Preparedness for when

elona

Hot air maybe????

Frugalsod

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

Those poor MPs have just been recommended a 10% pay rise by an independent body, poor things it only takes them up to £74,000.00p a year how on earth will they manage on that little?????

That is nearly 4 times what they expect any household on benefits to live on. Especially if you think that there partners might have a job as well. Maybe we should link their pay to the minimum wage?

Doveling

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

Those poor MPs have just been recommended a 10% pay rise by an independent body, poor things it only takes them up to £74,000.00p a year how on earth will they manage on that little?????

I still don't think I'd like to do that job for about the same pay as a secondary school head gets, considering the responsibility! :rotfl:

Big SHTF situation not far away. Police cars , ambulances and fire engines screaming through town this am. Saw the red air ambulance going over as well. Things don't sound good on the radio.

happydays89

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

Those poor MPs have just been recommended a 10% pay rise by an independent body, poor things it only takes them up to £74,000.00p a year how on earth will they manage on that little?????

We have just had an email asking my husband to attend a consultation meeting on Tuesday,looks like he is going to lose his job.......the oil has crashed big time in Scotland.

Thanks to everyone here and all the fab advice......I have a big store cupboard,3 freezers full of meat,enough wood and coal for about 3 years,enough pet food for a year,we have a polly tunnel and grow our own fruit and veg and I have drawn up a plan of action should the worst happen.We have gone into what I call starvation mode which means no money will be spent unless absolutely necessary.We will survive.........stuff their payrise,they don't live in the real world,they have no idea how much people are struggling.

Butterfly_Brain

Sorry to hear that Lyn
Fingers crossed that it won't be bad news, but at least you have made provision just in case.

Frugalsod

happydays89 wrote: »

We have just had an email asking my husband to attend a consultation meeting on Tuesday,looks like he is going to lose his job.......the oil has crashed big time in Scotland.

Thanks to everyone here and all the fab advice......I have a big store cupboard,3 freezers full of meat,enough wood and coal for about 3 years,enough pet food for a year,we have a polly tunnel and grow our own fruit and veg and I have drawn up a plan of action should the worst happen.We have gone into what I call starvation mode which means no money will be spent unless absolutely necessary.We will survive.........stuff their payrise,they don't live in the real world,they have no idea how much people are struggling.

You are in a far better position than you would have been if you had not been following this thread. My attitude is cut your expenses while you can before you have no option to. Then your overheads will be far lower than before and you will be able to cope far better than otherwise. Good luck.

happydays89

Frugalsod wrote: »

You are in a far better position than you would have been if you had not been following this thread. My attitude is cut your expenses while you can before you have no option to. Then your overheads will be far lower than before and you will be able to cope far better than otherwise. Good luck.

Thanks,I feel in control,thankfully we own our house so don't have to worry about keeping a roof over our heads.All these years my husband has thought I was mad the way I stocked up when I saw things at a bargain price,or when I found things for free using vouchers,but finally it has clicked and he can see how it's going to help us.

the_cake

Good luck and well done happydays, fingers crossed for you.
After three weeks unable to get on line I have been grateful for the alternatives, especially my real, food splattered cookery books. Like most people we bank on line too, so that's been a bit of a pain. Luckily I have a friend a mile away (we're a small, rural, widely spread community) who has been hugely kind in letting me use her internet every few days.
Our next challenge is making hay - did it for the first time last year and at last understood the anxiety around the weather at this time of year, as once it is cut and before it is baled, rain is disastrous.
On another note entirely, I bought 50 little plastic lidded freezer pots on Eb*y (a month ago, luckily) and have been freezing small portions of the excess fruit from the garden - strawberries (mashed with a little vanilla sugar), raspberries (same), redcurrants (just heated so the juice runs, a little sugar) and gooseberries (same) and will enjoy them with some Greek yoghurt through the winter. The blackcurrants are not quite ripe, but they also keep a wonderful flavour frozen. I have lifted, dried and plaited the garlic (a terrific crop) and just cut some of the lavender to replenish the lavender bags to keep the moths away. My inner squirrel is in overdrive .....

GreyQueen

happydays89 wrote: »

We have just had an email asking my husband to attend a consultation meeting on Tuesday,looks like he is going to lose his job.......the oil has crashed big time in Scotland.

Thanks to everyone here and all the fab advice......I have a big store cupboard,3 freezers full of meat,enough wood and coal for about 3 years,enough pet food for a year,we have a polly tunnel and grow our own fruit and veg and I have drawn up a plan of action should the worst happen.We have gone into what I call starvation mode which means no money will be spent unless absolutely necessary.We will survive.........stuff their payrise,they don't live in the real world,they have no idea how much people are struggling.

I'm sorry for that news, and pleased and proud that your prepping is going to smooth the bumps on the road. For others who are starting to think about it, here's a link to a timely article on Apartment Prepper called How to Deal With Downsizing, in case it might help someone here.http://apartmentprepper.com/

I opt to live below my very modest means at all times, because I have the double-whammy of two chronic illnesses, and don't know how I will be from day-to-day or year-to-year. If you fear that you might end up on the social due to events beyond your control, you tend to be conservative about money, if you've any sense at all.

I'm beavering away on my allotment in between the rest of life, with the spuds about ready to harvest, the autumn-sown broad beans have finished. I had them up a couple of days ago, stripped the dried pods which are left (the rest is in the freezer) and have bound the drying stems into sheaves, which are leaning against my plot's fence. The idea is that they will continue to be dried out and then added to the annual bonfire when the burn-ban comes off on 1st October. Potash is good stuff.

I'm harvesting blackcurrants, and will be prepping the former beanpatch in the next couple of days for transplanting the leeks into. The springsown broad beans are coming ready, and beetroots getting there after a sluggish start. Onions are huge this year, have never had the red variety grow so big. They really like the heavily-manured soil and the full sun.

But yes, with a storecupboard, fuel for winter, and a burgeoning veggie plot, one can face the world with a degree of equanimity.

the cake, my farmer friend did the haymaking two weeks ago, just before the weather turned, and it made him very happy. He was less happy to talk to a gamekeeper in the area who caught a lady who had driven a van of 26 caged foxes captured in one of the inner London boroughs out to our area (several hours' away from London) and was about to release them onto the farm. She said they were a fox rescue charity.:mad:

He pointed out to her that it's a criminal offense to release vermin onto other people's land, that they had lambs who were being killed by foxes and that he shot foxes on sight, plus they run a shoot and he'd just released several thousand pheasant onto the land, with a value of £4 each. She still did the release, right in front of him, and he shot 9 immediately, and the rest the following night.

Silly mare. He got her numberplate and I hope the Police get sicc'd on this fox rescue place. That farm had 11 lambs dead or dying in a field one day this week. And the urban foxes were easy targets out in the fields, they had no rural survival skills.

happydays89

Thanks everyone,it's great to have support on such a friendly thread. :A:

I am spending the weekend listing everything we have,from food to toiletries,we are going to see how long we can stay away from the supermarkets.
I have changed energy suppliers to first utility and according to the site we should save about £400 a year.

It's looking very grim on the job front,Bristows have just announced 130 jobs to go,mainly pilots........I bet they thought their jobs were safe.:eek:

My husband 59,so it might not be easy finding another job.:(

It doesn't feel like the economy is recovering,it feels like its getting harder and harder. :eek: