when you reach breaking point

suburbanwifey

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

I can see your point, but i was only trying to give people the reminder of what happens most years in the supermarkets...Should I have not said anything, and let people find out for themselves when their regular cheaper item isnt on the shelf? Iwould have thought that was mean and selfish

I read your entire thread (that you mention here) and I think it was lovely of you to pop over to here to mention it for some others to see. You always get those on here, you know the type I've seen them on my own posts and others, ignore them keep doing what you are doing, benefits us all xx

elona

cooltrikerchick

Thanks for the reminder. I keep forgetting how early everything is moved or cancelled for Halloween, Guy Fawkes etc . It gets earlier every year.

lostinrates

What better attack on the retail madness than more and more peoe baying for the standard lines.

I mean, we all eat normal food even in christmas week. We do not need special christmas flour for baking, or special christmas bread for sarnies, or special christmas baked beans like rudolph eats.

I understand those who are not cooks buying some seasonal food, like crhistmas cake or yule log (tbh, i think i might buy our yule log this year, dh is the only one who eats it and hm goes stale more quickly and the real cream filling means the already full fridge needs to tardis up some more). Dh also likes those pork pies with cranberries on the top. I love that panforte is easy to buy here now, and pandoro/panetone, they were obscure when i was little, very expensive from delis in posh areas. I like eating different cultures and trasitions.

But i fail to understand things like seasonal apple pies, fondant fancies with a christmas fairy upon them, fifty million types of chocolate special for christmas, christmas milk or beer for father christmas (if we had kids i imagine father christmas would like two pain killers and a cup of rose tea).

Butterfly_Brain

I have read this thread with interest and like many others am dreading what the future holds. I do have a good store cupboard and know that I can fall back on it when we have an extra expense like, car repairs, something going kaput such as the washing machine or cooker, a higher than average bill etc. I have tried to save enough to pay the mortgage and bills for 3 months if the SHTF, but I don't think that that is going to be enough. I would like to have enough for at least a year, but with the way food, petrol, bills etc. are rising I don't have enough extra money at the end of the month to put by any more. My little buffer is getting smaller and smaller.
I don't think many people realise how bad the universal credit is going to be, there will be a lot of people who get help now who will no longer qualify for any government assistance, not to mention PIP and the relentless attack on the sick and disabled.
This odious government has played us all, by pitting everyone against each other... Sick, disabled, poor, immigrants, pensioners, lower class, middle class and the list goes on, and everyone is so wrapped up in their own survival they believe the evil rhetoric and lies that have been spewed out en masse.... Divide and conquer has always been the Tory way.
Don't let Labour fool you either, they are the ones who started the attack on the sick and disabled.
There is a saying that we are only 9 meals away from anarchy http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/11/nine-meals-anarchy-sustainable-system
and it was proven after hurricane Katrina, after 3 days law and order started to break down.

Butterfly_Brain

Is it just me or has Asda got rid of a lot of its smart price items? I can still get some bargains in Tesco, but it is 4 miles from where I live so I only get up there once in a blue moon, so I will have to set aside some money next week (payday) and go for as much as I can afford.
My stock cupboard is a priority at the moment, it has saved me so much money in the last couple of years. I have actually found that it has been wiser to "invest" in food and sundries because of the way prices have risen than the paltry return from a bank or building society.

RAS

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

There is a saying that we are only 9 meals away from anarchy http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/11/nine-meals-anarchy-sustainable-system
and it was proven after hurricane Katrina, after 3 days law and order started to break down.

The interesting thing is that 30+ years ago the Government kept 6 months stocks of basic long-keeping food stuffs in massive strategic stores in case of nuclear war. They did this by taking in imports and harvests, storing them for the requisite period and then releasing them to the food companies that owned them. There was even a book published which identified their locations if I remember rightly.

Then along came Maggie T who decided that the Governement had no role in maintaining food supplies and that there would be more than enough in the normal supply chain to cope in an emergency. At the same time, supermarkets increased their domination of the food markets and drastically revised their inventory control to reduce capital costs and running costs. Just in time means that virtually everyone in the system now stores as little as possible.

