'supporting each other through really tough times'

Possession

I love mushroom risotto Fuddle, and you can often pick mushrooms up very cheaply.
Bluebag I have the heating on practically the whole day every day, and I know I should cut down but I work from home and find it very difficult to get warm again once I'm cold. We're fixed until 2014 as well.

JellyBox

Sounds good on the job front fuddle, hope you get it!

Another freezing cold person here, I spent yesterday standing around outside, none of my 8 layers on my top half or 4 on my bottom half kept me warm! Today and tomorrow have involved only a few hours outside, but still haven't been able to warm up at all. Our gas bill is going to be bloody extortionate, our payments are probably due to go up soon anyway. How is it possible that a one bed flat can cost £43 a month in gas when we only have that for the heating and hot water?! Probably the same reason we managed a £200 water bill, I believe that was for the quarter (shockingly) sure there's a leak somewhere, or something just wrong, but landlord says not.

On T vouchers - I always spend mine on the rewards, we get treat days out, did Alton Towers for free in the summer, and can afford another couple of similar trips already this year. Choosing instead to save them up for airmiles though, want to get us both to Berlin next year, can get me there and back so far, so saving for OH!

Cheapskate

"I feel like I age by the day though. I feel stressed and squeezed and on tenterhooks. This time last year it was difficult and it wasn't as bad as it is now. How the heck we will cope with what is thrown at us this time next year I don't know. Being a grown up in the real world is hard, I'm feeling down because this is my first experience of austerity/recession/cuts/taxes and then I think of you all that are going through this for the second and third times.

Contentment and stability. Those words are way underrated!"

I feel the same, fuddle! I read all sorts of stuff to prepare me for life getting harder, and also cos I like reading and learning things, but balance it out (sometimes!) by concentrating on a tea made from leftovers and free-ish pud if I find windfall fruit outside. I know it's not fruit season, but you get the drift. Or I do simple, "mumsy" things for and with my family, just because I can and there seems a certain security there.

Our TC have gone down now since I gave up my job, I knew they would and glad it's not as bad as I'd planned for, we can still manage, but come April they'll go down again as DH earned more than we thought, so the system will want some back, ergo we'll receive less. Have a rough idea, so already scaling down things, and am so glad that I saved a fair bit before I stopped working!

Keeping fingers crossed for the job, fuddle! I've used Basics rice for risottos, as the grains are often broken, it behaves very well as a risotto rice (or even for rice pud) as it's more starchy, and for much less brass.

We're in a fixed price deal until December, unit price is fixed but we've used a lot this winter, so we're paying more, but hopefully it'll go down as the CH gets used less. Will spend the summer/autumn really weatherproofing the house as I suspect so-called "fixed" deals will either be scarcer than hens' teeth or fixed much higher than currently, and we'll have to be really careful.

Sorry to waffle!

A xo

bluebag

fuddle,

don't stress too much about it love. I was first a housewife in the early seventies. Power cuts, strikes, inflation out the ying yang. The madness of mass redunancies in the 80's the debt lunacy in the 90's and now all this carp now.

It goes on all the time, just make a calm plan and go for it, adjust as needed. We are all lucky really, we have healthcare, enough food not to die, usually some shelter and 100 channels of pure garbage to watch on the telly 24/7.

We are always in the !!!!!!, it's just the depth that varies.

GreyQueen

((((((Fuddle)))))) you'll manage because you're a grafter, because you're intelligent and questioning and you've got a great little family behind you. Plus, we're here to cheer you on and offer helpful suggestions.

Us ones with a few more miles on the clock can get a bit yeah whatever when yet another recession hoves into view like a rotting tramp steamer. Does seem that the gaps between the beggars are getting shorter, tho!

We will do what we've always done; our best. I'm as happy as larry with a bag of slightly-dented fruit and veg for £1 from the Magic Greengrocer, and know where to put my sticky mitts on clothing and books for pence.

If I have a cup of tea and something to read I can amuse myself for hours. Contentment has a lot to recommend it.

JellyBox

fuddle wrote: »

Being a grown up in the real world is hard, I'm feeling down because this is my first experience of austerity/recession/cuts/taxes and then I think of you all that are going through this for the second and third times.

