Preparedness for when

[Deleted User]

VJsmum wrote: »

I like the prepaid card idea but OH says just to top up her bank account if we need to.

The advantage of the Pre-Paid Card is, you can top it up at any time you can get to a shop with a PayPoint terminal, which is more often than the banks are open.

FairyPrincessk

Just wanted to pop in for VJ's Mum. A waterproof place to keep all of her documents, along with either an envelope with some spare cash or a pre-paid card that could be topped up to be used in an emergency might be helpful. I wouldn't put a lot of cash in--say enough to get a taxi to the nearest public transit or the nearest hospital. Most anything else could be paid for by card--either by her or by you remotely in most situations.

I was also taught to always have enough money for an emergency taxi ride home whenever I went out. It meant that if I ended up in a situation I didn't want to be in and needed a quick and safe exit I would have it. I got a bit sloppy once and didn't have the fare on me when my ride got drunk at a party. It put me in a very awkward position and taught me the value of that rule! I went away to large metropolitan areas with no support network. In a smaller town with reliable friends this would be less of an issue.

GreyQueen

I came across the concept of 'mad money' in an American novel. Not in the context of money you can splurge, but a back-up supply of cash to get yourself home if you get 'mad' with your date and they are your means of transport. Not a bad idea for anyone, regardless of circumstance.

Have decided to go looking for these magical bargains at The W0rks as have been feeling the urge for more wee torches for some time.

siegemode, I don't have children either, never wanted to have them and no regrets in middle age, either. But I sometimes think of my great-grands, having their kids in WW1 even as men in their extended family were dying and being maimed in France, and my grandparents having kids during WW2. Those would have seemed the darkest, end-of-the-world times but my parents are in their seventies now, and have lived all their lives without anyone trying to shoot them or explode * them or drive them out of their homes. Not all of their peers in other nations have been so fortunate, of course, but hope and children both spring eternal.

Re aging, I'm 20 in my head, of course, but have had to live more sedately than my peers due to having ME since I was at uni. That, and another chronic health problem, have limited my physical abilities, although I am a strapping lass and you'd be surprised to hear that if you only saw me in passing. If we spent a few hours, you'd see the dips in energy, the shakes, the other stuff which I mostly suffer behind closed doors.

Thoughts on mortality are prevalent in my family atm, with my Nan having had a stroke earlier this year and needing carers twice daily on top of family support, plus an uncle very poorly in his eighties. I fear that the next family gathering is more likely to be a funeral than a wedding.

Ach well, this is the nature of life and it comes to us all in the end. But it does make me aware that we need to be realists about the latter decades of our lives. I have met septugenarians who can hike in the mountains for 8 hours a day and still party in the evenings, but they are a minority. I have also encountered people who do what I consider to be very daft things, such as buy retirement flats four floors up in blocks with only stairs, or won't think about downsizing from large family homes with huge gardens until they suddenly become incapacitated and the only bathroom is upstairs..........

Some things can be mitigated a lot with a bit of forethought and timely actions. I have an excellent quality mattress which requires quarterly turning. I can single-handedly turn a heavy double mattress (powerlifter technique) now. The predicted lifespan of this mattress is about another 15 years, but its replacement will definately be a no-turn mattress, because I won't always be able to do this.

I am also a firm fan of the wally-trolley for shopping, having reached the age of not-giving-a-damn for public opinion. Of course, the wally-trolley has become such a common sight that it's like when I first started wearing a bicycle helmet in the early nineties; small boys would point and jeer, then virtually every second person lidded-up and it became too common to be amusing and the jeering stopped.

Re prepping, the allotment is in excellent fettle, although some of the leeks have been eaten to shreds by slugs and snails. They get the plants nearest the end of the row where my allotment joins a poorly-culivated one (the one with the gardener who was botanising with the weed species :mad:). Good job I have lots more, hey?

I have also fixed a base to my strong trolley, the newspaper delivery trolley I got from a bootsale in 2013. Generic thing, you will have seen them about. Made of tubular steel, so not idea for holding anything with a flat base. It now has a sturdy plywood base, think it was backing from an old dressing-table mirror, with cutouts to sit neatly to the uprights, and narrow holes drilled through for wires to hold it to the trolley.

