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

thriftwizard

Visiting Cornwall before the lockdowns, we came across a lovely little free library in the village of Sticker. It's in a good old West Country bus stop - i.e. a proper stone building, with a roof and wooden benches - and a good number of the books were housed neatly in a redundant (hopefully not recycled) coffin, fitted with shelves. Lots of interesting books, too, not just the bland selection of bestselling bonkbusters our local charity shops deem worthy of shelf-space.

OrkneyStar

Kantankrus_Mare said:

I have used libraries since I was a young child. Was the highlight of my week to go the library and choose new books.
Now I pick my holiday reading from there as well as charity shops. One particular charity shop near me.....you can get 3 books for £1!!! I think thats amazing and have never understood how people afford to buy books at normal retail price. They arent cheap!! Apart from when my children were young and needed more attention, I always have a book on the go. Its one of lifes pleasures.
Browsing in the library this week, I spotted many books in the cookery section aimed at making cheap meals. Very apt for the current climate. 

I go to libraries or mostly buy second hand too, but its good that some people do buy new as that will be what generates income for the publishers/author - I don't think books cost that much if you consider the time that goes into writing/creating/printing etc. If you have bought a book new, and want some money back, then there's always the option of selling it on too. 

Broomstick

Just to add a bit of info... authors who are registered with ALCS (the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society) can get payments for secondary uses of their work eg. photocopying, and those registered with PLR (Public Lending Rights) can get money for library book loans (this can be paid through ALCS as well).  Unless you are a big name, these payments are probably tiny, but they are significant to authors on small incomes. Worth mentioning to anyone you know who has been published as an author, illustrator, editor or translator, or is an audiobook narrator. 

euronorris

Farmfoods are doing 4 packs of 6 tins of heinz soup for £12 (50p a can). Long life on them too. Mix and match flavours. Bargain! Napolina passata, 4 500g cartons for a £1 (short date), bargains on fresh fruit too.

-taff

I bought some cherries from them a week or so ago to try, they were 99p and looked the bees knees. Completely tasteless, so beware.

euronorris

Thanks for the heads up. I got some apricots. They are small in size, and one had gone bad, but the rest fine and DD has already demolished several so i guess they must taste ok lol. I suspect they are on the end of their shelf life when they get to farmfoods, hence the cheap price.

GaleSF63

Kantankrus_Mare said:

I have used libraries since I was a young child. Was the highlight of my week to go the library and choose new books.
Now I pick my holiday reading from there as well as charity shops. One particular charity shop near me.....you can get 3 books for £1!!! I think thats amazing and have never understood how people afford to buy books at normal retail price. They arent cheap!! Apart from when my children were young and needed more attention, I always have a book on the go. Its one of lifes pleasures.
Browsing in the library this week, I spotted many books in the cookery section aimed at making cheap meals. Very apt for the current climate. 

Someone has to buy books new or there would never be any second-hand ones! I have always bought both, subject to funds; new if I expect to keep it, or have never been able to find a particular book any other way. There used to be a book sale locally where all the books with a few exceptions for large fancy ones, were all the same price; paperback 40p or hardback 60p and a lot of people treated it a bit like a library and took their books back after reading them. I spent a lot of time there! Now I buy mainly new because I can't get to shops.
No, they aren't cheap! All my discarded books go to charity shops. 

Bluegreen143

I tend to have new books at certain times - if it’s something specific I want, especially non fiction or maybe the next book in a series. I often buy non fiction on kindle tbh. For fiction if I’m just wanting a nice read I’m more likely to browse a charity shop or library. 

sammy_kaye18

Afternoon all
I am just popping in to catch up and say hello - currently trying to google how to print pictures to go in a locket for my daughters birthday tomorrow. 
So I am busy planning for that - helpfully Iceland sent me a tub of cream which I forgot I ordered as my daughter doesn't like cream in cakes but they also sent me salted butter instead of unsalted so I was having a bit of a hissy fit until I remembered the making butter trick so I will chuck the cream in my blender and churn it to butter then use that to decorate her cake :-)  no waste allowed here! 

Have also had to ring the dread tax credits helpline as they sent us a provisional tax credit award that saw me getting £300 for the next two months then dropping to £65 a month - all because they didn't have updated details of my sons schooling (he's 18 and about to start his second year of electricians course) but they hadn't got that down so now its been amended. Just need to tell child benefit now but that can wait till tomorrow - an hour long wait on hold with TC was enough to do me in today. 

RE: Libraries. 
I loved our library - its around the corner from the school so when I would put my youngest into nursery for their few hours in the morning or afternoon - I would go round there and either use the computers or sit and write my penpal letters whilst I waited to collect them rather than walk home. The council did want to close it but they protested and managed to keep it open. 

Elisheba

Toonie said:

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.

Maybe she didn't have to do first aid trading then. How bizarre. When I think of the amount of course I've attended over the years just being a youth group leader!