when you reach breaking point

adelight

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

I am going to be £20 odd a week worse off soon, as Youngest has left school, doesnt want to go to collage and volenteers in a shop on a saturday, he only gets paid if he covers a shift for someone... He doesnt want to work anywhere else, as he is worried he will have to give up his saturdays tworking in this place..

Its all well and good asking him to get a job etc, but he is a typical 'kevin and perry' teenager:rotfl:

Does he really think that's sustainable or even a job? He chose not to go to college, he's an adult, tell him he's got X many months to get a job and start paying rent. Of course it will be difficult so be lenient if he tries but can't find anything and let him contribute to the house in other ways. Tough love but this is what most people I know would do.
Why doesn't he want to go to college? Doesn't want to or doesn't know what he wants to do?

A relative, who I'm also quite good friends with, has dropped out of university/training for the fourth time. He's now going to do a degree for a very competitive career at a bad university, he's going to graduate 10 years older than everyone else but has 10 years of dossing not valuable experience. I don't even want to think about the debt, wasted bursaries and how much he's cost his family and girlfriend.
It's one of those situations where I really want to say something, lots of us do, but it's not really our place and he's very head strong!

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Just wrote a lovely long reply Adelight and it disappeared:mad:

basically it was.. we knew a few years ago he didnt want to go to collage, totally hated school etc. so we looked for a saturday job for him, there were no jobs in the shop he liked, so we asked if he could work there for experience, so when he left school he would have something to put on a CV.... they did say if any jobs came up he would be employed, but with the economy they way it is, things are just ticking over, If they need to cover a shift, then thy pay him. He REALLY does love it there, and after 2.5 years of working there, and getting to be one of the gang, I think he doesnt want to look for anything else. He was very quiet and timid when he started there, but now his confidence is over flowing... He was using the till, ordering etc within the first few weeks of working there, and his product knowledge is brilliant...

We have got an idea, which we have put to the shop's manager ( needs to run it by the boss) which potentially could be very benificial to the both of us, and would mean our youngest getting a job ( paid by my company)

Sorry if that sounds a bit wired, but dont want to go into too much details on here...

But for the mean time... We will be £20 a week short in our household budget

Beetlemama

I started reading back at the beginning, and it's the same for us, though I feel really on my own with it most times. DH doesn't seem to understand how much everything costs. DH will say "We should have loads of money now we got rid of British Gas" (we changed to Scottish Power and saved £100 a month) back in November - but what we didn't have then was the extra £60 in bills each month made up of a couple of things we took on *knowing* we'd be £100 better off.

And then this month the chicken had to go to the vet (£32.01) and its "Back to school" so I had to get DS new shoes - exactly how far do you think £40 goes DH? really? Honestly I could hit my head on the desk sometimes when I hear that old "I don't know where our money goes" conversation starting again.

We watched on TV the other month some doofus saying to be prepared you should aim to have six MONTHS wages in the bank at all times to help you through a crisis - on which planet do most people have six months wages tucked safely away?

Anyway /rant. Just don't have anybody else to moan to about it, everyone I know is in a better position which means you can't complain to them because it makes them uncomfortable and makes you look bad.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Beetlemama..

I know the feeling about hubby not realising the price of things, Even though he is very good at listening and agreeing etc with cutting back, but when i send him to go and get a few bits in supermarket, when i ask him how much he spent, he hasnt got a clue..:mad:

I also tell him i have drawn cash out for the week, so ALL spending needs to come out of that, but yet he will use his card of extra fuel for the car etc...:mad: I have taken the card off him, but he said he hates only having 'shrapnal' in his pocket...

But we are slwoly getting there;)

themull1

I was in a supermarket yesterday, four tins of tuna £7.49!!!!:eek:
Bread has gone up, it seems all the basic foods are becoming more and more expensive. and while i'm ranting, how can the gas/electricity companies be putting their prices up again? i thought these huge profits were supposed to be regulated? doesn't look like much is being done to me.

Gigervamp

The supermarkets have been charging around £7 for tuna for ages. It's so they can say it's on special offer when they sell it for the more normal price of £4. If you have a Home Bargains near you, they have them for £2.99 and they say the RRP is £3.49. Just goes to show what a rip off the supermarket pricing is.

Beetlemama

We're doing ASDA 59p tuna, 6 cans for £3.50ish isn't too bad. Isn't great quality though, cant have everything.

*zippy*

We really noticed the price increases shopping yesterday, a lot of Sainsburys basic brand had gone up and you can't drop a band when you are at that point can you, you either buy it or manage without. I think they will increase things a few pennies every couple of weeks now and hope most don't notice.

GreyQueen

This price-blindness seems to be a universal thing with the fellers. You can play a parlour game with a gentleman of any age, economic bracket, marital status, intelligence level, whatever variable you like to throw into the range.

Ask him to guess the prices of a variety of common household items and I can pretty much bet that the answer will a) be wrong and b) be a gross under-estimate.

I've often wondered whether this cluelessness explains why certain budgetting decisions are made the way they are in Westminster Village...................:rotfl:

As to how an individual lady can price-train her individual gentleman, perhaps a price book? A graph? Sharp blow upside the head? Leading him by the hand around the supermarket?

I was in a big Tesco with my Dad last weekend explaining how the Clubcard voucher swop worked and how we were getting £30 of cat food for free.......... it was interesting to see the penny drop.

Popperwell

themull1 wrote: »

I was in a supermarket yesterday, four tins of tuna £7.49!!!!:eek:
Bread has gone up, it seems all the basic foods are becoming more and more expensive. and while i'm ranting, how can the gas/electricity companies be putting their prices up again? i thought these huge profits were supposed to be regulated? doesn't look like much is being done to me.

Sadly, we know the prices will go up every year and yes repeating myself I hate the standing charges on the utiliities, the meter should be free as it is there mainly so they can check what you are using and without it they could not supply their product.

Even if in a new property, if they charged for a few years, eventually its been paid for...I will be paying approx £300 SC over the year before I get to use gas or electric.

If you find a tariff with no SC the unit price is usually higher...no SC may mean I could save a little each month and/or possible use more of the product.

And sorry for many it's not helped by the other increases we know come round each year such as rent, CT and now for many the BT...and any help if you get it being withdrawn or reduced. It's scary now but the coming months will be worse...

I know the BT is not paid if you own your own house but for those that will be caught it has a lot of simularities to the old Poll Tax(there was a programme on the radio about the old PT earlier today)available on line at the BBC Online player and repeated on radio 4 next friday...