Nice people thread part 7 - a thread in its prime

PasturesNew

silvercar wrote: »

But you are happy for your baby to?

A baby wouldn't know/care... and they only dribble on stuff.

BertieUK

silvercar wrote: »

Would you wear second hand clothes bought on Ebay?;)

I think that if it were not for the second hand clothes market there would be millions of poor souls who would be walking around half naked.

Our daughter SB sold many of her unwanted clothes on Ebay that allowed her to purchase a new laptop.:)

Spirit_2

Generali wrote: »

Clothes we bought were from Tesco. We fit out my son with 6 month old stuff entirely for £28 in 2005. Perhaps that would be £35 today. .

In 1987 we paid £28 for a single baby grow for our baby who was due in 1988.

It was not unusual for us to spend £40-£50 on an outfit as she grew into a scrummy toddler.

We had the money, were totally besotted and went on shopping trips to France to buy childrens clothes (and wine). We just could not resist, nor did we need to. She had some clothes for messier play (OshKosh dungarees etc). I have a different view of money now (thanks to MSE and lifes ups and downs) but that was right for us at the time and part of our way of indulging ourselves (we were not misled into thinking the baby got anything out of it - except feel of the supersoft snuggly cotton).

Did this imbue in her a lifelong sense of style? No. Outside of work she wears jeans, wellies and a horrible jacket that stinks of horses.

Whilst I would not buy ebay clothes, DD would and has done.

Her cot was a good quality cotbed which lasted her through toddler years and is in our loft awaiting re-use. Her clothes we passed on to others as she outgrew them.

LydiaJ

Nikkster wrote: »

Hope it went ok breaking the news x

Thanks. She's bearing up, but there have been lots of tears. We've buried her in the garden.

silvercar wrote: »

Would you wear second hand clothes bought on Ebay?;)

SingleSue wrote: »

Yes.....as long as it is not underwear!

I'm with Sue on this one. I have worn ebay clothes, and so have my kids. Generally I now prefer charity shops for myself, simply because I often find it hard to get clothes that fit well, and so prefer to try clothes on before buying them. My kids get given lots of second hand clothes anyway, especially DD, who gets them from my niece and my goddaughter. I have a friend with a younger little girl who gets all DD's cast-offs.

Chewy has a good point about growing out of things. When I buy clothes for myself, I don't get rid of them until they are undeniably worn out. Babies don't have time to wear anything out before they need another size.

PasturesNew

Thinking of michaels.

Generali

PasturesNew wrote: »

Thinking of michaels.

Yup, me too.

PasturesNew wrote: »

Oh, I forgot - I'd also get council tax paid, so call that £20/week.

So about a 34-35 hour week at the minimum wage, pretty much full time. And if you lived in a more expensive part of the world presumably you would get more housing benefit. And there are other little things that we aren't counting like free prescriptions, paying concessionary prices at the cinema, on the bus etc.

So what's the point in working for the NMW if you aren't realistically going to get a promotion?

In Aus we don't have a housing benefit system so you can't really afford to live in the big cities on the dole (pension we call it) forever as the total sum isn't enough. There are a few towns up the coast a bit where young surfers go to live for a few years because the surf is good and the rent is cheap so they can afford to live of the dole there. Oh and marijuana grows very well in the climate in and north of Sydney which keeps their cost of living down too (not a judgement, merely an observation of many young surfer dole bludgers' lifestyle choices as IMHO pot should be legal).

BertieUK

Very pleased to report that Tasha has regained the power to her back legs that caused her problems the other day and has certainly got a spring in her step so the medicine that the vet prescribed is certainly working, my OH and I are having to move as swiftly as Tasha because of the side effects of a lot of 'flatulence'

Animals have a strange way of showing their love sometimes:)

silvercar

PasturesNew wrote: »

If I signed on I'd get £121.15 towards rent and £71 JSA.

That's £826/month. I'd have to top up my rent by £20/week out of the £71.

£826/month is what you'd take home on a salary of £10,850, which is the same as working 30 hours/week on NMW.

If you were working you may still be eligible for some housing benefit and working tax credits.

michaels

PasturesNew wrote: »

Thinking of michaels.

Thanks everyone, latest update from last ight is that we are going to need lots more thoughts of the coming week with next Thursday also being a big day.

Back to benefits (I blame MsK for bringing us on topic), I can't help thinking the reason it all goes so wrong in terms of wages/benefits is the high cost of housing. If this wa because houses were intrinsically expensive then there would be no issue but in fact hosing is only expensive because supply is so restricted, if all agricultural land could be built on house prices and rental costs would be much more sensible and as a country I can't help thinking our lifestyles would be much closer to similar income countries like the US, Canada and Australia.

Of course we can't even get from where we are now to where we should be because the economy could not support the adjustment that a realignment of house prices and incomes would cause.

PasturesNew

silvercar wrote: »

If you were working you may still be eligible for some housing benefit and working tax credits.

I doubt it. Although it isn't easy to work out actual figures because the calculators get too complex. On looking in the past, I think it was about £5/week tops. Single people are back of the queue for hand outs.

I think the other thing is that singles don't tend to know/think there's anything in it for them so never find out.