Preparedness for when

greenbee

I assume you are currently surrounded by fading fields of yellow peril too Mrs LW :-)

I may be in a graduate job now (and i'm not entirely clear why it needs a degree!) but like GQ and others I have done all sorts of things on the way - chef (loved it but bl**dy hard work), receptionist (alternating short periods of stress with aeons of boredom), nanny, waitress, bar work, roguing sugar beet, dog walking, house sitting - whatever it took to be employed.

Interesting some of the wealthiest people I know don't have 4 holidays a year, or constant new furniture and decor (old furniture eventually becomes antique I guess!). They don't seem to update cars regularly either. I guess they are rich because hey spend wisely. What would you save over 10 years if you took one holiday rather than 4?

[Deleted User]

Atishoo, yes the yellow peril is all around isn't it? It's really odd that the most affluent people I know are the ones still driving the oldest registration numbered cars and being very careful with thier cash, the almopst shabby ones who live a sensible life and have that air of being completely content with thier lifestyle, perhaps because they have less 'needs' than many and enough sense to see through the bubble into reality. Mr Micawber said income £1 and outgoings £1.01 p is despair while income £1 and outgoings £0.19.11d is happiness. I wonder how many of us would value that small 1d excess and how many would feel hard done by that it was only 1d?

jk0

I thought you guys might be interested to see this series of videos. (The running order is out due to alphabetical posting) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD9j1VonSOk&list=TLcI0wl5ABJkul4GfGuwmfEPNeqkpUvYOr


I can't believe the lengths this guy goes to, and then fills the base with concrete! Isn't the idea of a pit greenhouse that the plants will be planted in the warmer soil at a lower level?

Also, I am wondering about the angle of the glass. Looking at Walipini instructions on the internet, the ideal is for the glass to be at 90 degrees to the midday sun on 21st December. This is 14 degrees from horizontal, not 14 degrees from vertical which seems to be what this greenhouse is set up for.

Lastly, in view of the need for light, wouldn't a much shallower pit be desirable in the UK?

Frugalsod

I think a big part of the problem is that the government have pushed more into university raising expectations of graduates and lowering the pay for graduates as there are simply not enough jobs that really require graduates. Also with 50% of kids now trying to get to university it marks the rest as below average and so lowers their ability to get on.

Then skilled trades are looked down upon by politicians and while they talk about apprenticeships they force kids who are not academic to stay on at school till they are 18. Why not allow kids who are not academic to start an apprenticeship at 15 or even 14?

Menial jobs are also so poorly paid that if you add in the costs of getting to work you could be worse off than sitting in bed all day. If there are no real job alternatives there are no real incentives to get a better job or do try and better yourself. In the 1950's you could walk out of a job and get a new job by the end of the week.

All that politicians have done well at for decades is creating a huge underclass of boys who have no prospects at all. With house prices seriously out of reach for all but the upper middle class the future is dire for them all because if they even did manage to get a job and then even get a job paying the median wage they could still never be able to afford a home and a family. Live for the now and forget planning for the future because it is never going to happen.

So why set yourself on a task that will inevitably be a failure? All that most kids can look forward to, is a life on minimum wage and zero hour contracts and never having a home of their own.

maryb

when my DDs were young I had a series of au pairs to pick them up from school and keep an eye on them till I got home, meanwhile doing some light housework, like loading and unloading dishwasher, washing machine and dryer. We started off in the depths of the 1990s recession with French girls then it was mostly Czech and East Germans then we worked our way steadily across Eastern Europe to Hungary, Poland and the Baltics. The supply of candidates was always from countries where the opportunities were limited and as they got better and the supply dried up, the agencies moved east. Several of my aupairs stayed on in the UK for a year or so after their time was up with me and found that they had to work a whole lot harder at a patchwork of minimum wage jobs to have as much money left in their hands after paying rent and bills. But it was worth it in the short term - one enrolled in art college to do a degree and is now a graphic designer but she was the exception. More typical was the one whose boyfriend came over so that they could share a room in a rented house. They both worked at least two jobs - barista in the day and bar work/waiting tables at night. It was exhausting but at the end of three years they went home with enough to get married and buy a house on just one wage so that she could start a family.

It was only the differential in purchasing power that made that a feasible life choice. For a UK national to have to live like that with no realistic prospect of it getting any easier would seem little short of slavery. I can understand the lack of work ethic it produces - but we can't just accept it. A living wage would do a lot. Businesses would complain but that is their job. In practice, they knuckle down to increased costs happily enough as long as there is a level playing field. Think of the fuss that first accompanied the introduction of the minimum wage It would probably have to be accompanied by tax or NI cuts otherwise the squeezed middle really would be paying twice

Butterfly_Brain

This makes interesting reading, it seems that the US is following Spain in penalising people who have Solar Panels installed
Here is a snippet :

"Net metering laws have come under fire from the secretive American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group backed by fossil fuel corporations, utility companies, and the ultra-conservative Koch brothers. Forty-three states and the District of Columbia currently have net metering policies in place and ALEC has set its sights on repealing them, referring to homeowners with their own solar panels as “freeriders of the system.”

http://www.offgridquest.com/energy/608-oklahoma-bill-passes-extra-fees-for-solar-use

Scary stuff eh

[Deleted User]

Oh my does anyone remember the 'Naked Gun' series of films with Leslie Nielson, with the running joke about the fossil fuel companies?? one again fantasy proves to be reality!!!

Frugalsod

This is of benefit for many who live in the South.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25624-fracking-southeast-england-for-oil-may-be-pointless.html

Frugalsod

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

Oh my does anyone remember the 'Naked Gun' series of films with Leslie Nielson, with the running joke about the fossil fuel companies?? one again fantasy proves to be reality!!!

They are all trying to maintain their current business model, which is doomed. The real problem is that they have the funds to divert our politicians from solutions that if we started now would see us through any transition. If not we could all end up in the dark, unable to afford the transition.

Memory_Girl

I just tried the "I am not getting out of bed for less than £500 a week" line on my Editor.

he just told me to get on with writing my column in bed then - he didn't care ................... gutted

He loves me really

MG