Preparedness for when

pineapple

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Had the house and contents renewal today and it has gone up by £50 and I have never claimed :mad: thieving barstewards and to top it all a letter from o2 saying that they have sold their broadband to sky :mad: which is a company I boycott mainly because it is owned by that vile Murdoch. So now I have to go and get lots of quotes, this afternoon.

I need to take a look at my buildings insurance and most likely combine it with contents. Can't fault the buildings one though. When my cooker door glass exploded (as apparently they do :eek:) the buildings side covered it (as it was a built in appliance). I expected a new door - no I got a whole new cooker without a quible (no one even came out to check).

Cheapskate

Last year one of my banks offered a fantastic deal on our home/contents, like-for-like only £15 a month, same as annual price. Their renewal, due in a few weeks, is now £42 a month!! :eek: What were you saying, BB, about thieving barstewards? :mad: Tonight I will be mostly looking for a better deal natch!

Mum's just renewed hers, £470, she had me help her write a cheque as it's already very late (memory problems etc!), but next year I will appropriate her renewal letter and get her a better deal.

Thing is, if more and more people go uninsured with homes, vehicles, etc., ALL our premiums will go up, more will do without, they go up...ad infinitum! :mad:


A xo

siegemode

GreyQueen wrote: »

((((((((((seigemode))))))))) remember to breathe from your abdomen. Shallow breathing from the upper chest adds and can even cause panicky feelings on its own.

I currently have 60 rolls of t.p. excluding the one in use and am keeping my eyes peeled for more bargains to sock into the stores. Possible food insecurity and jesting about zombies aside, the laughable interest rates on savings vs galloping inflation on essential goods make laying up some tangibles prudent. I have a mega stash of basics custard sachets laid in at 6p and 7p and they are now 15p.

I'm waiting for the landlord's letter advising me what the service charges will be from 1st of April. Know the basic rent which is up 47% in the past 7 years but don't know the service charges yet. One of them is for the communal heating and will be a biggie (it's £40 a month now). All this is coming off my account in a direct debit in late April and it's doing my head in not knowing how much it'll be. How the heck are you supposed to run a budget like this?!

Re whether a KK is a prudent investment, only you can know. I know what a Trangia is although I don't have one; they run on methylated spirits? or something similiar? Which is obviously a product which will have to be purchased whereas grass and trees produce organic detritus for free.

I'm hoping to get to a bootsale on BH Monday and add to my cache of candles as I made out very well there last year. Booters are great places for hunting preptastic equipment, I find. All sorts of stuff at modest prices. Just need to keep fingers crossed that the weather will be dry enough for the sale to go ahead.

All righty, will be doing something creative with the whoopsies for tea tonight. Was going to add courgettes to it but have you seen the bliddy price of the things? I'd want them made in choclotate at that price.

Onwards and outwards...............

Hmmmm I must confess to being a shallow breather and when on the laptop reading stuff suddenly realise I'm hardly breathing at all if I'm on an info hunt. I can't bare not knowing the answer to stuff so when a question pops into my head about anything I have to research and find the answer be it shopping, history, news, financial or what ever.

Spent 24 hrs with barely a break researching car ins this week for oh. Checked all the comparison sites and individual companies. Felt exhausted and my brain was frazzled and didn't manage to beat the renewal quote ! First time ever a renewal price has been the best and the increase was only £1 a month more.

Hope your heating bill isn't too much of a shock in April. We had a brown envelope this morning detailing how much we will get from April and it's gone down by £1.35 a week so a bit confused here.

Whilst making a rocket stove is planned I think a kk will stay on my wish list.

We use loads of tealights and have been saving all the bits of wax that doesn't burn. Will be checking the cs shops for candles now and will get to work on making our own. We got some wicks through a local craft shop last summer but need to get on with things now. Hope you get lucky at the boot sale.

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

I shall be making pasta sauce from my home grown and frozen tomatoes with a L*dl onion from a bargain 5kg pack, some home grown garlic and a few pieces of 'cooking bacon' from I*eland, using some SM own brand herbs. I shall be making a big batch of sauce and freezing 2 or 3 double portions for the future, I too know how to live!!!

