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

greent

Woolsery said:

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!)

Darn it! 🤣🤣

cuddlymarm

Oh this brings back memories. Our 1st bought house had a very fetching avocado suite and beige tiles with green flowers, very tasteful.
We started married life with a mortgage at 15 %. OH worked shifts on the railway so I couldn’t work because I had no childcare. I envied the girls with family nearby to help. But everyone was in the same boat and most of us survived. We only had one friend that gave their house back.
But that was a different world. I feel for the young families where both work and still struggle, and can’t get help from family because they need to work too. It’s disgusting that wages are so low that workers need food banks and firms bleating about not being able to pay more, because even if they could they wouldn’t.

[Deleted User]

I have two primary age children, and we manage on a very very low income. We have recently relocated and gone from being quite rural to very very rural 😊😊

We have chickens, ducks, geese and pigs - eggs aplenty, some cockerels that are almost at slaughter weight, and the pigs have just arrived but when the time is right we are borrowing a boar from a friend and breeding for meat. 

I have no childcare help and an invisible illness therefore can’t work in the paid sense. All of my work is done at home - caring for my children and animals, chopping firewood, cooking and preserving food, growing what I can (not much as we don’t have a greenhouse and have so many wild rabbits), and getting plenty of rest in between. A few people IRL have said if the SHTF they are coming here! 

elsien

Form an orderly queue, everyone. 

asparklyblonde’s it is. 

London_1

elsien said:

Form an orderly queue, everyone. 

asparklyblonde’s it is. 

absolutely and we will all bring mountains of cake  

JackieO xxx

[Deleted User]

You'd all be more than welcome! Jackie O bring melting moments too please xx

YorksLass

I too can remember squares of newspaper hanging from a nail in the outside toilet at my auntie's in the 1950s.  Another auntie who was a little better off (and had an inside toilet) had Izal.  How I hated that toilet paper!  And scrunching up the newspaper in an effort to make it a bit kinder on the derriere!

Honey & lemon, paracetamol and gargling with warm salt water are good for sore throats and I remember my mum making a concoction of butter, golden syrup and a very small drop of vinegar in a cup that stood on the fire range shelf until it melted.  A spoonful of that helped with sore throats and tickly coughs.

My grocery delivery yesterday included a cheap tin of spaghetti hoops (16p) that we're going to try on toast for a quick/easy breakfast or lunch.  It seems to have good customer reviews so if we like it I'll be stocking up with a few tins.  Not something we'd normally have but anything that makes the money go a bit further is OK with me!  I'm not a lover of salad cream (prefer mayo or salad dressing) but if I can't source any this week DH could be disappointed.  I've already warned him there's a limit on what I'm prepared to pay for it!     He's well aware of what things cost though and never complains about anything put in front of him, so he's a keeper.  

I've been baking this morning and have made a batch of fruit scones to use up the last bit of yogurt and a tray of cornflake squares.  Quick and easy to make, all from what I had in, so no extra expense.  I filled the gaps in the oven with jacket potatoes to freeze, so no energy wasted.  I've also used the cooling oven to dry out some bread crusts for hm breadcrumbs, another ready-made I don't buy.

joedenise

I too remember the newspaper on a nail in the outside loo!  My gran still had an outside loo until the day she died in 1986.  And yes it was definitely freezing having to go out when you needed to go.  We had an inside bathroom and toilet and many a time I would "hold" it until I got home so I didn't have to go to the spider infested outside loo!

I also remember those days with the 16% mortgage rates - it wasn't long after my DH and I bought our first house and we'd fortunately fixed at 14% - with today's rates that still horrendous and it was!  Our mortgage plus endowment came to just over £500 a month and between us we were earning less than £1,000 a month so more than half was going on buying our house.  At the time we had 2 teenage girls who were constantly growing - fortunately it wasn't long before they were able to start contributing to the household expenses by which time and mortgage rates had dropped to a more respectable 10% but still very high in comparison to what it was by the time our mortgage finished a few years ago - 2.5% as that was the minimum the mortgage we were on was "allowed" to go even though the rate was something like 1%.

Anyway, I agree entirely with Jackie O (@London_1) we will get through this awful time the same as lots of people have in the past.  I am also adding to my stores as and when I can although there doesn't seem to be as many offers as there used to be.

Woolsery

elsien said:

Form an orderly queue, everyone. 

asparklyblonde’s it is. 

Are you up for all the activities going self-producing with meat entails?

I don't mind dispatching chickens if they're very old and/or unwell, but must admit to being less happy dealing with healthy ones. Last Christmas our 4 cockerels travelled 20 miles to Mr Pluckaduck and my stress levels stayed normal. Besides, it takes me ages to process them and at £4 each that's value IMO.

[Deleted User]

Yes the dispatch process is one that many aren’t happy doing. It doesn’t bother me so I’ll take care of that part for us 😉