It's getting tough out there. Feeling the pinch?

LadyHarriet

Florenceem said:

I think that younger folk are so used to dates on food that they don't use their nose and eyes to check if okay to eat. I was told on another thread that people don't give out of date food to food banks - unless they are elderly with bad eyesight and do it by accident - well - we are still getting a lot of ood at my food bank. The rules are that we can't include out of date stuff in a food parcel. We can put a box of ood stuff at the door when food bank is open with a sign on for people to take if they wish.

That's what we do at our foodbank - although I think the 6 tins of out-of-date jackfruit might take a bit of shifting around here! They came in out-of-date and went straight in the 'Help Yourself OOD' trays. I have to say that we do get a fair bit of OOD stuff - usually after someone has passed away and their relatives are clearing out the cupboards. It's a shame as unless those cans are 'blown' or otherwise compromised, there is usually nothing wrong with the contents! My stepdaughter was a demon for chucking out stuff without doing the sniff-and-look test. That changed when she started a family of her own, though!

YorksLass

I've had a day in the kitchen today to use up food odds & ends and have made 4 chilli, mint & lamb pasties using the scraps of lamb from a joint (this was bought ys) that will do us two dinners with the addition of veg & mash.

The left over pastry trimmings got re-rolled and made 5 deep mince pies (jar of ys Xmas mincemeat bought for 10p in 2019 - yes, it's still good) to have with an afternoon cuppa.

A bag of bread crusts morphed into 11 sage & onion stuffing balls (now frozen) that will do as an extra side on a dinner/salad or in chicken sandwiches. 

I diluted the last bit of thick yogurt with some milk and made 8 fruit scones (4 for now, 4 frozen), another cuppa treat.

Lastly, a banana that was overripe for my liking found its way into banana bread that's now sliced and frozen.

When I checked a bag of peppers in the fridge I found one was going soggy on one side, so I cut off the mushy part and have chopped the rest up to use tomorrow in a batch cook of chilli.

By the time I'd finished I think I'd used almost every bowl, dish, baking tray I own and wasn't looking forward to washing up but then I reminded myself of the benefits of my efforts.   (a) no waste (b) bulked out the food stores (c) saved money and (d) I've been doing this kind of thing for so many years it's second nature to me.  Good job I like cooking and baking!

Seriously though, it's surprising what can be done with not a lot.

littlemoney

Rosa_Damascena said:

EssexHebridean said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

otb666 said:

we are on a budget but I am not changing my usage as i have done the sums and can afford 220 which is what we use.  I want to have 2 years of normal usage as just retired Before i go full circle and have to scrape ice from inside my windows like when i was little in the 1970s

I remember those days and don't want to go back there. Maybe we are just too used to having a high standard of living?

I think a lot of people have learned to take for granted the (relatively) affordable energy of years gone by and so their standard of living has increased beyond “decent” and into “luxury” without realising it. Now with the costs increasing that will have to change for a lot of folk - and this in turn means that the planet’s resources will be taking less of a battering too. I’m not thinking about having a home that is “warm enough” or being able to pop the oven on at lunchtime AND tea - more of the folk who have a thermostat set at 22° then sit around in shorts and t-shirts, those who have several showers or baths a day for no better reason than “wanting to” and the ones who routinely put all their worn for one-day-only clothes into the laundry basket every night without establishing whether the outer layers need washing, or not. 

This is so true. I listened to "You and Yours" from my sickbed this lunchtime and yet again am stunned by how privileged the younger generation are. The things they are cutting down on (eg picking just one from 4 different TV packages a month) is laughable. The kind of cutbacks they were making went long ago, eg I have no plans for going abroad when there are serious bills to be paid at home. And then they were worried about the affordability of planning a family: isn't this a debate that most people have had to have? Not so long ago, having children would routinely plunge people back into poverty.

@Wednesday2000 - the big Tesco has lots of YS BUT there is a scrum for them. There is one elderly lady in particular who hovers and elbows everyone else out of the way as soon as the trollies are wheeled out - f&v, chilled and bakery. (I noticed this having been forced to commute out of town over the winter months and would drop by around 7pm on the way home). Otherwise there is an Aldi near Chalkwell Park, and the small Waitrose on London Road may have good offers at the end of the day.

I think some of the younger generation will be in for a shock. They have been able to have  anything they want and have it instantly with cheap credit. I can see interest rates rising rapidly and a lot of people will be caught out. I remember 22% mortgage rates.

There was no central heating in my house till 1983. Now whilst there is central heating in the house I only heat the downstairs room I use and never the bedrooms. Electric blankets are wonderful.

Paspatur

Just to add that no matter the variety, they are invasive! So sink a big plastic pot into the ground to stop them spreading.

My Bocking 14 has been in place for 4 years and is not invasive

[Deleted User]

I am reading this wondering if I still fall into the ‘younger generation category’ as a 35 year old 😂🤷🏼‍♀️. If I do, I am definitely an exception!

