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

Elisheba

Mummy2cheekymonkeys said:

Elisheba said:

weenancyinAmerica said:

little money: 

You might want to keep the ingredients for Dr. Kellogg’s Magic Elixir (really it is called Rehydration Fluid) for when someone can’t keep any food down and is getting dehydrated:

·         1 quart of water

·         ½ teaspoon salt

·         2 tablespoons white corn syrup such as Karo® syrup

Mix when needed. Add equal parts Seven-Up® - the kind with sugar, not the diet version. Start the patient with a tablespoon of the mixture and a tablespoon of Seven-Up®. Then increase the amounts as the patient can tolerate it. Keep refrigerated until used. When the patient no longer needs it, get rid of it. (Dr. Kellogg was the doctor who prescribed it for my sister when she was ill, and we named it after him.) This is from Time to Be Prepared: Emergency Preparedness on a Shoestring (my book)

Even easier as I've not seen corn syrup for sale over here,

1/2 teaspoon salt
6 teaspoons sugar (any will work)
1 litre of boiling water

Mix together, drink as and when.  You can add fruit juice to make it taste nicer.

I was going to post pretty much the same as this. A family friend is a pharmacist and swears that this is better then anything over the counter. He also says the same about honey and lemon for a sore throat. 

I swear by honey and lemon for a sore throat, with some bargain basement paracetemol if its really sore. 

JIL

Floss said:

I think that may have been chillers that weren't chilling correctly, there have been a lot local to me since the very hot weather.

I asked, but the very disinterested lady said, they just hadnt had much delivered.  There were huge gaps on the bakery section as well as soap powder.


I left and walked 20 mins to lidl which was not only very well stocked but very much cheaper. 

wondercollie

weenancyinAmerica said:

The first time I went to the Imperial War Museum, they had the "waxed paper" type toilet tissue - and each square was stamped "Property of Her Majesty the Queen". Then there was the years of brightly-colored toilet tissue which I thought was dangerous, so I actually packed my own toilet tissue when I went over for several years. 

coloured toilet paper can start forum wars.

I remember it in my childhood and then it disappeared off the shelves either in the late 70s or early 80s.

I seem to remember the rationale being the dyes used in the making of it was dangerous to the water.   It also wasn't very septic tank friendly.  So the dyes were considered bad in the manufacturing process and then bad for the water when you flushed it and nasty to septic tanks.

It's one of the things North Americans always notice when they are in the UK or parts of Europe, non-white TP

greent

You could still get coloured tp in the 90s - my mum moved to where she lives now in 1990 and definitely had pink tp in that house and I'm fairly sure we had peach tp in our first home (1990-1996) and botg peach and pink in our second - although not for long. I was only thinking about coloured tp when in the smkt the other day   it was much more of a thing when coloured suites were en vogue

You can still get it online - but it works out v expensive per roll!

tooldle

Coloured TP was definitely still about in the late 80's. I worked in a Coop at the time and the TP was stored in an upstairs room as it was too bulky to accommodate in the stock room. It was one of my jobs to restock that section. For reasons unknown the stairs were exterior to the building, which meant i had to lug huge packs of TP down these stairs in the rain. Not a favourite job. IIRC printed paper followed the coloured stuff. 

Woolsery

TP was purple as a theft deterrent where I last worked. I suppose few people have purple bathroom suites.

Katiehound

weenancyinAmerica said:

The first time I went to the Imperial War Museum, they had the "waxed paper" type toilet tissue - and each square was stamped "Property of Her Majesty the Queen". Then there was the years of brightly-colored toilet tissue which I thought was dangerous, so I actually packed my own toilet tissue when I went over for several years. 

I don't remember the toilet paper but everything, everything was stamp /engraved MOD in army premises.
I never understood the jokes on the Navy Lark about Albert selling (stolen stuff) from someone whose initials were MOD until I saw it for myself including knives, forks, furniture... you name it! Oh, and the arrow, or just the arrow on small items.

