Preparedness for when

thriftwizard

Good golly, Si Clist, that's scary - good job you both stuck to your guns...

We're really lucky to live in a fairly calm & settled neighbourhood, and most of my neighbours are pure gold & welcome to share anything we may have in times of trouble, and without a shadow of doubt would do the same for us. BUT gradually, as the older folk die off, well-to-do young city folk are moving in to the bijou little houses on their way up the ladder to the rose-clad country cottages out to the north. They rarely give us the time of day, don't bother with things like street parties (we do a good celebration down here; we're just trying to think of something to celebrate, this year!) have started a petition to get the (well-used) allotments turned into a car park as there's not a lot of room for giant 4x4s in our little medieval street, cover their gardens with decking & (invasive) bamboo, rip out their larders, pave over the little front gardens, etc. and generally clearly look down on us "local yokels" (actually, most of us were incomers, too, once upon a time!) and somehow I don't think I'd be sharing my food stocks with them.

Mind you, they probably wouldn't want me to anyway, as most of it didn't come from W8rose! It's a shame, though; we were a young family when we moved here, and it was a very mixed-age community; the older residents were an invaluable fund of good common sense, local knowledge & helpfulness. Many a spare Gran sat with my kids for half an hour while I ran up to the chemists or got a loaf of bread & their other halves have always helped with the chickens or the allotment; the old fellow over the road used to have 400 birds and can put a name & treatment to any mysterious avian ailment. But we don't even know the names of the kids of the "newbies" and only ever see them at weekends; it's all a bit sad, really, the death of a little community. I do know it can't be otherwise, as both parents must work all the hours that they can in order to keep the roof over their heads, & their kids are probably safer in their nurseries & after-school care than ours were playing street hockey, but something important has been lost...

Pleased to hear that your 'lottie shed has been untroubled this week, GQ!

jk0

Number twelve:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-05/abn-amro-ex-ceo-found-dead

mardatha

I grew up in a mining village and we were all the same - nobody was jumped-up or snooty because everybody's dad was a miner. When I got married and moved to Edinburgh boy did I have my eyes opened - and I didn't like what I saw.
This village used to be all farm workers, working or retired but is now a few originals plus a lot of Edinburgh yuppies.
I'll be honest, in a crisis I wouldn't be helping anybody apart from family, and I wouldn't be feeling guilty about it either. Because your responsibility is to your family,and you can't help everybody. You can feel for them and be compassionate, but your own going without in order for you to help others is not right. Well that's what I think anyway.

[Deleted User]

Thanks MAR, vindication!!!!! Lyn xxx.

pineapple

thriftwizard wrote: »

BUT gradually, as the older folk die off, well-to-do young city folk are moving in to the bijou little houses on their way up the ladder to the rose-clad country cottages out to the north.

In this neck of the woods we call them 'off-comed uns'
A few miles away there is a village which serves as commuter country for the nearest city. They keep on developing bits of land in and around it and consequently the number of new properties now exceeds the the number of original cottages. A while back I got talking to an off-comed un from one of the new developments. She was complaining about the growth of traffic through the village. I wanted to pin her by the neck against the wall of the newly expanded Co-op and scream 'but you are part of the problem!'

jk0

Has anyone heard the FSCS radio adverts? Scroll down here for some examples:

http://www.fscs.org.uk/industry/consumer-awareness-toolkit/

!!!!!!?

You might as well advertise breathing. There are no banks or building societies that aren't 'protected' by the FSCS.

I'm beginning to wonder if the FSCS exists solely for the banks' benefit to discourage people from keeping their money under the mattress.

Anyone else wondered the same?

Butterfly_Brain

We are lucky that our close neighbours are good friends as well and we have all helped each other out at at one point or another. The closest friend lives next door and is of the same mindset as us and another one is slowly coming in to the fold and asking advice about what sort of things that they should be stocking up on.

Anyone else I am afraid will have to survive on their own.

I had an (ex)friend where I used to live who treated my house as if it was a food bank and she thought she could just knock on the door whenever she needed something :mad:

Butterfly_Brain

jk0 wrote: »

Has anyone heard the FSCS radio adverts? Scroll down here for some examples:

http://www.fscs.org.uk/industry/consumer-awareness-toolkit/

!!!!!!?

You might as well advertise breathing. There are no banks or building societies that aren't 'protected' by the FSCS.

I'm beginning to wonder if the FSCS exists solely for the banks' benefit to discourage people from keeping their money under the mattress.

Anyone else wondered the same?

I totally agree with you about the FSCS and also the traitorous politicians of all colours who are all in the money men's pockets :mad:

They have all signed an agreement that the banksters can raid our accounts just as they did in Cyprus in order to keep the crooked b*star*$ afloat :mad:

Butterfly_Brain

sorryImoved wrote: »

GQ an explanation please!

I should ruddy co-co?

:rotfl: It means not a snowball's chance in hell, over my dead body etc

Frugalsod

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

FRUGALSOD it goes without saying that I would help neighbours. To my knowledge we are the only house with a woodburner in this part of our road and at the very least they would be welcome to share the warmth and hot water and heat their food on the stove. What I wouldn't do would be to have open house for anyone who came to the door. That's what I mean by being selfish about it. I owe my family safety and in a SHTF situation I would NOT let in anyone I didn't know well who didn't live here in this part of the road no matter how needy, I would have to be certain we could trust them and stay safe. If I had spare stores and my neighbours didn't of course I would help them and some of the older friends we have in the village too, if needs be we'd have them installed in the spare room for the duration of the problem. I'm not worried unduly about reputation, we're pretty established here and help anyone who needs it , we've earned our place and it's taken a long time and everyone knows we help where we can, both of us in our own ways. I'm sorry for anyone who genuinely can't manage for whatever reason to aquire a little rainy day store but I certainly wouldn't put us at risk by being known to give away freely what we had stored.

To be fair you are lucky to have had that stability over the years. Many people have not been so lucky. What is slowly happening is that the middle classes are being eroded by financialization and eventually over many years the ability to cope will be gone. Look at the large numbers in the US who no longer consider themselves to be middle class.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2014/04/02/more-americans-see-middle-class-status-slipping/7220635/

So in many ways prepping is probably best suited to this scenario, in which life gets tougher for most people. This is the trend that the UK now faces, and I do not see anything that will alter that trend. So becoming more frugal and making changes to my life that will enable me to cope with a dramatic drop in income is probably the best thing that everyone should be doing. Whether people will do so is another matter.