Which is why the truck strike was so revealing; until,them no-one realised the implications of the changes for food security. I understand that in one Midlands city the back-up supply was one day's worth and they needed to get trucks moving very very quickly.

Popperwell

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

I have read this thread with interest and like many others am dreading what the future holds. I do have a good store cupboard and know that I can fall back on it when we have an extra expense like, car repairs, something going kaput such as the washing machine or cooker, a higher than average bill etc. I have tried to save enough to pay the mortgage and bills for 3 months if the SHTF, but I don't think that that is going to be enough. I would like to have enough for at least a year, but with the way food, petrol, bills etc. are rising I don't have enough extra money at the end of the month to put by any more. My little buffer is getting smaller and smaller.
I don't think many people realise how bad the universal credit is going to be, there will be a lot of people who get help now who will no longer qualify for any government assistance, not to mention PIP and the relentless attack on the sick and disabled.
This odious government has played us all, by pitting everyone against each other... Sick, disabled, poor, immigrants, pensioners, lower class, middle class and the list goes on, and everyone is so wrapped up in their own survival they believe the evil rhetoric and lies that have been spewed out en masse.... Divide and conquer has always been the Tory way.
Don't let Labour fool you either, they are the ones who started the attack on the sick and disabled.
There is a saying that we are only 9 meals away from anarchy http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/11/nine-meals-anarchy-sustainable-system
and it was proven after hurricane Katrina, after 3 days law and order started to break down.

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Is it just me or has Asda got rid of a lot of its smart price items? I can still get some bargains in Tesco, but it is 4 miles from where I live so I only get up there once in a blue moon, so I will have to set aside some money next week (payday) and go for as much as I can afford.
My stock cupboard is a priority at the moment, it has saved me so much money in the last couple of years. I have actually found that it has been wiser to "invest" in food and sundries because of the way prices have risen than the paltry return from a bank or building society.

BB,
Quite right about the divide and conquer and making people see everyone else as scroungers who are getting something they shouldn't. Seen as the enemy. Is there anyone they haven't blamed. Of course I get the usual help nothing I was not entitled to but I was looking after Mum even though I was not in the best of health but then I was not claiming anything for her such as Attendence Allowance or Carer's Allowance.

So I did save the state some money...and I often spent my money for many things to help Mum be comfortable. As you say that PIP is replacing DLA which is being scrapped and it will be hard for many to get and it's 20% less even if you are successful. I will try and appeal if I have to.

If I have to do something it will have to be easy to get to, not far away because of the cost of travelling, may depend on whether the buses fit in with the hours of the company(so shift work may be difficult)and it would have to be light and I would probably have to do the minimum amount of hours so I can still be helped and then spend the rest of the week recovering to start all over again as I soon get tired and need to rest...

Then in my case I have the BT to worry about and they are changing the CT so that will probably increase, they keep chipping away at the income of the most vulnerable.

And I won't have a go at the unemployed because most do want to work but keep losing their jobs and finding a new job isn't easy and many are working for such a low wage they still have to try and get State help...so you are still on welfare.

And then if you are getting help, you cannot save probably because spare money is hard to come by but if you can you have to have such a small amount of savings...

I don't get into ASDA but did a few weeks ago and looked for their value range and thought it was poor(the same in Sainsbury's)The one supermarket that seems to have the biggest range is Tesco's but as someone said they may clear some of these of the shelves and start to concentrate on the goods for Christmas etc...

Popperwell

See this...

http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/update-on-proposed-new-wca-descriptors.html

lostinrates

Grain storage happens. World wide. Now its such a massive trading commodity its too important not to store it. Does not mean disgusting things do not happen to keep prices high, but grain DOES get stored.

