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

tooldle

My daughter is 22 so left school in the recent past. Cooking was certainly part of the curriculum she studied. As the years progressed  and students took different paths, the vocational skills (including cooking) content increased for those on the less academic paths. 

I agree with leftatthetrafficlight that for most people, not just the youth, interest develops when the skill/learning is needed and this is reflected in the comments of the MP I.e. a particular food bank in his constituency provides cooking lessons to recipients of food parcels. Not a new idea as I’ve certainly heard of similar schemes run in other areas. There was a prominent blogger a few years back who contributed to such classes in her county (Cornwall, if I recall correctly) and I believe these classes were always full. 

Budgeting is also in the curriculum in other guises. 

Rosa_Damascena

EssexHebridean said:

I cant count the number of people who have asked me how to make pastry for instance. Ok  not especially healthy but filling and a pie can be strtched a long way.

I’ll challenge this statement to a degree. Take a pie, filled with some form of protein plus a heap of veggies. A gravy based sauce rather than one with a creamy base, perhaps. Potentially that’s going to be a great balanced way of someone getting carbs, protein and fats, plus several of their 5 a day. Serve it with a couple of additional portions of veg alongside, and follow up with yogurt and fruit. There is literally nothing “unhealthy” about that meal. 

Pie crust / pastry? Not good for you.

And probably won't stop me eating mince pies in December. The price might though!

On a separate note, I was sifting through the recycling and came across FF leaflet with vouchers and for once was less hasty to ditch it. I can see myself using the vouchers now if it means I can stock up on long life milk, juice, and other cupboard goods.

KxMx

@leftatthetrafficlights Starling Bank has what you're after:

https://www.starlingbank.com/features/saving-spaces/

Their banking app knocks socks off the traditional bank app offerings, and I use the Spaces feature myself to put money aside for when the energy bills arrive. 

OrkneyStar

Floss said:

There does need to be a return to proper domestic science, compulsory for all in all schools, with a focus on planning, shopping for & cooking nutritional & good value meals.

I also think it's a myth that many are in poverty because they cannot cook or cannot budget, yes this would help some people but the reality is many cannot afford to live simply because wages are too low/unstable, rents are too high, fuel costs are ridiculous and the price of food is rising steeply.  We seem to be forgetting, again, that not everyone has access to even the same basic resources.

tooldle

OrkneyStar said:

Floss said:

There does need to be a return to proper domestic science, compulsory for all in all schools, with a focus on planning, shopping for & cooking nutritional & good value meals.

I also think it's a myth that many are in poverty because they cannot cook or cannot budget, yes this would help some people but the reality is many cannot afford to live simply because wages are too low/unstable, rents are too high, fuel costs are ridiculous and the price of food is rising steeply.  We seem to be forgetting, again, that not everyone has access to even the same basic resources.

I mostly agree with this, there will of course be exceptions. Being able to reduce direct costs is also helpful which is where some of he old style measures would help. Action to address minimum wage would help many and reducing use of zero hours contracts would perhaps help many more where wage variations are the majority cause of their problem. Wages and cost of consumables are interlinked and hence the problem cannot be solved by altering only one variable. A unified approach is needed with the citizens, industries and government all working together.
My employer now pays the living wage and is about to implement a 9% uplift on those on the lowest pay scales. The percentage uplift decreases as the scale increases until a steady state of 3% is reached at around 24K. The employer has also barred the use of zero hours contracts. 

JIL

I do think some help learning the basics would be a good thing, but not forced upon anyone. Surely in this day and age if someone wants to learn, theres loads of platforms to do just that.
I had domestic science lessons at school and I really enjoyed them, probably because I was interested and engaged, others in the same class absolutely hated them. I also had German lessons, but I cant remember anything I learned.
My domestic science lessons never mentioned a meal plan, that to me has been the best budgeting and nutritional tool. 

OrkneyStar

JIL said:

I do think some help learning the basics would be a good thing, but not forced upon anyone. Surely in this day and age if someone wants to learn, theres loads of platforms to do just that.
I had domestic science lessons at school and I really enjoyed them, probably because I was interested and engaged, others in the same class absolutely hated them. I also had German lessons, but I cant remember anything I learned.
My domestic science lessons never mentioned a meal plan, that to me has been the best budgeting and nutritional tool. 

This is off topic, but I had French lessons at school and also hated those, so much so that I stopped them as soon as I could. Guess what I am now learning though, nope not French.....but German, and I love it! Really what I am saying is backing up the view that sometimes having the motivation/need/desire to learn is much more likely to bring results.  Back to topic, I do think that not being able to budget is an issue for some, but in some cases it's less not knowing how and more not wanting to - I don't mean that in a judgemental way, if something has never been a part of your life and it's not maybe that much fun, then it's not always easy to implement it. Again, of course, budgeting requires adequate resources to budget with. 

freyasmum

KxMx said:

@leftatthetrafficlights Starling Bank has what you're after:

https://www.starlingbank.com/features/saving-spaces/

Their banking app knocks socks off the traditional bank app offerings, and I use the Spaces feature myself to put money aside for when the energy bills arrive. 

Until yesterday, I would have agreed with you and wouldn't have hesitated to agree.

I went to the post office to pay in some money and it said "check with card issuer". On getting home and googling, I discovered that starling charge 0.7% of every penny that you pay in over £1,000 per year. Not good when they have no bricks and mortar banks. How else are you going to get the money in?

If, however, you're not going to be paying into the bank via a post office, then I really like being able to have different pots for each savings goal.

freyasmum

Around 25 years ago, my local council ran classes that were aimed at young, single mothers to show them how to cook, budget and look after their children. 

The only people who actually turned up were my mum (a trained chef), my uncle (retired and a keen cook), his wife (hadn't worked outside the home and never liked to cook!), my aunt (former school cook), the owner of the local Chinese restaurant (elderly) and various other older people from the village. 

Years later, my daughters nursery also ran a little class for a few hours for maybe 6 or so weeks? Yet again, barely anyone turned up.

The council can run these things, but it takes people actually turning up.

freyasmum

Also - last one promise! - having seen FF mentioned several times - they also have bottles of radox hand-wash (250ml) for 29p.