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

Florenceem

We have our Harvest service next week and hope for good donations to our food bank which has low stocks.

ladyholly

I think many people are either reulactant to buy or simply cannot afford to buy anything at the moment. Without wishing to be too gloomy I can seem many small businesses going under before the government decide what they are going to do at the end of November. I am sick to death of them telling us about the wonderful tax cuts they are giving but these, in general, are not going to help most people with rising prices and rising mortgage/ rent payments. This is not to mention that the worst off people dont pay tax or national insurance. The energy cap Is going to help a little but this is only amounts to a smaller rise than we were facing not a cut so people are still facing a rise in price and the £400 and extra for the elderly and disabled is nothing to do with Ms Truss and her chancellor as it was put in place by the previous administration.

A friend of mine was telling me of a lady in her 80s that is living on bread and jam and when they went to see her the house was very cold. She is simply too frightened to turn her heating on as she only has a basic pension and a small private pension. She does not understand the £400 that will be knocked off her fuel bills and that she will get an extra £300 with her heating allowance which will be paid later in the year. I just wonder how many others ar like her. I have told my friend to make sure she knows what wil be coming to her over the next months but somewhere along the line this message needs to get out to all those who dont understand before we have more deaths from hypothermia and malnutrition. 

freyasmum

Rosa_Damascena said:

Wednesday2000 said:

@joedenise - I would love a two bed (or even one bed) bungalow with a very low maintenance paved over garden.:) I am not sure I would even bother having plants in pots as I hate gardening so much.

Re chips and the prices - I now have a local chippy that does a huge portion of chips for about £1.50. We have experimented with a few others since we moved here but we decided the other day that they seem like the best value and great taste.  We used to have an old fashioned chippy near us in East London but the portions were tiny! The local kebab place near our old house was extremely generous, but they were the thin type of chips/fries, not the proper chip shop chips.

Where is that? And what do they fry their chips in?

Whenever I take my little niece to Adventure Island we go through the whole rigmarole of "oh I'm hungry" and "we get 20% off here" (wristband privilege). Last time I caved and bought her a cone at the chipper at the bottom of the High Street - she tried one and then declared McDonalds fries are better. So that was a waste of £3.30!

I took them home and introduced her to the delights of a chip butty with white bread, butter and tomato ketchup which I haven't had for at least 25 years, and she was less than impressed. So hard to please.

Unbelievably, it's actually cheaper to have chips in the adventure island chippy than it is in Clarkes across the road! 

We tend to take a picnic when we go, though. 

Brambling

I had to calm down a elderly friend who is 85, she broke her leg just below her hip in May 2021 and is a lot less mobile than she was. She was panicking as her small pension takes her over the limit to get any  additional help. Luckily I was able to go over with her what she will get from the government on top of her normal winter fuel allowance. Unfortunately as she has always been a bit of a 'scatter cash' (her words not mine)  she has no savings to fall back on 

CKhalvashi

YoungBlueEyes said: CKhalvashi - are the Polish ones the same as the ones you can get in Lidl sometimes? Or are the exported ones different? 

My cousin (northern Ireland) goes over the border a few times a year to stock up on her fave choc bars - cadbury fruit and nut - because they're so different to the ones in her shops. More fruit and nuts, and a lot creamier. She also buys stacks and stacks of Tayto crisps, also better she says.

You'd like to think a factory produces a thing and sends it all over the world, but it seems like that's not true. 

There's a greater range in terms of flavours in Poland for sure. I've never seen anything but plain (and occasionally vanilla) in the UK, even at our local Polish shop.

The vanilla ones are exactly the same in Poland as in UK, but occasionally about 20% cheaper in PL.

Si_Clist said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

I took them home and introduced her to the delights of a chip butty with white bread, butter and tomato ketchup which I haven't had for at least 25 years, and she was less than impressed. So hard to please.

Good grief!  If you put tomato ketchup on my chip butty, I wouldn't be impressed either!

Similar in Albania came with mustard and mayo as standard. That was really nice. It was almost like a kebab but with chips and including meat inside. Can't remember the price, but probably about €2 each.

YoungBlueEyes

Mustard+mayo is a great combo imo. Nice on ham/cheese sandwiches.

ladyholly

When we lived in the Netherlands during the early 60s chips came with salt, mayo or picalilli.

Auntycaz

ladyholly said:

A friend of mine was telling me of a lady in her 80s that is living on bread and jam and when they went to see her the house was very cold. She is simply too frightened to turn her heating on as she only has a basic pension and a small private pension. She does not understand the £400 that will be knocked off her fuel bills and that she will get an extra £300 with her heating allowance which will be paid later in the year. I just wonder how many others ar like her. I have told my friend to make sure she knows what wil be coming to her over the next months but somewhere along the line this message needs to get out to all those who dont understand before we have more deaths from hypothermia and malnutrition. 

Would this lady be eligible for pension credit, could your friend give them a call. They might say no but she won't know if she doesn't ask or she might be eligible for a grant from the household support fund. Hope someone can help her.

Siebrie

My parents' energy bill just went from a fixed €150/month to a variable €600/month in the Netherlands. They are now planning to switch their front and back rooms around. The back room is smaller, and if they close the suite doors, just 12' x 15'. They continue slowly getting rid of items they no longer need, next up: the doll's house my father made from scratch. My sister's children and my children are too old to play with it, and too young to appreciate the craftmanship. I love it, but don't have the space for it, and don't appreciate the detailed dusting I've asked my father for a good picture.

My father (81) has 2 collapsed vertebrae (happened last month) and is in a lot of pain. He cannot help around the house anymore, and as he did most of the cooking, they are now living off of supermarket ready meals. Mum (86) can cook, she did the secondary school called 'household school' in the 1950s, but she doesn't enjoy it, and I think she's hiding that she can't really peel potatoes, etc anymore. My sister visited them yesterday and left some homecooked frozen meals (she's an institution chef, trained to cook for hospitals, etc.), and I will do the same when we visit them in 2 weeks' time (but I'm no chef ). They are adapting rapidly: their cleaner comes weekly now (from once every 8 weeks); the doctor makes house calls; shopping is either online or Mum goes to the supermarket, shops, and has everything delivered free of charge (they are just around the corner). They are and I am really happy they live city centre, with all amenities close by and everyone willing to help.

Anyway, they want to insulate their kitchen better. This has been a wish for some years, but as it's a difficult bit of work, it got postponed and postponed. We will now try to do it when we visit. They will try and come up with more chores we can do when we are there.

ladyholly

Auntycaz said:

Would this lady be eligible for pension credit, could your friend give them a call. They might say no but she won't know if she doesn't ask or she might be eligible for a grant from the household support fund. Hope someone can help her.

No because she has the small private pension it takes he just over the limits. My friend is making sure she knows aboutthe £400 and the extra £300 heating allowance and I hope that she will see that things are not quite as bad as she thinks. Unfortunately she has no savings as her son stole all her money. I am not sure how but I think she is just so worried and upset she isnt thinking straight. I had forgotten that she may get extra help from the household support fund but we live in a high rent, low income area so there may be very little available. I will mention it to my friend. Thank you.