GreyQueen

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

I have read this thread with interest and like many others am dreading what the future holds. I do have a good store cupboard and know that I can fall back on it when we have an extra expense like, car repairs, something going kaput such as the washing machine or cooker, a higher than average bill etc. I have tried to save enough to pay the mortgage and bills for 3 months if the SHTF, but I don't think that that is going to be enough. I would like to have enough for at least a year, but with the way food, petrol, bills etc. are rising I don't have enough extra money at the end of the month to put by any more. My little buffer is getting smaller and smaller.
I don't think many people realise how bad the universal credit is going to be, there will be a lot of people who get help now who will no longer qualify for any government assistance, not to mention PIP and the relentless attack on the sick and disabled.
This odious government has played us all, by pitting everyone against each other... Sick, disabled, poor, immigrants, pensioners, lower class, middle class and the list goes on, and everyone is so wrapped up in their own survival they believe the evil rhetoric and lies that have been spewed out en masse.... Divide and conquer has always been the Tory way.
Don't let Labour fool you either, they are the ones who started the attack on the sick and disabled.
There is a saying that we are only 9 meals away from anarchy http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/11/nine-meals-anarchy-sustainable-system
and it was proven after hurricane Katrina, after 3 days law and order started to break down.

RAS wrote: »

The interesting thing is that 30+ years ago the Government kept 6 months stocks of basic long-keeping food stuffs in massive strategic stores in case of nuclear war. They did this by taking in imports and harvests, storing them for the requisite period and then releasing them to the food companies that owned them. There was even a book published which identified their locations if I remember rightly.

Then along came Maggie T who decided that the Governement had no role in maintaining food supplies and that there would be more than enough in the normal supply chain to cope in an emergency. At the same time, supermarkets increased their domination of the food markets and drastically revised their inventory control to reduce capital costs and running costs. Just in time means that virtually everyone in the system now stores as little as possible.

Which is why the truck strike was so revealing; until,them no-one realised the implications of the changes for food security. I understand that in one Midlands city the back-up supply was one day's worth and they needed to get trucks moving very very quickly.

Both excellent posts, IMO.

Food retailing has changed unimaginably over the past few decades, indeed as has the supply chains for just about everything you can imagine. Before he retired a few years ago, my Dad was a warehouseman and I knew a long time ago about the hazards of the JIT system. When it works well, it actively saves companies money, when there is a hiccup (and it can be a hiccup on the other side of the world) things can go very wrong, very quickly.

I look at the population of my city vs the amount of large, middling and small supermarkets, the traditional veg market, the visiting farmers market and the small miscellany of independant traders. If the SHTF, it is very easy to envisage all the available food supplies on site being purchased in a few hours, days at most, and then people being left to what is at hand.

One of my pals is a LGV driver who brings the bread from 100+ miles away into Provincial City for the supermarkets. We used to have an industrial bakery in town to provide for the local demand. The mega-foodgroup which owned it finds it more economically pleasing to consolidate its production several counties away and for trucks to bring it in daily. All work for the working(wo)man etc but in a big ice up or a fuel blockade, or a terrorist attack on a refinery or even the random collision of improbable events which can sometimes deliver unanticipated consequences...........

I've heard lots of stuff about the winter of 1962-1963 which some posters will recall (I was an infant). Snow fell. And it stayed. For months. Bitter cold, verggies frozen in the ground. Fancy digging up parsnips with pickaxes? Dad's done it. Or the terrible winter of 1947 when a country already on its knees was brought to the brink by the cold and coal shortages.

It's easy to be complacent, especially for those like myself who live in the warmer, drier parts of the UK and think that it couldn't be so bad again. Gonna be a toughie if your bread's in Northampton, your t.p. in Swansea and your TV dinner in a broken-down truck on the M25.

Pops, I guess the one positive thing about the current political climate is that the incumbent party are picking on so very many sectors of the population that their fanclub will be limited to millionaires and celebrities, and they will conclusively lose the next general election. Not that I have any faith in such alternatives that are being shown.

Ach well, my yellow label supper is just ready so toodle-pip for now. GQ x