The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

mardatha

That sounds awful thriftwizard. Maybe better off to live really remote - at least I get a mobile Post Office van that comes twice weekly!

Karmacat

That's a lot, thriftwizard ... the auctioneer's words are maybe the most telling in terms of shtf, thats always what happens in slow collapse stories but of course the funding issue, for carers and schools, thats scary.


The Post Office thing is weird. My town was 25,000 people when I got here 8 years ago, now its 35,000. The main post office moved into a shop, but the shop closed,so its temporarily in its own premises again. The village type area I live in lost its sub PO but one opened up in a newsagent shop to replace it. AND there's a *new* subPO opened up by the railway station. Perfect for commuters, as its a commuter town, I guess. But ... when people talk about the extra funding that goes into London and the surrounding commuter belt, this is what they mean, I think

DigForVictory

thriftwizard wrote: »

Everyone's Kondoing - or in the auctioneer's words, liquidating - anything that can be sold.

So, in fact for the first time buyers of furniture etc, or anyone looking to replace something on the point of demise with an affordable & eco-friendly replacement, life is looking good. Just you do wonder why people are converting goods to cash. Some are indeed in thrall to MK. Some want a bit more money in hand to go on holiday with. There are always a few who are finally clearing houses now there's light to drive there & back in. Then there are the fundamentally untrusting who sense things are going sideways & want to be "safe" where cash is king. As in, not actually having too much faith in banks, in case.

My single weathervane for tough times has been how busy the second hand market is. Also the hunting shooting & fishing supplier as BB guns, airsofts & full on shooting tackle all need maintenance & ammo. When things are looking iffy, that shop is discreetly crowded & everyone's paying cash.

Though I have not forgotten one transaction where a car pulled up, a youth hopped out clutching a couple of pheasants & hopped back in with a rattling tin in the cleaner hand. I presumed this was a pre-negotiated transaction where in exchange for a handsome evening meal, the shooting household got some additional ammo. I still grin faintly at how might that have been recorded.

From the texts I gather a son has inadvertently wiped the phone he wanted to update. Should I presume you have every number on your phone backed up to paper somewhere?! I foresee Easter including a lot of call & repeat numbers as we get him back up & running...

culpepper

Looking at youtube for camping car info , it turns out many of the pension age in the USA are selling all and moving into vehicles. I wonder if the same would be repeated here. I think it would be much harder because here, there is no native american land to camp on free but it has to be the ultimate downsize in a long term emergency situation.

thriftwizard

culpepper wrote: »

Looking at youtube for camping car info , it turns out many of the pension age in the USA are selling all and moving into vehicles. I wonder if the same would be repeated here. I think it would be much harder because here, there is no native american land to camp on free but it has to be the ultimate downsize in a long term emergency situation.

Not to mention that our climate is somewhat - soggier & cooler - than the Sun Belt, where many of them head for the winter. My cousin regularly goes Over The Pond, hires an RV for a few months and joins them, but beats a hasty retreat back to Blighty every time a Texan widow latches onto him...

PipneyJane

thriftwizard wrote: »

I've had the sort of day which makes me feel that TEOTWAWKI isn't far away! I'm sure I've mentioned at least a thousand times how all the small independent shops in our little town have been vanishing, thanks to a combination of sky-high retail rents and the proximity of a number of edge-of-city retail parks. Today I had to post a couple of parcels, so decided to drop them off at one of the nearby sub-Post Offices en route to somewhere else. Well, it's closed at some point over the last few months whilst I've been mostly out of action. So I went to the other - which has also closed. I tried to put some lots into the local auctioneers, but they're swamped - no space until June. Everyone's Kondoing - or in the auctioneer's words, liquidating - anything that can be sold. And I won't be fit to do much car-booting until late summer.

Our bank is closing at the end of May; most of the others have already gone. We do still have a town centre sub-Post Office, at which we can withdraw cash after queueing for an hour or so, and some ATMs. I know it's a case of "computer says no" because our population is under 10,000 - but we have a suburb that's 7,000, and vast numbers of new houses being whacked up on every side which, if sold (and most of them start at half a million) will take us well over the 10K.

