'supporting each other through really tough times'

VJsmum

Seen this?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22065978

"How little can you live on a week"

GreyQueen

Interesting. I'm in the lowest 20% of single adult working age adults. Don't spend more than £12 a week on food anyway, but I am a wily so-and-so.

Have just dropped a £1 at the Magic Greengrocer for which I have bought; 6 humungous onions, 3 small/medium peppers and a head of chinese leaves.

Have just asked for tips on what you do with chinese leaves of SHTF thread but will ask here as well; salad or hot veg?

This morning before I went out, I did an elabourate handsewn repair to the shirt I'm wearing which was a cast-off from Mum, and of my two pairs of shoes, one pair is a cast-off from a friend.

I do pretty well but I've had a lot of experience. I reckon that my net income is about £30 a week above JSA+Housing and Council Tax Benefit. Most of my income goes out on those two categories, working one month a year to pay the council tax.

The trouble with these kind of challenges to live for a while on a very low income is what sort of state do you start the challenge in? Do you have decent clothes, shoes, appliances, stuff in your cupboards? What happens when you're on the poverty line year in and year out?

F'rinstance, SuperGran has a working fridge whose door has broken off its hinges in such a way that it can't be re-hung. She can't afford to replace it, so for the past year has it sort-of hinges at the bottom and held by blu tack. To open it, she braces her toe against the bottom of the door, pulls door towards her and then levers it open. Not the most convenient thing for a pensioner with a walking stick, but there you go.

If you're living on a very low income, a cooker, a fridge or a washer dying on you is a major problem.

I'd say to these people walk the talk for a few years, then come and write an article about it.

mardatha

Agreed GQ. Anybody can do anything for a week.

monnagran

Hi all.

Am feeling lightheaded as have just finished the marathon of the Church magazine. Not helped by me dropping the massive box of cuttings, stories, poems etc that I have collected over the years and use to fill up spaces. The box of 'used' items was balanced on the top so now there is a mountainous pile of paper bits, all mixed up. In future they will be reading articles in the magazine that seem vaguely familiar. That's because they will probably have read them a few months ago.

GreyQ. your tip about doing the edges reminds me of my Granny's motto. ' Look after the corners and the middles will look after themselves.' It works too.

Fuddle: For goodness sake girl. Get yourself a part-time job stacking shelves or something locally. It's just a temporary measure until you get to what you really want to do. Life's too short to spend it putting up with the nonsense you are enduring at the moment. If someone is making our Fuddle unhappy I might just have to come up there and beat someone up!

x

maryb

GQ I do a stir fry with some meat or fish such as half a tuna steak marinaded in soy sauce and I stir fry Pak Choi and spring onions with it then dump in some reconstituted egg noodles. Totally yum. You could probably use Chinese leaves the same way

Nargleblast

Confession time now. I have finally come out of the closet.
Or, rather, my Rollser shopping trolley (psychedelic fuchsia pink) has finally come out of my car boot, where it has been hiding for several months.

Parked in the big Mr T car park today, intending to get a few things from there then nip a few yards away to do a slightly bigger Ald1 shop. Got the Rollser out of the boot, trundled round Mr T, loaded it up, back to car, then did Ald1 shop. Easy peasy! Even passed another kindred spirit with a Rollser - that was grey and white giraffe print. Why did it take so long for me to see the light? No carrying bags of stuff, just wheel it along! Maybe it was the memory of little old ladies with tartan trolleys that bit your ankles?

GreyQueen

:beer: Nice one, Nargleblast, I just love my Rolser and wouldn't be without it, but I know where you're coming from.

I guess that shopping trollies were reserved for the lil ole lady cohort for so long that we have an internalised trolley-phobia which says if I have one of these I might as well get a blue rinse and a baggy cardi and call myself an old lady.

I resisted but life lugging the shopping was getting harder. Then I noticed that even young women in their twenties were trolleying and no one was calling the little men with white coats. No one was paying the slightest bit of attention.

My road to Damascus moment was when I was struggling home from the supermarche with a handbag, my work bag and 5 bliddy carrier bags digging welts into my hands. I had to stop about every 50 meters and I had a LBM and decided that I wasn't going to do this ever again.

If anyone doesn't like it, they can eat the dust from my snazzy black and white Rolser. Trollies rock!

Nargleblast

Trolley dollies of the world unite!

GreyQueen

I'll show you mine if you show me yours, heh heh.

SDG31000

Shopping trolley p*rn......how clever are these?
http://www.thetrolleyrevolution.com/2-wheel-packs-21-c.asp

Trolleys that fold in half to hang on your supermarket trolley. What a fantastic idea I am so getting one when Dotty the Trolley goes to the great trolley park in the sky.
That said I have had my Typhoon trolley for over 5 years now and she is holding up well. I had a wheel shatter after I had Dotty over a year and Typhoon sent me a new one out at no cost.