London_1

Gosh I too remember newspaper on a piece of string on a nail in the outside loo's which were always freezing in the winter and lodged HUGE spiders of terrifying sizes when I was a little girl in the 1940s

My late Father was a dispensing chemist, and as such many things were in short supply, but we then had boxes of TP in intelocking leaves,  then came the awful Bronco on a roll. I thinkit was probably the late 50s early 60s when soft loo roll began appearing in the shops,or at least in our house  

I too remember when Andrex brought out coloured loo rolls, there was a pink,grean blue, lemon and peach all 'tastefully pastel' to match folks indoor bathrooms. When bathrooms stopped being just tiled with white tiles, and started to be places of decoration

The thing I loathed for no apparent reason, but I just thought they were daft were the 'dolls with flouncy skirts that covered the spare roll, I just could not understand why you needed to hide a loo roll with a frilly doll
Luckily in the 1970s when the awful avocado bathrooms arrived there were at least no avocado loo rolls to match I think that would have been a step too far

But to get back to the shortages, I have thought for a long time that this was on the cards as remembering the 1970s when inflation was high (along with the long hot summers ) Rishi Sunak was talking about mortgage rates rising to a possible 7% the other night   

Back then, I remember the rates being 16.5-17% and folk were just handing back the keys to their houses as they could no longer afford their mortgages.  

I remember (sound weird today ) when our mortgage went from £60.00 a month to £125 .00 per month which is chcken feed today, but my late husbands take home wages were around £260 a month and I had two children of 3 & 5 and just his income .

 So back to work I went, after one month paying all the bills and having a tiny budget for food all that was left was £1.10.00  (£1.50). Times were tough, and the wolf came banging at the door quite loudly
But we survived and luckily I had grown up with a canny little Scots mum who taught me how to streeetch every penny, and make something out of almost anything

I hope that folk won't be hit too hard by this coming recession, as I am sure that will be on its way as well. So stocking up a little bit extra, if you can on long dated stuff, and tucking it away will help no end.

My late ma-in-law bless her was widowed with three small children in 1937 and she went back to the IoW where her family were from after losing her young husband to TB she was 28, and apart from his life insurance of £550 she had no other income but 10/- a week widows pension (50p) to raise three little boys.

She spent alomost  the whole of of the cash £500.00 on buying her cottage which had half an acre of land to ensure the children would always have a roof over their heads, and grew almost everything she could in the garden, and had a few chickens, her life was extremely hard bless her, but she too survived (although her youngest little boy didn't sadly, and succumbed to a chest infection at 6 months.)  

She had some really weird concoctions to keep you healthy though. When we stayed there, as we often visited, if one of the children had a bad cough or tickly throat she would boil up water with some sugar in it and make them drink it as hot as possible to stop their coughing.
My late husband was 18 and joining the RAF in 1952 before he ever saw a Doctor as folk just couldn't afford them. She was a canny lady though, and by golly I think I'm Ok with frugalling, but she could have given masterclasses in it I think.  
But back then with no NHS until 1948 you had to pay to see a doctor and cash was in short supply for most people 

Today luckily, life is hard at times ,but a lot different from those days thank goodness. I certainly have no rosy tinted specs about the good old days, and I will be tucking away extra bits for this winter to ensure that I will be warm, and my family, if they need it, can come and raid my stash of extras if things get lean again.

Even if its only a couple of extra tins of something its at least a start, but try not to worry we WILL get through this bust and return to boom once more  

JackieO xx

greent

Woolsery said:

TP was purple as a theft deterrent where I last worked. I suppose few people have purple bathroom suites.

Ooh - my DD would love that - she has a white ensure with large white tiles but a purple mosaic border around chest height and purple towels and Bath mat (and sirt if lilac walls)

Woolsery

greent said:

Woolsery said:

TP was purple as a theft deterrent where I last worked. I suppose few people have purple bathroom suites.

Ooh - my DD would love that - she has a white ensure with large white tiles but a purple mosaic border around chest height and purple towels and Bath mat (and sirt if lilac walls)

Sorry, I retired in 2007. I still have a few pencils, though.(not purple!)