Our roads are in a shocking state. Our nearest A&E is closing & in an emergency in future we'll have to go to the hospital on the other side of the conurbation, half an hour away. Half an hour, that is, when there's no traffic, no roadworks, no lane closures - in other words, it's almost never half an hour! This WILL cost lives.

Support for special needs kids like my neighbour's 13 y.o. autistic son has been slashed. My headmistress niece has spent most of the holidays so far trying frantically to find the "savings" the grubbyment are demanding when her budget is already only half what the school needs. The care system for the elderly is falling apart round here, carers often arriving 2-3 hours late (if at all) because there's no cover for emergencies. They're on minimum wage and having to pay people to mind their kids...

And Sainsbob's Red Label teabags seem to have gone downhill lately too! If there was any doubt in my mind that things really are beginning to fall apart at the seams, that's proof positive... Time to stock the bunker!

Something I have been wondering for years is how this country can be so poor when it is ranked either the fourth or sixth largest economy in the world (depending on who is measuring) and, therefore, deemed to be rich. I don't get it. There is rarely sufficient cash around to maintain our infrastructure, let alone invest in more/better; compared to the rest of the world, people aren't well paid; your average taxpayer pays over a quarter of their salary as tax (income tax plus 12.5% NI), so where the hell is the money going? Even the so-called "well paid" are drowning in debt and struggling to keep a roof over their heads.

I just don't get it. I'm not trying to spark a political debate, I just want to understand.

- Pip

jk0

PipneyJane wrote: »

Something I have been wondering for years is how this country can be so poor when it is ranked either the fourth or sixth largest economy in the world (depending on who is measuring) and, therefore, deemed to be rich. I don't get it. There is rarely sufficient cash around to maintain our infrastructure, let alone invest in more/better; compared to the rest of the world, people aren't well paid; your average taxpayer pays over a quarter of their salary as tax (income tax plus 12.5% NI), so where the hell is the money going? Even the so-called "well paid" are drowning in debt and struggling to keep a roof over their heads.

I just don't get it. I'm not trying to spark a political debate, I just want to understand.

- Pip

Could be the £31 billion we send to the EU?

Karmacat

PipneyJane wrote: »

Something I have been wondering for years is how this country can be so poor when it is ranked either the fourth or sixth largest economy in the world (depending on who is measuring) and, therefore, deemed to be rich. I don't get it. There is rarely sufficient cash around to maintain our infrastructure, let alone invest in more/better; compared to the rest of the world, people aren't well paid; your average taxpayer pays over a quarter of their salary as tax (income tax plus 12.5% NI), so where the hell is the money going? Even the so-called "well paid" are drowning in debt and struggling to keep a roof over their heads.

I just don't get it. I'm not trying to spark a political debate, I just want to understand.

- Pip

jk0 wrote: »

Could be the £31 billion we send to the EU?

I think it's much more likely that it's due to the centralisation of the country's capital in the hands of the top 3% - 5%.

mardatha

Spot on KC!

[Deleted User]

I wonder if perhaps it's because we have eyes bigger than our wallets in many cases, we seem to believe the media constantly pushing us to new fashions, fads, this years colour scheme and selling us the idea that if we need to constantly update our homes and lives with all the latest must haves and models and we deserve holidays and spa days and treats and a champagne lifestyle in general. If you believe that you'll not have brakes when it comes to spending beyond your means and won't see the hype, only ever feel you're underprivileged and on constant catch up to where you 'should rightly be'. I look at what young people expect to spend on weddings etc. these days and ponder on the fact that we had a registry office wedding and the reception in our home and I did all the catering myself and it was a fantastic day, I had an ordinary but smart dress, not a £3,500 wedding dress, we drove ourselves to the registry office so no luxury cars and we spent our 1 day honeymoon on the allotment planting the first spring seeds and here we are 41 years later still together and still happy. Life needs to be viewed with clarity to make choices you can actually afford and not many are able to do that for the pink haze of advertising, sad really!