Trolley is currently holding the spud sack but can easily be repurposed to hold one of my 25 litre water carriers. I'd take slight issue with Bob over the portability of these as it's 55 lb and that might not tax a man's strength but I can barely carry them across the flat and certainly would struggle to get one back from a water bowser or standtap.

Hokay, time to hit the streets and see what's happening.

* Mum's people are from the East End of London but she was evacuated as a wee sprog for a few years.

Karmacat

Hello GQ, I was wondering how you were doing - I'm reading up on early retirement on mfw at the mo, so I'm popping to other threads now and again. With you on the slow decline - the last 2 nights, I've had 9 hours in bed, which is wholly unlike me, but without it I'd have been really ill. Making things easier now is essential, really, as we age and so that we can do the other stuff thats actually pleasant or even fun - if all our energy was taken by housework etc, that would be Not A Good Thing So today is about recovering from trips out over the last few days, and watering the garden, which is needs must.

Hope everyone's enjoying whatever sun there is

mardatha

ME is a personal version of TSHTF isn't it? In my head I'm making soup and tidying the garden and knitting all the xmas gloves & socks...but in reality I'm sitting here yawning my head off and wishing I could go to bed! lol

GreyQueen

Hi karmakat and mardatha, yes, struggling this weekend. Had a full-on day on the lottie with the folks on Friday, early bath, in bed by 10 pm all should have been gravy until a neighbour from hell kept me awake all bliddy night. Took the shine off my weekend.

Went into Saturday having been awake since 03.30 am on Frday, so yesterday was a struggle and today, although I've slept well, I'm still trying to play catch-up. Have scratched lottie plans and apart from an airing by pottering around the city centre, have grounded myself for the day. Will do a few little bitty chores and read stuff.

I do think we have become such a youth-obsessed society in the past couple of generations that a lot of people are in a state of denial about the realities of aging, infirmity, chronic illnesses and the lifestyle changes these require. Go into a library or bookshop or look at the magazine racks and you'll see plenty of stuff about how to stay young, look 10 years younger blah-blah-blah. Awful lot of denial going on here, I reckon.

Don't want to suggest we all don slippers and get granny-perms and book coach touring holidays the minute we turn 50, but there's a middling way; think about it and manage the decline gracefully. As Doris Day once said Old age is no place for sissies.

I've encountered people even in my own family in their fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties who don't have wills. I've also heard from the next of kin of people 80+ who died intestate who say S/he didn't know s/he was going to die.

Newsflash, lovely peeps, ain't no one gettin' outta here alive, and you don't usually get a memo and a 3 month warning. One of my rellies (83) dropped dead of an aneuryism at Mum's feet a few years ago. Just after they'd been having a cuppa and the older woman had been talking about getting things (her clutter etc) sorted out. She'd been going to get stuff sorted out for years once she got around to it...........

Karmacat

I hadn't heard that Doris Day quote! Am definitely resisting the idea of "old age", yes, but I've now accepted that I need to change my ideas about what I do and how I cope. Sorry its been so noisy and sleepless for you, GQ - my party wall people are a bit noisy, but nothing like your neighbourhood

Managing the decline gracefully I have a big birthday coming up soon, the one where, if you were a woman, you could get your pension until recently - it won't be for another six years, but I'm currently reading http://earlyretirementextreme.com/ which needs for ts to NOT htf, so here's hoping. And matched betting, to get some extra spondulicks.

First tho, the garden, or even a walk around the block. I need to be in the open air.

Mardatha - yep, it is. Love the difference between what you're doing in your head, and what you're doing - I'm the same :money:

moneyistooshorttomention

GreyQueen wrote: »

I do think we have become such a youth-obsessed society in the past couple of generations that a lot of people are in a state of denial about the realities of aging, infirmity, chronic illnesses and the lifestyle changes these require. Go into a library or bookshop or look at the magazine racks and you'll see plenty of stuff about how to stay young, look 10 years younger blah-blah-blah. Awful lot of denial going on here, I reckon.

Don't want to suggest we all don slippers and get granny-perms and book coach touring holidays the minute we turn 50, but there's a middling way; think about it and manage the decline gracefully. As Doris Day once said Old age is no place for sissies.

