Preparedness for when

ivyleaf

charlies-aunt wrote: »

I am not really happy that the food bank, which is run by the Baptist Church insist that anyone accessing the food bank joins with them to pray before they are given anything :mad: Talk about having to sing for your supper!

I'm a churchgoer myself but I think that's an awful thing to do :mad:

GreyQueen

Mojoworking wrote: »

That was ohs sister. His mum has had her children and made it clear she wouldn't be helping. My mum had passed away so there weren't really any other choices.

I think weve destroyed families as there is no ordinary jobs any more like factorys or industry and its lots of retail on disgraceful terms and conditions with stupid shifts as we need to be able to access everything 24 hours a day. There just isn't time to do everything and actually that everything isn't actually important but we're running so fast to keep up I'm not sure what it is I'm aiming to achieve sometimes. It takes a lot not to get sucked in.

:T Heartily agree with the above.

Mum didn't want to go back to work - she went to work in a local factory, 2 mins from home, so she could be back there for us at lunchtime and after school. She certainly didn't feel unfulfilled as a SAHM (she's a keen crafter). It was sheer financial necessity with growing kids and Dad not able to earn more, although he did every scrap of overtime, and worked shifts for the shift allowance premium, when he could.

In some cases, there are very good reasons why working has to be done over a 24 hr pattern. One place Dad worked was running furnaces. You don't run such things from 9-5. But, in a lot of cases, the 24 hr society is just so much BS. It leads to the degradation of family life, the increase in exhaustion, probably contributes to relationship breakdown, poor nutritional choices, carp employment practices.....the list is endless.

If you want a laff, try telling an under 30 about such strange things as 'half-day closing' and 'closed on Sundays'. Heck, some shops used to close at Saturday lunchtime and not re-open until Mondays. People managed perfectly well; I was there and can remember it.

I'm suffering the fallout of the 24 hr society atm due to a selfish bunch of peeps at a neighbouring flat who went out at 4 am to go clubbing. And had to do a lot of door-slamming, shouting, and threating to set fire to the bins on their way out of the block. Oh, how I envy Dad's tales of going to these things called 'dances' 50 odd years ago when they had to close by midnight so as not to run into Sunday.....bring it back, pleeeze.

Doveling

A lot of grandparents can't help because they need to work as well. Especially now that the age at which you get your pension is disappearing over the horizon. Also, many families live some distance away from each other nowadays. Add into the mix grandparents parents (as people are living longer) and it makes your head spin. Multi-generational living is making a comeback.

Nargleblast - You should do what works for you and yours, of course.
It is women's choice that I feel strongly about.

Mrs. LW - I agree with you. There is no sense of contentment for many people (just stress, depression, anxiety)The consumer society thrives on dissatisfaction.

VJsmum

GQ - I think our stories are fairly similar with regard to upbringing. We were not very well off, mum had two marriages. I was the youngest child of three from the first marriage (the second marriage yielded 3 more. Tthough for long and complicated reasons, generally there were only 4 kids at home for the majority of my childhood. Mum worked in a factory when i was little but there was lots of family around who looked out for us. Later when nan and aunties had moved away, mum took on bar work at evenings and weekends to fit in with (step) dads shifts.

Dad (step) worked in a factory also - as you imagine with four kids at home money was very tight. My mother, who was not really domestic minded at all, could feed us healthily and plentifully (though maybe not with style) on very little money. Soups, stews, suet puds etc saw us through. But as you say, GQ and mrs LW (and othrs) we didn't really notice we were poor cos everyone was the same.

I remember when mum and dad (real) split up and mum was a single parent for a while that we had to have free school dinners. We were made to stand in a separate queue and it was very clear who the "free school dinner" people were - that would never be allowed now. But still we never thought much of it - there were so many kids in that queue.

It was only towards the end of the 1970's when i went to high school and met many others that it became clear that i was in the lower income bracket - they all started having holidays abroad and getting posh tellys and cars etc. I didn't particularly feel hard done by though - I knew there were a lot of us kids at home and that was just how it was. We certainly never felt we were owed although I guess the benefit system at times would have saved us.

With the recent changes to child benefit and so forth, mine has gone - but that's OK. Child benefit was never intended for people like me - it was intended for people like my mother. I think the same about winter fuel payments, my reasonably well off MiL gets it the same as anyone surviving on a state pension - which just can't be right.