The central heating has been off for a long time now, and even in the depths of winter we mainly relied on our two stoves for heat. Hot water bottles, bed socks, going to bed early (I am on my way up now to read my library book), a Netflix subscription only - not even a TV licence as we don’t watch regular TV. 

I am sure if I told some people I know my age that we live on £3,800 per annual they would be astounded and think were impoverished- so I just don’t tell them. 

But I was raised primarily by grandparents so was taught basic Yorkshire frugality from the off, and I am so fortunate for that x

otb666

I made an awful veg dish today, think it was meant to be some sort of carbonara But eat it as did not want to waste it.  I was very unsuccessful using squash spirals instead of noodles and was not impressed with the chou sim. Also took me an hour.  Think i will stick to soups/caserols and stir frys.  Going back to memories I remember having to use coats on bed to keep warm and i seriously cannot remember sheets being washed on any sort of regular basis Putting lots of clothes on to go to bed  Also had to collect wood from the woods for fire which we all huddled around in the evenings My parents both had good jobs no washing machine or Central heating until i was a teenager.

in_my_wellies

Deleted_User said:

I am reading this wondering if I still fall into the ‘younger generation category’ as a 35 year old 😂🤷🏼‍♀️. If I do, I am definitely an exception!

The central heating has been off for a long time now, and even in the depths of winter we mainly relied on our two stoves for heat. 

My daughter came in and questioned why my CH was on - she's 33. Made me happy to know I brought her up right 
It has been off for 2 weeks but I'd been outside, got wet and was thoroughly fed up so I thought why not just for a couple of hours

KxMx

Mummy2cheekymonkeys said:

I went shopping in lidl on friday and compared my receipt to one from february. On 10 lines that i could compare the price was now £1.82 more expensive.
Just had my new water bill in and they want to increase our payments from £39 a month to £58. So now we will be looking to cut a lot of water usage as well as gas and electric. 
OH came back from asda with 6 dozen eggs yesterday as they were reduced to 20p a pack so lots of baking and omelettes this week!

Worth investigating whether a water meter would save you money, that way you pay for what you use, not what the company thinks you will use (or rather charging you as much as they can get away with). 

London_1

YorksLass we are definitely related I think I too cut off a damaged part of a pepper, and dice up the remainder , why wouldn't you, after all if its still firm enough to slice its good enough to eat. 

Going back to days of yore cutting the grotty haiiry  bit of a chunk of cheese, or scraping a mouldy bit off the top of a jar of jam was considered fairly normal back in the 1940s/50s. With rationing nothing could be wasted at all if it was possible to eat it as long as it didn't actually walk off the plate  

I remember waiting for my late Father to come in from work and having his army great coat thrown over my feet for extra warmth.

Hot water bottles were prized and I remember my Dad bringing home some spare stoppers for my Mum in case the rubber rings perished on the stoppers. it was a make do and mend way of life for everyone . Blakeys on my brothers shoes that sometimes would spark on the paving stones. Even newspapers were prized as twisted into firelighters to light the kitchen range or fire, or threaded through a piece of string to hang in the loo for loo paper.
 it wasn't just that things were expensive , but because of post war austerity shops had few spare things available so if something broke you soon learned to fix it .

My middle brother came in one day with four spare valves for my Mums wireless, and she wrapped them up carefully and stored them on the top shelf of her pantry as radio valves were also in short supply. When the dustmen came to empty the bins it was usually literally just ashes from the fire in there and one dustbin was the only one we had and it rarely was completely full.

Jumble sales were places of treasure trove on a saturday morning with long queues of women outside the hall waiting for it to open up. Being a skinny wee thing I woud wriggle to the front and grab any wooly jumpers or cardi's I spotted for myMum and she would go for material as she could make me a coat or skirt from almost anything she could unpick and I would sit with her on a saturday night unpicking the jumpers which she would wash the wool and wind into hanks to dry over the wooden rack in our kitchen then it would be rewound into balls to make new jumpers or if I managed to get a grey one, socks for my two brothers. I was helping my Mum to knit socks, gloves and scarves before I was 10. It was just a nromal way of life and everyone did it. There was quite a bit of bartering in our road as my late Mum was a good cook and gardener and would pass on things to neighbours in exchange for other things . Even the milkmans horse contributed to our garden as he always obliged with some ....remains, at the top of our road and Mum would sent me with a bucket and a shovel to pick this revolting stuff up, but it helped with the veggie patch.

I can't imagine children today doing these sorts of things somehow Life was tough, but we all survived and I grew up knowing the value of a shilling and how to make it streeetch out. My Dad was a chemist, so we never really went short of things but it was the lack of availability often that was the problem more than money. Our family were luckier than a lot of my friends families though as my Dad was in permanant employment at least.

JackieO xx

[Deleted User]

JackieO I would humbly beg to differ... my NDN has a horse and our children were in his field at the weekend shovelling manure into trugs for me! They are only 8&9, but got on with it just brilliantly. It will line our raised beds. They then turned our compost heap with the pitchfork 😊

But we are different to the norm I admit, and living as rurally as we do means things are still much more of the older ways xx