I've encountered people even in my own family in their fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties who don't have wills. I've also heard from the next of kin of people 80+ who died intestate who say S/he didn't know s/he was going to die.

Newsflash, lovely peeps, ain't no one gettin' outta here alive, and you don't usually get a memo and a 3 month warning. One of my rellies (83) dropped dead of an aneuryism at Mum's feet a few years ago. Just after they'd been having a cuppa and the older woman had been talking about getting things (her clutter etc) sorted out. She'd been going to get stuff sorted out for years once she got around to it...........

There are, at least, a couple of ways of looking at that and I do tend to agree that there are some people who don't envisage "coming to grief" health-wise and, IF those people are planning on sticking around until Kingdom Come then maybe a little bit of forward planning just in case is in order.

I have been astonished and horrified at just how many people get to be on a "steady downward slope" come middle age or so onwards and sometimes a sharp downward trajectory in fact. That being the case, I am a very strong advocate of "being prepared" just in case the person is someone who has decided/assumed they will "hang on in there regardless".

I do know I am very fortunate personally (in some ways:cool:) that my own personal decision was made a long time ago re what to do if "personal SHTF" and there simply wouldn't be a (possibly) long downward trek thereafter and trying to keep things on an even-ish keel.

For those who haven't made the "Up with this I will not put....." decision for whatever reason...then...I would tend to agree that they should put plans in place for "If the sh DOES HTF personally" because that does seem to happen to so many people...:mad::(:mad:

I honestly do think, personally, that its part of prepping to make up your own (very personal) mind about what constitutes "Up with this I will not put" territory. We will all have our own personal "That is IT territory" boundaries and I honestly think that is part of preparedness planning personally (whilst fully acknowledging that the vast majority of people wont want to go that far down the route of preparedness planning).

EDIT: I do acknowledge just how many peoples bodies make different decisions to what they personally have made (or assumed they could make in a few years time/many years time) and hence why my own personal decisions have been made, to make sure that I personally get things exactly as I require them to be. It aint an easy one to acknowledge your own body may contradict what you personally have assumed is "How things will be" I do know...

[Deleted User]

I'm 66 but only on paper!!! I don't give a tinkers cuss how the outside looks and the inside and lever bits still work well enough to do what I want them to in the house, garden, allotment, shops, walking the hound etc. I never say 'I can't' and have been known to climb the odd mountain on holiday, I'll go out in harness for preference but give up?NEVER!!!

siegemode

mardatha wrote: »

ME is a personal version of TSHTF isn't it? In my head I'm making soup and tidying the garden and knitting all the xmas gloves & socks...but in reality I'm sitting here yawning my head off and wishing I could go to bed! lol

This is pretty much how I feel most days too. I have plans and intentions, but so many things are often left un done as I find it difficult to gather enough momentum and I end up doing those jobs that are easier or more enjoyable whilst everything else buids up. My ME only hit me about 8 years ago and I move between trying to ignore it and cope to being totally useless because I've over done it. Pacing is something I find both difficult to get my head round and impossible in my RL.

GQ I think it is my impending Birthday and the fact that we have had such a tough year and 2 funerals this summer (one was only 57yrs) it has given us a bit of a reality check, it's certainly made us think of our own mortaliy. In my head I feel in my 20s, but my body and life is sharp to dispel that illusion. In a few years we may be forced to move and we are already looking around for a bungalow with a good size garden and a workshop. The thing is to achieve that we will have to move to another part of the country and that is rather daunting even though it will be an adventure. It feels like my age has crept up and hit me all of a sudden along with all the implications of getting older. There are many great things about being my age and I am lucky that I managed to do so much in the past and have many experiences and good memories so have few regrets. I grabbed chances and went for it. In fact as I sit here I can think of loads of positive things about my age right now including the fact that we won't need the heating on quite as much and from what I've read on some of the weather pages we are in for a cold winter. Been trying to ignore the M word for awhile now, but am having such hot and colds that I've had to accept I've reached that time of life too.
So my prepping so far has been to ensure both me and OH are well kitted out with good quality and hard wearing clothes and footwear. We have decluttered the small garden and are making plans to make it easier to organise and hopefully more productive rather than just somewhere to sit. Also high on the agenda is to look after our selves a bit better.