I will give to the foodbank in the next week or so - i know it gets abused but I am thinking that the majority won't be abusing it there will be real need. it seems so wrong to think i would spend a substantial sum over christmas and not contribute where there is genuine need.

I have taken to buying a big issue several times a month also - at least those people are trying to do something. There are stories in there regardding the sellers that would break your heart - the ones i see on my way to work are always so polite and smiley, it brightens my day to buy off them.

GreyQueen

Mojoworking wrote: »

Greyqueen when my mum died and I was going through the drawers we found hundreds of green shield stamps what were they for. I'm 36 so don't remember. I do remember collecting dinosaur cards from my dads ciggies I think when I was very young and really fab things like bike reflectors in the cereal and tokens to send off for kellogs bowls. Sorry went off topic.

I don't remember all the ins and outs, Mum stopped doing it I was still a child, but you used to gather them up and stick them into books (if memory serves, the books were rectangular) and when you had enough stamps saved, you took the books into a shop and could exchange them for goods. Mum has a Judge saucepan still, which was obtained in such a way. I do remember fury that the amount of stamps needs to be saved for a specific item would tend to increase between the decison to save for it and the anticipated collection and they'd find that they didn't have enough stamps for whatever it was.

Here's a wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Shield_Stamps

There were various things going on in supermarkets in my childhood, including getting crockery (it was stoneware in a design called Bramble, you can see it secondhand to this day) and even cutlery. My own stainless steel cutlery was obtained by supermarket deals in such a way and stashed by thrifty mum and handed to me 30-odd years ago.

Doveling

Child benefit was intended for mothers whose husbands didn't give them any money, a safety net for women and children. This still happens and even in well-off families. Control and financial abuse, the little safety net has been taken away.

nuatha

Mojoworking wrote: »

Greyqueen when my mum died and I was going through the drawers we found hundreds of green shield stamps what were they for. I'm 36 so don't remember. I do remember collecting dinosaur cards from my dads ciggies I think when I was very young and really fab things like bike reflectors in the cereal and tokens to send off for kellogs bowls. Sorry went off topic.

Green shield stamps were the equivalent of today's nectar cards. Points (stamps) were given when you paid for your shopping - sometimes you'd get double points promotions. Stamps were collected in books and could be claimed against rewards from either a Green Shield catalogue or a catalogue showroom. (The founder of the business went on to found Argos.)
As well as collectable cigarette cards, I think it was Embassy ran points cards that could be exchanged in a similar fashion to Green Shield stamps as a child I remember the showroom to be very glitzy - all part of making smoking seem aspirational I suppose.

There were other stamp systems and for a number of years the Co-ops paid their dividend by issuing stamps, though from memory full stamp books only had a cash value.

HTH

jk0

GreyQueen wrote: »

I don't remember all the ins and outs, Mum stopped doing it I was still a child, but you used to gather them up and stick them into books (if memory serves, the books were rectangular) and when you had enough stamps saved, you took the books into a shop and could exchange them for goods. Mum has a Judge saucepan still, which was obtained in such a way. I do remember fury that the amount of stamps needs to be saved for a specific item would tend to increase between the decison to save for it and the anticipated collection and they'd find that they didn't have enough stamps for whatever it was.

Here's a wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Shield_Stamps

There were various things going on in supermarkets in my childhood, including getting crockery (it was stoneware in a design called Bramble, you can see it secondhand to this day) and even cutlery. My own stainless steel cutlery was obtained by supermarket deals in such a way and stashed by thrifty mum and handed to me 30-odd years ago.

That wiki says that green shield stamp shops became Argos. That's odd because I remember we had both shops here at the same time in Reading. (The green shield stamp shop was in Caversham. I saved up for ages to get a cassette storage box, and got mum to drive me there in 1977.)

VJsmum

Doveling wrote: »

Child benefit was intended for mothers whose husbands didn't give them any money, a safety net for women and children. This still happens and even in well-off families. Control and financial abuse, the little safety net has been taken away.

Actually, now you mention it, i remember mum telling me that. That wasn't the case in our house - more that there wasn't much money to give

mardatha

This all comes about because politicians aren't ordinary people any more. They don't have any idea of real working life and low pay. They go through school/uni/party as a protected species. Can you imagine Ian Duncan Smith in charge of rationing in WW2?