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

calleyw

Rosa_Damascena said:

Managed to get my energy bill for April down to...(drumroll) just over £25.

Love to know how unless you are never home or have solar panels.  Standing charge alone for electric for a month would be £13.60 (30 days) and if you have gas as well thats another £7.16(30 days) so a total for standing for charges for both would come to £21.76 before starting to use any energy

Datchet

This really is a fascinating thread! It was said by my parents about me & brother “ They don’t know they’re born, these days” ! And I heard it escape my lips about my two boys the other week! During lock-down both of my sons had to grapple with a shocking concept that was new to them “There’s none left…”! Which they had not heard before. 

I’m in my fifties and can remember ice on the inside of windows & chilblains. The house I grew up in had ‘back-ground’ central heating that my parents couldn’t afford to run. I remember during the seventies; power cuts, fuel & food shortages and double digit inflation. We got sugar via some black-market dealings. Never had a foreign holiday till I paid for one in my late twenties.

Despite having a good job, we, as a household, are Actively frugal. Homegrown fruit & veg, scratch cooking, batch cooking & slow cooker. Energy use has been slashed. I can’t understand some friends & acquaintances getting new cars every 2/3 years. Mine is far from a banger! But was bought 2 years old and is now 9 years old: running it to get the value out of it.
another batch of home-brew will be started this weekend.

nannygladys

I have been charting my g&e nearly every day since i had lots of time during lockdown but I can only find them since August 2020 - sad I know. The differences are astounding! This last week I have been noting it down into standing charge, gas and electric, and making a note at various times what I was using and why. Like today I've done two lots of washing so one wash was 40° for 30mins and the next was 30° for 15mins, the difference between the two was just 1p that was using electric wm, I thought it would be more, but boiling a kettle for two cups of coffee and half a bowl of washing up using gas boiler was 3p!!! Which I thought would be less!!! When I looked at the standing charge over thirty days for both I'm paying £22.50 at present.
My dgd came to stay one night this week and I guess she must have been charging her 'stuff' up overnight as my bill was 60p higher than the average daily useage, sorry I told you I was sad!!!
Mind you it doesn't half make you realise where you're spending - it's the standing charges that we have no control over, it comes to something when we are having to be careful just to give them more money on top of the increased fuel prices for standing charges. 
Sorry, feeling a bit '****' off at the moment, normal service will be resumed very shortly - sorry again 
 

Rosa_Damascena

calleyw said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

Managed to get my energy bill for April down to...(drumroll) just over £25.

Love to know how unless you are never home or have solar panels.  Standing charge alone for electric for a month would be £13.60 (30 days) and if you have gas as well thats another £7.16(30 days) so a total for standing for charges for both would come to £21.76 before starting to use any energy

No use of GCH, gas for heating very short showers only, aside from heating up a pan of water to melt some chocolate no cooking was done.Usual appliances were left on inc FF, microwave for heating milk, multiple IT devices and the kettle has had plenty of usage. We have had a lovely warm and sunny month, and credit where it is due my home gets wonderfully warm in the sun and also retains its heat.

ALWAYS at home it seems, esp the last 2 weeks which have been spent in total isolation! I am down to my last Weetabix but now I'm finally clear I'm relishing the prospect of a trip to the supermarket.

jcriyadh

SIRENS said:

helensbiggestfan said:

Sirens.....7 months waiting for life insurance payout is outrageous. 🤬  have they said what the delay is. 

When my husband died I sent the claim form and all supporting documents on the Monday (registered post) and received a cheque on the Friday.  

It's always something different, they wanted probate which I gave them in November, then they wanted records from our doctors, now it's something else from the nhs. They're forgotten to send requests before, or had their requests blocked by their own email security, and didn't notice that it hadn't been sent for weeks until I called to chase them. It's the last thing you need when you're in shock. My husband died very suddenly, no warning at 48, so it's been tough on the kids and me, let alone all the financial hoopla. 

