Preparedness for when

fuddle

Because of past experiences I live my life now as I did back then. I don't take my eye off a thing. I live a normal life now as I did then the difference being I don't need to worry (as much, it never goes away) and I can sleep, I can laugh, I do have choices, I can have periods of calm.

What I am saying is it's the burdon on a person mentally that makes or breaks you and aside from grief I am hard pushed to find any pressure like that of financial pressure. Please take it from this divvy of an emotional wreck sometimes that for all your physical preps, mental strength is at the top too.

[Deleted User]

Think you're correct young FUDDLE, the mental side of life these days is pressured and you don't know if you're brave unless you've been truly scared do you pet? Words are just that unless you have experience in life to back them up, I know you DO, so I'd take your advice over many other because you speak sense.

Karmacat

Wow. And this is where the thread really comes into its own - this is what survival's really about.

mtstm - yep, absolutely, I think we're slightly talking at cross purposes (all of us, not just you and me) about "emergency" and "all bills" - though I'm sorry to hear your dental bills are that high!

Totally, totally agree with fuddle, and I hope all of us would, that mental strength is essential, its the first thing of all. Maybe we don't mention it so much because its not something thats acquired in the same way as other preps? I'm a mass of contradictions, I'm afraid - I have a few leftover fears from phobias, I have chronic fatigue issues, and I try to speak up when its right to do so even though I find it daunting. In groups, I often tend to be quiet ... and yet, in the minor survival situations that have come my way - a dog that was about to be out of control, a garden invasion by teenagers, a couple of half hearted sexual attacks in Greece and Turkey - I stand up for myself quite loudly The long term grind of survival in a big shtf, if I was with my little family, I *think* I'd cope. But not on my own.

Here's hoping we all cope.

ivyleaf

jk0 wrote: »

Flaming American dates, eh?

I am always having to check the dates of things twice on my computer. Why do they have to be different to everyone else?

Apparently it was because our lovely niece is dyslexic/dyscalculic; we didn't know because we don't see her very often! All sorted now

GreyQueen

Fuddle's right, you do what you have to do and pre-conceived notions of what's an acceptable minimum standard of socialbility, dentistry, replacing glasses due to changing prescription etc have to go hang.

When you're truly skint, you socialise by visiting nearby pals in their home or they in yours and having a cuppa. You might snug down for the evening with a couple of besties and a DVD that someone already owns. You go for a walk. There are lots of ways of spending social time without spending money.

At one point in my life, I lived in a freezing rented room in a dilapidated rented flat with mice and other vermin and other sharers I didn't trust an inch. My only heat was an electic fire on a coin meter. If you put 50p in the coin meter, you got half-an-hour of one-bar heat. Which you could barely feel even if you crouched above the fire, because the place was so draughty that the curtains billowed even with the sashes fully closed, and the gaps in the window frames were so huge that they would take whole folded up quality broadsheets (scavenged) and still the windows would rattle.

I got creative. Fifty pence was 30 mins of not-much-heat at home or 1.5-2 hours in the art house cinema down the road watching very peculiar foriegn movies. I went there a lot in winter, idly trying to follow Chinese and other very foriegn genre movies with different dramatic and narrative conventions and very sporadic subtitling. I used to get funny looks from the rest of the audience as I'd be the only person in the cinema not of their ethnicity.

Frankly, I didn't give a toss, my 50p matinee was giving me a comfortable seat in the warm for the best part of two hours and, if I didn't 'get' much of the story, I was still warm and had interesting pictures to look at.:rotfl:

Likewise I, and many a pauper, has spent time in public libraries to avail ourselves of free heat as well as reading material.

Interesting that MTSTM workplace pension is nearly as much as my salary........... going to be much richer than me once state pension also kicks in.

mardatha

Agree about mental toughness, and sideways thinking to get you through hard times. I was desperately poor when the kids were young, husband was always on strike and we lived on income support. I learned then how to make a nice cosy wee home out of next to nothing. Maybe people who cling to their high standards have further to drop than people who have already lived through hard times?

[Deleted User]

When you've been so skint that you have had to collect lemonade bottles from bins to take back to the factory for the 3d they paid for them to enable you to go to the chippy and buy left over batter bits which they sold off at 3d a bag owning a whole tin of baked beans is luxury, no matter that they're basics economy brand!

Doveling

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Yes you can.

Just buy yourself a canal boat.

Steering?!!
Don't be ridiculous.

When I go on a boat I'll be up the front end with Mr D. re-enacting the figurehead scene from Titanic and singing "My heart will go on "very loudly :rotfl:

Precisely what will be happening for my BIG 60

I don't think there is anything wrong with having high standards but adaptability to circumstance is key.
Think Maslow

moneyistooshorttomention

Guess my whole point got completely missed then - ie unemployment benefit money is not enough to live. It USED to be enough to manage on (as I've had to do so myself more than once before now and a couple of times it was for months at a time). It is now NO LONGER enough to live on (courtesy of successive Governments having done cut after cut on it).

If there isn't enough income for health care needs and insurance then there isn't enough income - and that ball needs lobbing fair and square in the Governments direction.

I tend to think adaptability to (financial) circumstances can be done when younger (ie because you're thinking "This too will pass") - but there comes an age when you'd want a "cast iron guarantee" it was only very temporary....because you could be in that position for the rest of your life otherwise!!

GreyQueen

Can't think of any time in the past 35 years when unemployment pay was enough to pay for 'healthcare' - that's why it gets you free prescriptions, free eyetests and help towards eyeglasses and dentistry. And as for 'insurance' - what kind are you referring to? I've been uninsured most of my life, have only had home contents insurance in the past 10 years, and only because I am part of a tenant-specific policy. The rest of my life, I just had to be careful and hope disaster didn't strike.

Of course, only almost nothing which couldn't be replaced cheaply from the kind of place it had originally came from (jumblies/ bootsales/ other people's cast-offs) mitigated the potential for loss somewhat.

Unemployment pay wasn't set up to sustain a reasonable life for month after month or year after year, which is what it has had to cover for all too many people. You can live lean for a while but, eventually, the shoes wear through, the appliances die, the mattress is so saggy it leaves you more achey and tired than when you went to bed etc etc.