Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

All set for our holiday GQ?

Told you already, I holiday on my allotment. Plenty of work for you to help me with up there. If you're very good, I may even let you play with the chickenwire and fenceposts.

moneyistooshorttomention

Hope you don't have to go far for your staycation Bob;):rotfl:

If you're really naughty then GQ will tell you she means it and you get to camp out in her allotment shed....:D

Frugalsod

GreyQueen wrote: »

Yeah, Frugalsod, when I see people on modest wages feeling safe enough to spend freely on non-essentials, when the foodbank closes for want of customers, when people launch new terrestrial as opposed to online businesses (and make a go of them) and any number of other micro-signs and portents, then I shall start believing the economy is improving.

It is an old trick that investors were told to look at to decide whether to invest in companies, depending on the type of business. For retailers go in and see what the crowds were like on a Saturday morning and the footfall in an area. If some stores were being bypassed to think about why that was the case. Do that for a number of locations and you can see if that one store was an outlier.

In the US many investors point to the signs that are not recorded as a better guide to what is really happening out there.

GreyQueen wrote: »

Righty, going to raid my jamjar stash and start divvying up my change purse. I have a wallet and a change purse, but the purse always has a couple of notes folded into it. The idea being that the wallet doesn't come out for most transactions, minimising risk of flashing the cash and attracting the wrong kind of attention.

Not just that but where you keep your purse or wallet. Pickpockets will say that you have dropped a fiver to see where your wallet is. Though has there been the uptick in petty crimes that would indicate this is a bigger risk?

GreyQueen wrote: »

Look poor, it's going to be the safest way.;)

It is a great way to beat muggers. If they do not think you are worth robbing they will pass you by.

moneyistooshorttomention

Re the passing people who look poor by - not quite so sure how widely that would apply or how feasible it is for some.

Thinking of someone I used to know that bought the cheapest clothes I'm aware of anyone buying - but the game might have been given away by their "racehorse type looks" or the second they opened their mouth and out came a very posh drawl of a voice.

Overall - I tend to think the scruffiest people are probably the ones with the most money. Though I suppose there is always whatever the most up-to-date equivalent is of a shellsuit/pink velvety tracksuit/BIG earrings and make-up plastered-on and then you could look pretty poor I guess......

[Deleted User]

GreyQueen wrote: »

Told you already, I holiday on my allotment.

No problem. You can use my dibber.

It's a big one too.

[Deleted User]

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

If you're really naughty then GQ will tell you she means it and you get to camp out in her allotment shed....:D

Between you, me, the gatepost, and everyone on this thread, GQ actually likes naughty.

She's a bit of a dark horse, on the quiet.

GreyQueen

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Between you, me, the gatepost, and everyone on this thread, GQ actually likes naughty.

She's a bit of a dark horse, on the quiet.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

It's a good job I don't know you IRL, pet, that'd get you a smack upside the ear with a wet teacloth. But it did make me laugh.

MITSTM, I see a difference in looking poor. If you're observant and knowledgeable about both clothing and the habits of the upper-crust, you can see the difference between supermarket & primarche type clothing and once-very-expensive-now-threadbare duds.

Posh blokes sometimes give themselves away by wearing out-the-arris balding cords with handmade shoes, f'rinstance. There's also likely to be difference in hairstyling and other grooming habits. And there's a certain glossiness of skin and hair on posh gels which sets them apart like thoroughbreds among ponies. Signs of many generations of good nutrition and few survival anxieties is give the offspring of privilege a certain look.

I'm also careful about what I carry, in terms of handbaggery and carrier-baggage. £land, Icelandia and F.Foods bags give a nicely downmarket image. And I do shop there. I did accidentally have a couple of W8Rose bags for life, acquired via cs. But they were talked about, even my Magic Greengrocer remarked on them. I felt it necessary to shed them quickly, lest they upset my carefully-nurtured downmarket image.

My aim is to look like I have beggar-all and that I'd be a beggar to take it off. Being an almost-six-footer, I can do don't-mess-with-me pretty well. It was a necessary skill on the estate where I grew up.

moneyistooshorttomention

Okays then - errrm....that just had me checking my shopping bags - and wondering what hessian type shopping bags from eco-friendly type places (like organic farms) come to on the "Poverty Look Scale"....:think:

- or fold-up material bags ditto suitably sloganed-up from a food festival and Oxfam....

mardatha

Growing up where I did gave me one huge skill. I can fight my way to the front of any queue on earth - courtesy of 4 years on my school bus.

GreyQueen

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Okays then - errrm....that just had me checking my shopping bags - and wondering what hessian type shopping bags from eco-friendly type places (like organic farms) come to on the "Poverty Look Scale"....:think:

- or fold-up material bags ditto suitably sloganed-up from similar.....

Guardian reader, lefty, moderately-educated, good-hearted (likely prospect for a beggar). Probably vegetarian. Not rich but not poor. Into animal welfare and social justice and the environment and wants people to know she's a Decent Sort. Wouldn't eat at a MaccyD or holiday on the Costa del Sol.

Middling-comfortable. Hessian is pretty middle-class, in my experience. Watch out for ladies with SeaSalt hessian bags, seems to be a subtle swank-code in my experience.

A very observant pal of mine once described a certain expensive shoe brand as being worn by intellectual German women with asymetrical haircuts........ I thought that was brilliant.

You can endlessly-entertain yourself watching people and marrying up clothing and accessories to observed behaviours. Jesting aside, some people get targetted for crime according to how they present themselves, so it's useful to read our plumage and make sure how you're read in turn is how you'd want to be seen.