Sirens, have you heard of WAY?  It’s a charity for people who are widowed under 51, Widowed and Young.  I was widowed too, last year at 47, and the group have been a massive support to me with lots of good advice.  Feel free to get in touch, it’s a tough situation to find yourself in so young.  Xx

London_1

Today on our local tv station there was a piece about how people are cutting back on things, and one of the supermarkets were complaining that folk are buying less food !!!.

Well considering the amount of food a lot of people have in their cupboards already I think its a pretty good idea
 
I have been eating down my freezer so I can defrost it and conswquently buying a lot less stuff than usual.I haven't gone hunry at all in fact my purse is becoming quite 'fat' with the amount of cash still in it

I have gone through my tinned and dried food stocks and I have a great deal in there that actually I will eat before buying any more in.

So sorry to the big 4 supermarkets but my purse is staying firmly shut for a bit longer, but the amount of profits you have hadin the past two years I doubt you will end up on Carey Street just yet.

Tomorrow I shall tackle the dreaded two cupboards under the sink and see what cleaning stuff is in there They both seem to be full so I don't think I'll be buying much of that either for awhile 
JackieO

Doom_and_Gloom

Banana cake is in the multicooker now. Much cheaper to have a cake cooked in that than the oven (unless already on and there is space). The thing I love is that I can use the multicooker myself unlike the oven. So the OH is going to have a suprise with tbe cake. 

4 very ripe bananas mashed
A good couple of handfuls of chopped walnuts
2 cups of flour (gf works well and the OH can't tell the difference)
3/4 cup sugar (it asked for a whole cup but it is too sweet that way even for OH)
Pinch of salt
A teaspoon of cinnamon (doesn't ask for it but OH loves it in it so it goes in) 
1/4 cup of vegetable oil 
1/4 cup of water
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract 

It asks to do it in a certain order but I just always dump and mix and never had a problem yet. Lol. 
I sprayed the multicooker with veg oil and dumped it all in. Easy and quick that even I can do it no problems. 


JackieO I can't belive they have the audacity to complain that people are buying less! With how much the energy bills have gone up, how much transport has gone up etc something has to give. I've noticed small price rises, as well as large ones, on food recently and have even chatted with my ma over the increases. Her and dad are out in their home in Spain and, for example, the price of vegetable/sunflower oil where they are is close to the same as olive oil which is crazy.
At the end of the day many of us have been buying more than we need. It has been said that in the UK in 2021 that up to 40% of food was wasted with around 70% of that waste coming from households. Either way it is deplorable that that amount is wasted. The resources that went into the products that get binned that could have gone to something else is something that everyone, including the supermarkets, should be thinking about. So buying less, though may be 'bad' for their profits and shareholders is 
advantageous to the world as a whole overall.

That in mind I do feel for those who are genuinely struggling right now as there are people who are. I could debate that people have become used to a certain way of living, and some have, but when I know rents and mortgage payments are stupid in some areas combined with all these other price increases, well I know that this austerity is real.

Edit to add photo of the cake (as it is cooling), hope the pic isn't too big but don't know how to change that if it is 🤔. It is cooked throughly even if it doesn't look like it I swear. 

ladyholly

My heart bleeds for the supermarkets - Not. They have seen record profits in recent years and now is the time for them to realise that the good times may be over.

Woolsery

ladyholly said:

My heart bleeds for the supermarkets - Not. They have seen record profits in recent years and now is the time for them to realise that the good times may be over.

Without wishing to be rude, it's also time for more people to realise that about a dozen major multinational investment corporations run much of the world's trade, so the supermarkets may be only part of their portfolio. If spending on food is down, maybe armaments or some other sector will be up. If you Google BlackRock, or State Street you'll see what I mean. Of course many of us ordinary mortals have pensions or other investments linked to these multinationals  and the banks.

The people who may really be hit in an economic downturn are those working in low paid jobs like retail, though in the last recession food outlets were not badly hit. In fact there were some surprises, with firms making non-essential foods like chocolate doing well. This was because even people hurt by the bad econmic situation could still afford to give themselves relatively cheap little treats.

