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

Woolsery

Rosa_Damascena said:

I heard the other morning that US GDP is estimated to be shrinking for Q1, I remember thinking this does not bode well for us at all. 

I have felt anxious about the future for so long now, every little sign stacks up and multiplies in my mind. I hardly eat, I don't go out and I stopped heating the place in February, all in anticipation of not being able to pay the bills in decades to come. What more can I realistically do? 

You can remember people have always been anxious about the future and yet most have survived. For those of us around in the 1960s it was the Cold War and the Bomb that dominated thoughts about life ahead and for the previous generation it was a more conventional war, but no less scary.

I think those who own their homes or have social housing and no significant debt will be OK, but perhaps those less well placed may need to return to the fold or share more. Nuclear families spread out all over the place are resource-heavy. Our village used to be home to twice as many people before WW2, yet it had far fewer houses!

littlemoney

I think if we are lucky inflation may stay under 25%, I remember 22% interest rates. If we are unlucky, hyper inflation, perhaps like germany in the 1930's. What ended the depression of the 1930's was World War 2. Will history repeat itself with World War 3?

Rosa_Damascena

littlemoney said:

I think if we are lucky inflation may stay under 25%, I remember 22% interest rates. If we are unlucky, hyper inflation, perhaps like germany in the 1930's. What ended the depression of the 1930's was World War 2. Will history repeat itself with World War 3?

I think I'm going to faint 

Datchet

I have a little ornate homemade wooden box that was my miner family forebears ‘rent box’. The money went in there before anything else was spent or allocated. Present day,its used to store buttons. The symbolism is not lost to me.
I had enough to eat today and I’m confident about tomorrow, which is better that a significant proportion of humanity.

Slinky

TheAble said:

 Pack and scan as you go, quickly through the checkout. It's not for all of course, but for me I find it one of the better aspects of modern living.

I really don't like the scan and pack things. Don't use them myself and get irritated with other people using them as they block the access to the milk or bread etc whilst faffing about scanning then packing their choices into their different shopping bags. At least when people go through the tills, most people are skilled at loading stuff onto the belts in some semblance of the order they're going to pack things into their bags which is much more efficient IMO.

-taff

One of the advantages of the self scan thing is you can see exactly how much the total is as you go along. In one sm, I always use it. In the other, never, because they stopped me so often to check what was in there, in the end I couldn't be bothered so went back to the tills.

weenancyinAmerica

Rose - all through history there have times like this. And people have survived okay. Take a deep breath or two. I have been tracing family histories for over 60 years. What I have discovered is that every generation has its problems. And there is no generation I would trade places with. It will get better. And it really doesn't take that much to survive. Thank goodness. 

Rosa_Damascena

weenancyinAmerica said:

Rose - all through history there have times like this. And people have survived okay. Take a deep breath or two. I have been tracing family histories for over 60 years. What I have discovered is that every generation has its problems. And there is no generation I would trade places with. It will get better. And it really doesn't take that much to survive. Thank goodness. 

When I go back in time to May 2007, I was about to make a major life change that more or less meant making a vow of poverty for a few years. I remember thinking at that time that we'd never had it so good. Come October I had made the change but the economy was falling to pieces and I couldn't live with the thought of what was to come. So I went back to my comfort zone, which involved earning a good salary but having no life.

Happycas

Rosa - when I was born, just after WWII, an elderly lady told my mum she was selfish to bring a child into such a troubled world.  That child would surely have a life of hardship. 
Well, actually, it's not been that bad.  There have been hiccups along the way, both personally and in the wider world, but on the whole I've been very lucky.
Please try not to worry. All will be well.

Wednesday2000

I have just moved into my new house by the sea and out of London this week.:) My energy bill increased from around £90 to £190 in my old house with just electric and now we have had an estimate sent in the post for our new house. My new house has both gas and electric and the estimate was £240 a month based on what the couple before us used!

I also went into Aldi and did not have a good experience. The woman on the till was actually rude to us. My husband paid for the groceries on his card and after we carried our bags home I asked him what it came to but he had his receipt upstairs in his jacket and we were so busy unpacking all our belongings for a few days that I forgot to check. I remembered when we finally got internet and I checked our bank account balance as I normally do. Aldi charged us £53! I immediately went to his jacket to check the receipt. They had charged us for a lot of charcoal briquettes that we didn't buy. £30 worth. Lucky I keep an eye on our finances. We did get a refund as soon as we asked though.