd like to know if that gets pulled by TPTB. I haven't seen it yet.

BitterAndTwisted

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

IMO they are just moving numbers around to make themselves start looking good for the lead up to the elections..

They must think we are stupid, and believe everything they say!!!


Unfortunately, I think you're right. They do think we are stupid and gullible. You just have to read all that benefit-scroungers propaganda to know what's going on. I reckon the only reason why the unemployment figures have come down is due to the numbers of poor souls who have been ruthlessly sanctioned for no good reason at all.

How can the economy be growing, when people are just cutting back and back???

The cynic in me says that the excuse of the deficit is going to be all very handy to sneak in lots and lots of privatisations for the current govt's pals to make yet another killing, so nothing but nothing is owned by the state/tax-payers any longer. The Revenue's real-estate went long ago and now they're renting it all back at a higher cost than maintaining the portfolio was before. While ordinary people are going to be reduced to the kind of lifestyles "enjoyed" by some of our grandparents when they were youngsters in the 20s. I heard those stories first-hand and it wasn't a joke, it was tragic.

I wonder how much it's going to take before people start thinking about lobbing bricks at coppers on the streets? By the time most wake up it's probably going to be too late. Sleepwalking back into servitude or similar.

maryb

GQ our DD1 is hoping to buy her first place - or rather was hoping. £240,000 for a 1 bed flat or £300,000 for a two up two down in this part of suburban London which is not by any means the more expensive side of London. Young ones obviously can't afford that but anything that comes on the market is being snapped up, there's definitely another bubble. It's not all buy to let (though there's a lot of that) but every estate agent we have spoken to says it's bank of Mum and Dad. People are coming up to retirement and may have a bit of cash which is losing value with negative interest rates so they are using it to help their children.
But we have noticed that the market has suddenly gone very quiet, whereas before Christmas we were getting email notifications of new instructions a couple of times a day. And developers are falling over themselves to release new builds as soon as possible. There was an ad in the Sunday Times today for a new development in Docklands along the lines of don't buy before we release this stunning development in a couple of months. Seems to me they are getting anxious that they will be left with unsold flats sitting on their hands.
DD1 feels she will be left behind and will never have a life of her won etc etc - didn't we all feel that in our early 20s? For myself I feel she wouldn't necessarily lose by waiting. She has exams for her qualification every three months and gets two goes at each exam. If she fails on a resit she loses her job. Once she qualifies she will be as safe as anyone is these days. My nightmare is of her landing herself with a mortgage then failing an exam.

Must go take her a cup of tea and nag her to work hard

Perplexed_Pineapple

Spending Sunday morning catching up with the press. No matter how bad we feel things are getting here, at least we're not in Argentina and I'm really doubting we'll end up in that sort of mess in the foreseeable future (what happens in ten or twenty years is anybody's guess though).
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/24/peso-collapse-argentina-economic-crisis-fernandez-de-kirchner

boddy

Mardatha. It's not one of the Shetland books. It's a Vera Stanhope one set in Northumberland.

Went and got some more money out this morning. Then tomorrow popping into the building society. Unsure whether to move whole account to the building society.

JayneC

BMF I too have considered spoiling the ballot paper. Maybe writing NO CONFIDENCE across it. I even thought about starting a Facebook campaign, but that involves sticking me head above the parapet. Mebbe I should just sod 'em and do it! I wonder if there's an obligation to declare how many spoiled papers there are? Would be interesting if so....

I do agree that there are no signs of anything getting better and the unemployment figures are most definitely due to sanctions and 'work programmes' AKA modern day slavery. I too work with a very vulnerable client base and the numbers having their benefits sanctioned are escalating alarmingly, or else they are ping-ponged between ESA and JSA.
The roads are a state too, pot holes and deteriorating surfaces. Usually there's a bit of a road re-surfacing frenzy at this time of year as the council tries to make sure it spends all its money before the end of the financial year, but no sign this year. In fact the street next to mine is down to the old cobbles in parts, and not a little hole either, its several feet long/wide.

[Deleted User]

Even down here in the south we're having more and more shops coming empty and although the odd small business opens they seem to only last 6 months before the unit is vacant again. The only firm that seems to keep hoiking prices regardless is Mr.T and I shudder every time I walk through the doors as things are spiraling up in price at an alarming rate. A*di is the most used S/M and the car park is always full and it takes a long time to get through the check out but it's the only place other than the £1 shops where the goods are affordable.

I suspect that should we all deface our voting papers and the party in power at that time get a no confidence vote what we would have would be the military in charge of the country by default and I don't know about anyone else but in my eyes even the most inept political party would be preferable to that!!!

I too went to a twice weekly market in a town about an hours bus ride away a couple of weeks ago, the street market was virtually non existant, so few stalls and previously it has been right along both sides of the high street on both sides and much variety, it's a sign of the times perhaps when the market traders can't get their stock at a good enough price to allow them to keep trading and I'll bet the pitch price has gone up as well.

Not many houses for sale here at the moment but I don't see prices changing in the local estate agents window, there are always a few millionairs properties here because of the river and one newly built (well 3 ish years) monstrosity is currently on the market for £4,500,000 and no movement at the lower end of the housing market either. New houses tend to be built as 5 bed executive jobs and not many for ordinary folks. What I have noticed is many extensions and roof conversions taking place rather than moving but I guess we are late in the day as we still have jobs and I'm not aware of many out of work in the village. It inevitable will happen here too and we'll all have to draw in our belts and catch up with the rest of the nation, Lyn xxx.

elisamoose

If we are shopping at pound land and discount supermarkets there are no customers for the market!
Why would a trader get up at the crack of dawn to drive to another town , set up his stall and spend his day off trying to get stock to sell for less than the huge multinational discount chains.
We can't have it all ways.The stall holders/shop keepers have a living to make and our hunger for the lowest price means that they find it harder to make a living and many either give up or go bust!