Now, if it's not a recession you're thinking might happen, but a depression.....well, we've not been there since the 1930s and that's a completely different ball game!

London_1

I agree and think that the supermarkets ,especially the 'big four' have become complacent over the past few years thinking that their tills will always be jingling with the publics cash.

I think because of the very high increases in fuel and utilities folk are now becoming increasingly aware that food,once bought ,must be eaten and not binned willy nilly.

I am very 'old school' anyway, and always have been, but growing up with rationing and post war austerity makes you have perhaps a different mindset to this generation. Although I have noticed that many young folk (my two granddaughters ,both 29) are very aware of the cost of living and are a lot cannier than they used to be. thank goodness.
 
The slightly older one by three months is a Mum of two and I was really pleased, when out with her a little while ago that she checked out the local hospice shop for toys for the little ones.
She is a part time special needs TA and she said that once her two little girls grow out of toys clothes etc she makes sure they get passed along to her friends smaller children.
She says often she never tells their Mums where she got them from as some of them would refuse them How daft is that ?
 But she does know some yummy mummys where she lives But Katie is quite happy to utilise toys/clothes for her two little girls. The girls are both book mad, so I keep an eye out for childrens books for them when I am in a CS as well.

Luckily many of us on here are similar in our thinking, and the thought of throwing away good food just is not on. I can honestly say there is very little ,virtually zero food waste in my house.To me food is bought to be eaten not binned.

But my shopping has decreased quite a bit since Christmas ,with the Jan-Mar budget being about a third less spent, as I had a lot of Christmas stuff given to me from my two DDs who had over-bought.The youngest, not knowing that they would all go into isolation on Christmas Eve because of Covid so a lot of stuff just hadn't been used.
But I was quite happy to use it up, and it meant that I stashed away a little wedge for when my freezer has been defrosted (hopefully at the end of May) I've just checked this morning what I have in there, and it should be ready by then.

I sorted out some of my tinned bits, and gave some to my next door neighbour, as I kow she's having a tough time as she's become a single Mum recently  as Dad has decided to go and 'find ' himself . leaving her and her two daughters very broke. She is struggling with three jobs to keep a roof over their heads, so a few bits and pieces help her out I usually make the kids a cake and some biscuits at the weekend as well. 

But I am not sorry for the big supermarkets as perhaps they will realise you can only fool some of the people, some of the time, and folk are voting with their feet and their purses.

So if their profits go down by a few million, and my purse is a little fatter I'm quite happy with that.  

I sorted out my two cupboards under the sink and couldn't believe how much of an over spend in cleaning stuff there was there often bought back when unthinking I would see a new product and think 'Hmm I'll give that a go', came home ,put it in the cupboards and promptly forgot about it  How many of us have been guilty of that . No more spending in that deptment thats for sure.

This month is almost ended and I have around £4.00 odd left from my monthly budget, not a fortune but at least its surplus so that will get stashed away and a new months budget starts tomorrow.

Having listed all my avaiable stuff over the past 10 days I am pretty pleased about how much I have to be going on with foodwise.
So I am hoping that with a lot of juggling with my Sunday morning menus for the next week there is hopefully not a great deal needed, and I can avoid the supermarkets as much as I can.
With the weather (fingers crossed ) turning warmer I have tomatoes and lettuce in the fridge so I will be making a dent in the tinned tuna stash from the cupboards as I enjoy tuna salads. Found a couple of tins of new potatoes in the cupboards as well so several meals will be made from them as well. 

I have a glut of eggs from my DD last week so I will probably make a quiche this week to help extend the salad as well.Lots of stuff to use up before I go near a shop:) 

Where I live if I turn right outside my house it takes me to the shops ,but if I turn left it takes me to the park and the library, gues a walk in the park and a mooch around the library will be on the cards this coming week.  

Hope everyone has a good bank holiday weekend and gets out in the fresh air (weather permitting ) and like me uses up whats in the cupboards and keeps you purse firmly shut  

Stay safe and take care everyone 

JackieO xx