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

Siebrie

DDs like croissants. I think they overcharge in Belgium (€1,25 (GBP 1.07) /croissant seems average around here), so I used to buy frozen and bake them off. Now, I realised that a croissant is basically rolled-up puff pastry. Fresh puff pastry in a large circle, ready for lining a pie tin, costs € 0.89. I unrolled it, cut it in 6 triangles, added cheese or nutella to half of them, rolled them up into croissant shape, and baked them. DDs and friend loved them!

euronorris

PearlRose said:

Hope everyone's doing well.

Ordered some art and crafts supplies for DS from The Works online and was a bit overwhelmed when I saw the price stickers on some items.

I was aware that the price of an 80-page A4 sketchbook was increased from £5 to £6 a few weeks ago, but

A3 sketch pad - price tag £5/ paid £8
Basic acrylic paints set - price tag £4/ paid £6

I guess they haven't got time to peel off the price tags in the warehouse.

Just curious, where did you get your art supplies from? I used to get them from Cass Art but now buy a lot from The Works. After seeing the 50% - 60% price increase, it's probably time to look for other retailers again.  

The works has always been my cheap go to for arts and craft stuff for DD. Hobbycraft can sometimes be cheaper on a few things, so worth a look. And I often get bits heavily reduced in supermarkets. For example, stationary items can usually be bought for pennies once the kids start school in September as they need to shift the 'back to school' stuff quickly.

EssexHebridean

I'd be contacting The Works with an image of the aformentioned price stickers and politely saying that I appear to have been overcharged and ow would they like to refund me - you never know your luck! 

As for the fuel bills - yep, it absolutely IS scary but do remember that that headline "£3000" figure is that fictional average household - and a lot of us on this board will not be average - because we already are minded to be frugal with fuel. That's not to say it's not increasing, or that the increases aren't terrifying, but just that looking at the scary figures isn't as relevant as actually knowing in detail what we pay for our own use. 

One thing I will add is even for those in the fortunate position of being able to afford to pay the increases we're seeing in all areas, it is STILL frightening - both from a "where will it end" perspective and from that of seeing how badly others are struggling. 

Floss

@JinJinBlue I would suggest you think about acquiring some rugs or runners for your floors - I found having a thick s/h rug under my feet/ sofa/ coffee table has made a big difference to my laminate floors.

dreamyd

PearlRose said:

Hope everyone's doing well.

Ordered some art and crafts supplies for DS from The Works online and was a bit overwhelmed when I saw the price stickers on some items.

I was aware that the price of an 80-page A4 sketchbook was increased from £5 to £6 a few weeks ago, but

A3 sketch pad - price tag £5/ paid £8
Basic acrylic paints set - price tag £4/ paid £6

I guess they haven't got time to peel off the price tags in the warehouse.

Just curious, where did you get your art supplies from? I used to get them from Cass Art but now buy a lot from The Works. After seeing the 50% - 60% price increase, it's probably time to look for other retailers again.  

Ouch - that's bad!

I've used Baker Ross (https://www.bakerross.co.uk )  for stationery before  - I do a lot of writing and like to use their exercise books, especially the squared ones.. Another option (apologies for being a bit  Captain Obvious) might be eBay - looking at their stationery and Office supplies categories often bring up surprisingly good deals

YorksLass

Love your idea for croissants Siebrie - I might pinch that!

Toonie

Elisheba said:

I wonder when the standard First Aid guidance to run burns under water as cold as you could stand came in?  My Gran was a primary teacher - she would have trained in the late 40's, and retired in the 80s.  I distinctly remember burning myself on something at hers one day and her telling me to put some Germoline on it.  Now I don't remember what age I was but it would have been late 90s, or noughties. I had heard that you should put it under a cold tap and did that instead, but Gran had never heard of that before. 

Bearing in mind she must have done some sort of first aid training as a teacher (when did compulsory first aid training for teachers come in?) I'm wondering when the cold water advice (I believe it has now changed to luke warm water) started?  

I was curious about this so had a look in DPs books. He was a member of St John Ambulance for quite some time and has a collection of first aid manuals going back to 1913. The advice then was to immerse the person in body temperature water in order to cool the burn to normal body temperature, this was the advice through most of the books, apart from occasional advice saying to wrap in sterile lint and get to a hospital. The book which first says to use cold water is from 1965.

CKhalvashi

JinJinBlue said:

London_1 said:

Reading the news this morning it seems the energy bills are going to be higher than first thought at around £3k a year  !!!!, hope we don't have a cold winter and I will be digging out some more throws for the sofa

JackieO xx

Heaven help us. Who can afford £3k? If that''s the case, my heating will only be on very low to stop the pipes from freezing.
I'm looking for a pair of decent boot slippers with thick soles as I  don't have carpets and I shall start looking in the charity shops for extra blankets. This is getting a bit scary. 

I own some really thick socks, proper wool, bought from Georgia a few years ago where it's tradition in the mountains due to the cold in winter. They'll be paying for themselves this winter I think. If you can get similar they may be a perfect investment.

Also, although not the cheapest to buy, I have ownership of a really thick Adidas jumper that probably paid for itself last winter and definitely will this winter. It appears to be double lined inside, OH picked it up in Ukraine. I'm not sure if Adidas vary their product line regionally.

As a money saving tip I saw actually on Tiktok (but was verified by a heating engineer on the annual service) it's possible on many boilers to turn down the temperature of the water in the heating and hot water systems. Our heating is set at 50 (the lowest setting) and hot water at 60 (because hot baths are not negotiable), but as a manufacturers defaults were both 75, so this is saving quite a bit of energy. Only changed the settings in April, so I'm not sure completely of real world numbers yet, but the engineer suggested around 40% energy savings in this way first hour and 30% each additional hour, as long as the heating isn't on a lot more to make the numbers up.

JinJinBlue

Thanks for that CKhalvashi. I'll look in some of the outdoor clothing shops. It might be well worth the investment. I'm going into town tomorrow, so something to add to my list. 

RAS

I'd also recommend close fitting "vests", even an old t-shirt that's too small as that traps the body heat close to the skin, then multiple layers. Synthetics tend to get smelly and you need to manage the sweat if you do anything active.

Over-size shirts or fleeces are good top-layers. Think about those lined plaid work-jackets that used to be sold outside discount shops for a fiver?