This is me at the moment, had a little cry after getting back from the food shop for that exact reason. Plus all this makes me miss my nana, she'd be so much help for all the stuff I'm trying to do. Thankfully I laughed at her 1001 uses for vinegar book when she was still alive, so on her passing it got passed back to me - handy now!

VJsmum

Bexim wrote: »

On T vouchers - I always spend mine on the rewards, we get treat days out, did Alton Towers for free in the summer, and can afford another couple of similar trips already this year. Choosing instead to save them up for airmiles though, want to get us both to Berlin next year, can get me there and back so far, so saving for OH!

I did this a lot when the kids were small - living in the midlands, we had loads of choice, over time we've had

• a year's membership of the Black Country museum
• a year's membership of Ironbridge Gorge Museum
• Leicester space centre
• alton towers
• chessington world of adventure
• Warwick castle
• Flamingo land
• Drayton Manor
• Madame Tussauds

off the top of my head (I realise not all of these are midlands!). Now the kids are older I tend to use just theme parks and restaurants (ask, cafe rouge, pizza express, bella italia). It sure takes the sting out of a bill for 4 adult meals. The other week we went to Ask and the total bill came to over £80, and I think we paid £20 for the drinks! I've used Nectar for a posh hotel in London for me and DD once, too. Handy things.

I've seen a couple of recessions in my time, too.I think there is an attitude amongst those of us who have "got the t shirt" that it's nothing we haven't seen before. The 3 day weeks of the 1970's were something else and, even though I was not even 10, I remember being very worried about how we would manage. But we did.

stiltwalker

Hey Fuddle - don't fret too much lovey.

Risotto is a great standby - you can do it with whatever you have. We like Chicken, mushroom and pea with a dollop of marscapone (well more usually value cream cheese! lol) stirred in at the end. Wild mushroom is my favourite but DH not over keen on mushrooms so tend not to do a just mushroom thing. You can also do a quick and cheaty vesion of risotto primavera with those bags of frozen veg, you know the little diced ones that you can get as a value version.

GreyQueen

Let it flow, Bexim, we have broad shoulders here.

:j Three whole days have passed at the parental homestead without the SuperSquirrel bullying Snootycat. Largely, it must be admitted, because said cat is welded to the living room radiator, but it is progress.

Her cute-but-dumb sistercat, Fluffy, has spotted a mouse under the shed outside and is showing as much interest as is commensurate with the extreme coldness. Which means that she has been laying in ambush for all of five mins at a time.

May we join hands to wish that Fluffy achieves her ambition of a mousecapade and doesn't bring the bliddy thing live indoors to release it for later consumption ( she has form for this and the last one nested in the base of the broomcupboard and ate a microfibre cloth). And hope that Snooty remembers that she is a predator, even if a smallish one, and stops being intimidated by the tree-rats.

Gosh, if Nan's cat Blackie were alive to see this sorry spectacle he'd blush all the way to the roots of his fur.

If all else fails, I may have to practice some bushcraft on said squirrel. They taste like chicken, apparently. Loads of them around the country. They could be the recessionista's menu option of choice. That's a lot of protein on the paw, and then there's the woodpigeons.

I'm not allowed to shoot the ones on the lottie with an airgun, it's written into the rules. S'pose it'll save me the expense of getting an airgun............:rotfl:*wanders off to text mad african friend who knows about hunting with catapults, mwah ha ha...........*

bluebag

Bexim wrote: »

This is me at the moment, had a little cry after getting back from the food shop for that exact reason. Plus all this makes me miss my nana, she'd be so much help for all the stuff I'm trying to do. Thankfully I laughed at her 1001 uses for vinegar book when she was still alive, so on her passing it got passed back to me - handy now!

There are a lot of us on here that are how shall I put it ... senior members of the school of life.

I sure don't know everything, but having got through most of the course- work in the school of life (failed quite a few modules sadly ) I know a few things. There are always ways to do things, ways around things, ways to avoid things and ways to fix things once made a hash of.

There are always ways, women since the dawn of time have pushed up their sleeves and got down to it, we have it in our genetic make-up. Yes sometimes it is very hard and our hearts ache and our knees bend, but the love for our families and our willingness to share with each other and help each other will always see us through.