THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

GreyQueen

mardatha wrote: »

GQ we were talking to each other this morning (good day then aye!) and the RV was saying he can't understand how everything changed so much. In the 60s there was plenty work, both of us could walk out of a job one day and into another one the next day. There were foundries and ship building and pits and factories... he doesn't understand what happened to them all and neither do I. Because now we make nothing at all, we have a lot more unemployment and more debt, and everything comes from China. Doesn't sound like progress to me.

Our industries were taken by the capital-owning class to countries with cheaper labour (due to much cheaper living costs, no unions, plus slavery-type conditions).

Our commerical classes of retailers was happy to do business with the exported factories. Remember when you could actually buy decent clothes in places like M & S? As in, made in the UK from cloth spun and woven in the UK? Good luck with that, now.

Quality went down the pan, but a couple of generations of consumers have been trained to have incredibly low expectations. A tee shirt lasting more than half a dozen washes? A fridge or washng machine going for 20-30 years? Never happened, did it, myths from the old f@rts whose memories are dimming. Bring me shiny new things, cry the populace, and don't bother to think about the waste of resources, the ruin of the environment, the slavish, sub-human conditions of the folk who make them.

We've been sold a pup. A pup with a fatal inherited disease which will die before its time.

When some industries off-shore, the workers may be able to move to other jobs. When enough do it, there are no other jobs to be had. So's proud mining villages are riddled with unemployment and drug abuse and unhappiness.

We don't have mines around here, our geology doesn't yield coal or iron ore. We did have industries which employed thousands in providing everyday items produced by local people in local factories. Those kind of items which are used by every single person for the whole of their lives, repeat purchases.

More people in the city than there ever were, and those everyday items are imported from all over the world - or, at least, the parts of it where labour is cheap.

Saipan

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

It's why I'm not waiting any longer to get my sofa and kitchen - get the goods whilst "normal service/goods in shops" still exists. Thank goodness for a secure income situation....

If by a 'secure income situation' you mean pensions paid by the government, then I think it's important to consider prepping for 'what if' this source of income is reduced, eroded by inflation or even withdrawn altogether. This is what I and several friends are doing in the years before our retirement.

Pensions are only as secure as the economy / tax revenues that fund them. Many saw the Chancellor's reference to the triple lock in his Autumn Statement as giving notice that it would cease post-2020 and over the last day or two Stephen Crabb has called for it to be abandoned so as to give more financial support to the young who are struggling. This alone would reduce the value of pensions going forward. Although as far as I know, this would not apply to Scotland?

I am having a lot of work done on my house and, like yourself, replacing key items while I can afford to and to future-proof my home. But I am also retraining to allow me to continue working post-retirement in a part-time role I could manage and looking at a host of other things, including my daughter's suggestion of setting up a business with her.

I in no way wish to scaremonger but I think TPTB are telling us that the economy cannot support the current level of pension payments in the future. It makes sense to me in this situation to plan for the worst while hoping for the best.

GreyQueen

I was talking to my cousin last month. We're only a year apart in age and the arthritus affecting her spine is making it very hard for her to do the physical job she loves.

She is beginning her re-training to return to the desk-based profession she had 25-odd years ago. Not because she wants to, but because she believes that our generation will never actually get to retire at all and that we will have to work until we drop.

I personally think she's right. That there will be no such thing as a state retirement age, that you will be in the same position as a working-age person who is too sick or disabled to work. That we will be expected to earn our livings until we are signed off by the medical profession as being completely and permanantly incapable of doing so.

For non-state pensions, all of those are reliant on the performance of the global economy. If business earnings tank globally, what will a private or a local government pension scheme be worth?

moneyistooshorttomention

Saipan - yep...I do mean State Pension and Civil Service Pension.

It obviously depends on the individual as to what they would do personally if there were problems with that.

I made the decision never to do paid work again at 60 - unless I actually see the chance to do something I want to do and would be paid reasonably for. I don't anticipate that's very likely somehow:cool:. Therefore I'll never be going back to work then.

As for "what if worst case analysis"? All any of us can say realistically is "Dont know" basically.

I dont know how long it will be before the sex discrimination against women when it comes to equity release schemes goes and there is just a "person's" rate - rather than a woman's rate and a man's rate. I anticipate that last bastion of sex discrimination will be gone by 10 years time. The thing that I think will stop it will be a legal case (or two or three or a mass one) by those who have decided they are a different gender to the one they were born. They are becoming a very strong pressure group currently and I think it pretty likely they will notice this at some point and realise how many people in that situation are/will be affected by this and bring either a test case legal claim or a mass legal claim to have a law brought in stopping this. At which point those of us who are quite okay with/happy about the sex we were born will also get the benefit of this too and just get a "persons" rate. I'd be willing to bet that is what will happen.:)

Failing that equity release becoming possible - or if those companies have gone down the shoot basically - then my own personal verdict would be to continue spending what I need to spend to live reasonably imo and if the money ran out = no big deal = head for Heaven sooner than I was due to. No problem. As long as I didnt do going bankrupt (which I wouldnt) - then I've fulfilled my responsibilities okay.

I appreciate other people have responsibilities and/or other ways of thinking. Equally valid. Each to their own on that. We can all only have our own personal fallback plan tailored to our own individual needs/wishes/responsibilities/way of thinking and no-one can speak for anyone else as to what theirs personally should be.

Living_proof

A propos of absolutely nothing, just read this from a travel agent colleague in India at the moment:

The cash issue in India is pretty real, this is the 8th machine and the only one I've found with cash in... they were completely empty at Delhi airport and the exchange places had nothing! Max you can take out is $25 USD worth

Cash is King alright, but it has to be the right sort these days!

ivyleaf

Oh dear, I was feeling depressed enough before reading today's posts

The general greyness outside most of the time lately doesn't help.

I haven't any Rocky bars either....I do have some nice chocolate though <perks up a bit>.

GreyQueen

I'm drinking tea, cooking allotment beetroot, hand-sewing a knitting project up and am about to head out to Tosspots to hunt YS bargains.

At 4-ish on a Sunday there is often a rich haul of CAKE and PASTRIES and COOKIES.

None of which are at all good for one, but which help a grey November day pass happily.

You've heard the saying; No sun, No moon, No Vember...............;)

mardatha

Sigh. If I wanted an emergency cake right now (and the RV refused to drive me up for one- which he would do!) then I'd have to wait for the once-hourly bus up, and then again at the other end for the once hourly bus home. Either that or start walking... and get my cake around tomorrow teatime if I was still living!

GreyQueen

mardatha wrote: »

Sigh. If I wanted an emergency cake right now (and the RV refused to drive me up for one- which he would do!) then I'd have to wait for the once-hourly bus up, and then again at the other end for the once hourly bus home. Either that or start walking... and get my cake around tomorrow teatime if I was still living!

I have got a big bag of grub, including a huge gammon joint knocked down from over £12 to under £2, plus various treats for pennies.

Colour me - :j:j:j:beer::beer::T:T:T

Gotta be some advantages to living in the beating heart of a city, Mar, heaven knows there are enough disadvantages at times.

Gammon's in the oven now. Cooking time is only 3 hrs 24 mins, so it'll be done by bedtime. That's me sorted for protein for a week (will freeze some of it sliced for another time, too).

DigForVictory

And to think I thought you could use a handful of arrow heads...
You've the here & now nailed. <Awe!>