SIEGEMODE not wanting to throw any kind of spanner in your works, be sure to check your flour stash once in a while, you'll have to open a bag to do so, and make sure you don't have weevils. It is a known way to loose the whole lot of your dried stores as is an infestation of pantry beetles and moths. I know, we've had both in the past. The best way to avoid this is to separately poly bag each packet and give it 24 - 48 hours in the freezer and then store it in the sealed poly bag. Pantry beetles will decimate practically any stored, dried product and the first you know is when they arrive on your windowsills going towards the light, but by then they are in your stores in hugs numbers. Check often and use up the stored produce as quickly as you can once you have it is the best advice I can give anyone, be vigilant!!!

Sorry to make you all itch and squirm, but it's worth doing the checking, Cheers Lyn xxx.

Thanks for the advice. I remember as a child dad having to clear out the cupboards and mum was not amused. Dads bread flour and the dried fruit all got chucked. Think dad had got the stuff from a local bakery.

craigywv

hello all just popped on for a nosy, good to see your all prepping away,i havent been out in garden as its pouring out of the heavens here. i had weevils once years ago learntmy lesson freeze the flour now .

pennib

I don't know if it was a fluke, but today T"sco had their plain and s.r. flour for 45p a bag. (not ys either) Last week it was 85pish! Wonder if it's a computer glitch (sell by date was Oct '13) So stocked up with some. HTH someone.
I always put my flour in the freezer straight from shopping and never had a problem.

I also bought some seeds from the real seed people. Had to pay a massive 1p to join:D Hopefully will now have tomato seeds for many years to come, also got some interesting looking sweet peppers.

GreyQueen

Evening all. Just been playing the numbers at Tosspots as I had a clubcard tillspit, one of those £3 off £20 shop ones. Bit of a toughie as my average weekly shop over all sources is less than £15.

Howsomever, I've worked the bogoffs and various other things and have decided that the 12 tubes of Basics toothpaste (25p each) are what my £3 deal funded. Have added them into the stores, that's a year's supply.

Quick Q, I believe toothpaste will last a long time if unopened, the tubes I've seen don't have expiry dates and I've checked, even on the "crimp" at the end which is where a lot of ointments have their use-by dates. Does anyone know the answer, please.

siegemode, I can get so stressed at times that I get like a manic wind-up toy and spin and spin my wheels until I crash. Not sure if we ME-ers have a common character type or whether it's a symptom of the illness. Sometimes, I just accept that I maybe can't get a better deal on XYZ and let it stop at a few quotes. Otherwise you can damage your health still further, I find.

I've been in the library this evening and have got the Terry Nation novelisation of Survivors from 1975, which I shall enjoy. Kid Bruv has read it and reckons it is good stuff.

Am doing something which is pasta-ish in this household, which involves an onion for the Liddly giant onion sack (I do wish Mrs LW would stop helping herself from my Liddly onion sack, I hid it in the lottie shed but it still doesn't stop her ) plus whoopsied mushrooms and peppers, a tin of tommies, tube of puree, random chucking in of dried basil and pepper and then serve with some grated cheddar. Expect it's healthy enough.

Righty, have some cooking to attend to, laters, GQ xx

[Deleted User]

It's a fair cop guvna!!! but it was really Nursies idea, she egged me (or should that be onioned me?)on to do it, I didn't mean to, but y'know, it's onions, real ones, I couldn't stop meself!!!!! Cheers GQ I'll try to be a good girl from now on, promise!!!! Lyn xxx.

mardatha

God yer all mad but you're cheering me up on a bad day so thank you!

[Deleted User]

Did you ever think we weren't? Glad to continue to be so as well my friend, all part of the service, Cheers Lyn xxx.

GQ I've had a copy of the book for years, it's got a picture from the old series on the front, it's a good read too, Lyn xx

Perplexed_Pineapple

siegemode wrote: »

Really like the idea of a KK but do you think that would be a bit ott ?

Says someone with 144 rolls of toilet paper :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
Greyqueen you can run a Trangia on any high alcohol spirit, vodka even, although it needs more cleaning than with purer spirits. The thing I like about that is that we'll always be able to make spirits (it isn't illegal to distill your own from homebrew I believe so long as you don't sell it) so not dependent in oil supplies. They are also very light and compact so good for BOBs. The downside is that the heat generated, while ok, isn't as great as with a gas, petrol or paraffin based stove which is why we have a Primus (paraffin) and a stove that runs on propane cylinders, which would be fine for a couple of weeks anyway on the fuel stocks we have. A KK would obviously be more sustainable in a longer term SHTF situation and is on my wishlist