People on the dole

Hapless_2

TurkishDelight wrote: »

I have asked at the pub lots of times, but even at their busiest there isn't work for two people and they have all the shifts covered. I don't think that most people would consider "spy" a serious career choice, but no I don't have any school qualifications (another reason I am with the OU- you can get into a traditional college/uni without GCSE's but it takes a lot of explaining) as I was homeschooled, and never stuck to a curriculum (really stupid and I wish my parents had thought it through but ho-hum that's life)

Don't blame the home schooling, I was home educated to no curriculum, totally no fixed subjects and did what I wanted. I worked in retail, the music industry, sales and have been self employed all with NO qualifications. I also was offered a place at Exeter university with NO GCSE's or A-levels a few years ago. I never accepted as I had a young family so chose OU instead.
If you pass a couple of courses with OU you can use them for entry into university. The only thing that stops me working is my disabled daughter and my own disability.

Can you not move to be closer to town and/or a bus route?

magyar

TurkishDelight, can I ask a straight question - you clearly live in a remote part of the country and there aren't going to be many jobs there plus it will be hard to get around.

Do you accept that you might have to move to another part of the country to find work, then maybe move back to that area in a few years' time when you've got some money and a driving licence?

Scarlett1

TurkishDelight wrote: »

I have asked at the pub lots of times, but even at their busiest there isn't work for two people and they have all the shifts covered. I don't think that most people would consider "spy" a serious career choice, but no I don't have any school qualifications (another reason I am with the OU- you can get into a traditional college/uni without GCSE's but it takes a lot of explaining) as I was homeschooled, and never stuck to a curriculum (really stupid and I wish my parents had thought it through but ho-hum that's life)

Why not ? you dont have to go out there in all secret squirrel mode you can always work in house and do a desk job, if its something you really want to do I cant see why you cant work towards it.

As for being home schooled why didnt your parents put you through the exams, didnt the local education authority monitor your progress, I cant see anyone that homeschools not being checked up on ?

PasturesNew

7.30?? You were spoilt

I used to take 2 buses to school + a long cold wait in the middle waiting for the 2nd one. Being offered fags, yeah I smoke. Opportunity to get up to naughtiness having to be declined (mates were shoplifting from the shop at the bus station).

My school was only about 7 miles from my house, but you had to go into town then out the other side.

Then when I did secretarial college, it was only 1 bus. Then just a 1.5 mile walk.

Graham_Devon

PasturesNew wrote: »

7.30?? You were spoilt

I used to take 2 buses to school + a long cold wait in the middle waiting for the 2nd one. Being offered fags, yeah I smoke. Opportunity to get up to naughtiness having to be declined (mates were shoplifting from the shop at the bus station).

My school was only about 7 miles from my house, but you had to go into town then out the other side.

Then when I did secretarial college, it was only 1 bus. Then just a 1.5 mile walk.

I was not spoilt!!

I was p at 5.45am and by 6am walking to the local shop to collect papers for my paperround. By 7 I was home, often soaked etc, getting changed for school.

Used to do 6 days on my paperround, monday to saturday. Got £7 a week :eek:

Can't believe I did it now, I asked dad a while ago why he let me do all that for £7 a week, he said it was so I could learn you had to work for any money.

After school I stayed on for an hour and with my mate every afternoon would look after the schools computers. There was no network in those days but windows 3.1 needed a lot of attention across 30+ PC's.

That led to the school employing us in the summer holidays. Remember going into school in the summer holidays and being there for hours installing updats for windows. Then we got windows 95 on CD. We had one CD Rom drive in all 30+ PC's, so took that cd drive out of the one system and took it round to each individual computer, plugging it into each one temporarily.

Anyway, finished on a school night at school at 5. Home at 5.30. 7.30 I was in my local restaurant washing up (by hand) until 10-30 / midnight (depending on amount of diners).

Then moved up to second chef there, preparing starters and helping out with main courses etc.

Worked every christmas day between the age of 14 and 18 That was a bit annoying at 14, as I had new computer games!

Spoilt, I think not! Was busy all day, everyday.

I was a rich kid though compared to others at school! My £7 plus my £80 a week roughly from the restaurant at that age made me very rich. Bought my own PC at 16 (and in those days your talking well over a grand).

Hapless_2

Scarlett1 wrote: »

As for being home schooled why didnt your parents put you through the exams, didnt the local education authority monitor your progress, I cant see anyone that homeschools not being checked up on ?

The LEA have no legal right to monitor home educated children. That is enshrined in law.

gwinnie

Hi TD

How about looking for work that you can do from home?

You could consider becoming a Virtual Assistant

TurkishDelight

Scarlett1 wrote: »

Why not ? you dont have to go out there in all secret squirrel mode you can always work in house and do a desk job, if its something you really want to do I cant see why you cant work towards it.

As for being home schooled why didnt your parents put you through the exams, didnt the local education authority monitor your progress, I cant see anyone that homeschools not being checked up on ?

Nope they didn't with me- never gave a s**t, some people they do, some people they don't we moved around a lot so they didn't get round to it I suppose. I have decided to go in a different direction from MI5 now (I was 13 or so when I figured that it was a bit mad). I don't know why my parents didn't put me through exams, but I wish they had. To everyone else, I do plan to move once I can if I don't get a job or something in the mean time, but it's a bit tough right now, with no money. Not, I suppose, entirely impossible, but really daunting. I don't blame the homeschooling, but it doesn't help. And the OU have been fantastic so far.

Graham_Devon

Hang on. I'm not trying to pry here.

'The dole' is around £46 per week isnt it?

How are you on a PC with internet connection? Is this all your parents stuff?

I know I couldnt afford my broadband if I got around £190 per month!

PasturesNew

My mum wouldn't let me have a paper round - scared perverts would kidnap me!

But I was allowed a washing up job in a local pub/restaurant (before the days of dishwashers). But I lived in an active/large village just 3 miles from town, so had the benefit of there being probably 8 or so pubs around.

I also did babysitting. Paid peanuts, but the couple I babysat for went out quite a lot, so used to do about 3 nights per week. One night her brother came round, I was naive and let him in. He left after about 2 hours. When she came back she was horrified, he was supposed to be in prison and was obviously on the run and had turned up. I saved all my money to buy my first tape recorder. Wasn't even a stereo one and it cost £70!! It turned out the reason that couple had the cash to go out was: he was a milkman and was collecting the Xmas Hamper money from all his customers and simply spent it.


So .... what about babysitting OP? Any chance of any of that in your village? How many people live in your village?

The only other thing I can think of right now that might help you right now, is - to head over to the other boards in this forum, where there are some ways to earn a bit of cash here and there (some seem to be doing quite nicely). They're doing online surveys and cash clicks etc. Worth taking a look at. No idea how much cash you've got coming in, but if you're on about £50/week then being able to make an extra £10-20 is a real difference.