How will you make savings to pay for energy bills.

Chestnut

Franbern it is now so much simpler to look at our neghbours, different age groups, different cultures, etc and blame THEM for the problems we (and they) are experiencing
Weird thing to say. Who on this thread is blaming any of these groups for the problems we are facing? Please quote where this appears. This thread has taken a very strange course.

With you all the way Chestnut. There are some bitter commenters on here. Talk about overreacting.

Willow73

SnowberryZ why should what I said get nasty reply?

Because somebody else posted similar and there was a pile on.

Charleygirl5 Sat 02-Apr-22 17:36:55

Good idea about the changes to what you donate. Listening to someone running a food bank, they were saying they are worried that some of those who are donating will have to stop in order to manage themselves.

I throw a tarpaulin over my trolley, so nobody can see what a waste I am with their money.

Jack Monroe got angry with the government (I forget which particular minister) for using her example and recipes as an example of how to cope on benefits. She said all the things the compassionate GN members on here are saying. Doing it when you have time, a stock cupboard full of basics, not many people to feed, for a shortish period of time is very different to having to exist that way for years/a whole life.

volver

I heard on the news last night that people are asking not to have potatoes from the foodbank because it costs too much to cook them. If you can't cook potatoes, quite possibly you can't cook porridge either.

Let them eat cake, eh?

Bet they cook pasta though.
I agree with Chestnut - porridge is very cheap. I am not against young people, I have 2 daughters of my own with families to feed but you only have to look in some supermarket trollies to see that some people, old and young are missing the point. I am still amazed at the number of plastic bottles of water for example.

Jack Monroe also recently highlighted Terry Pratchett's 'Sam Vimes' boots theory' of socio-economic unfairness. If you're unfamiliar with it, Google it and you'll see just how it can actually work out more expensive to be poor.

I can't see anyone getting wound up, though.

DaisyAnne

^Chestnut, Don't take any notice . I've noticed there are a few posters who regularly go on threads purely to argue the toss.^ snowberryZ Sat 02-Apr-22 17:29:57

Hasn't Chestnut admitted, further up the thread, that she is just here to wind other up?

No I haven't!! You have not read the words properly, or fail to understand them. ?‍♀️ People wind themselves up, which is not my intention.

So, so true Dickens. Sadly some just don't care. What they want is the superiority of not being that person, battered by life and fairly near giving up. I dread what the policy of this government will do to the people you describe so well.

Dickens, a very thoughtful post.

You clearly haven't been following this thread. Willow. You have just committed a most grievous error saying how people should spend their money. SnowberryZ has just explained the setup. Let the double act commence! ?

Chestnut, Don't take any notice . I've noticed there are a few posters who regularly go on threads purely to argue the toss. snowberryZ Sat 02-Apr-22 17:29:57

Hasn't Chestnut admitted, further up the thread, that she is just here to wind other up?

It is possible to manage on a shoestring budget - everyone knows that because there are endless articles about it, and 'experts' showing just what can be done with a bag of rice or pasta, etc, etc.

But what's missing from these is context. Some poor families will be faced with a lifetime of impoverishment for all sorts of reasons like chronic ill health, mental-health problems, low self-esteem, chaotic life-styles, addiction, unstable family environment, depression, etc. The daily grind of poverty makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and traverse 4 different supermarkets to get the cheapest offers; to return home and find the enthusiasm to put together all the ingredients and make yet another meagre meal. There are no treats, there is little joy - you might be living in inadequate accommodation, an unheated flat. Your whole life is devoted to making ends meet and thinking about 'what if' - what if the children need new shoes, or this or that breaks down. You may even be working at some low-paid paltry job, or on zero-hour contracts, but all that will do is reduce the amount of your benefits, and if you have neither the skill nor credentials to take on a higher-paying job, that's your lot - that's your life... an interminable daily struggle to put food on the table and simply exist.

Anyone can manage on £20 a week to feed a family for a month - it can be quite interesting to see how inventive you can be. Before you go back to your well-paid job and warm home. But try doing it for life, or the foreseeable future, with little hope of extracting yourself from low-paid work in a home environment that is possibly inadequate, cold and damp. People need hope, and they need jobs that pay enough to live on - even if that means the rest of us have to pay more for some of our goods and services. When we are offered these goods and services at rock-bottom prices, it's because someone is being paid rock-bottom wages. And we're subsidising such employers by topping-up the wages of these employees with tax credits.

SnowberryZ why should what I said get nasty reply?

Waits for nasty reply to Willow.

I have never been hungry in my entire life and for that I am really grateful.

I could easily cope for a month on my state pension paying the bills and feeding myself but for no longer.

Thankfully I have a reasonable work pension so after the month was up I could use that to pay for the odd item needing repair or a new pair of shoes.

I have changed the sort of goods I add to a food bank- it used to be tins of soup and stuff that needed to be cooked. Now realising many cannot afford to use the hob I buy long-life milk, jams and marmalades to be spread on a slice of bread to make it more interesting. I also add the odd packet of biscuits for a small treat.

my son and his wife are struggling to make ends meet so it really annoys me when she goes and has beauty treatments that she could do herself at home, it is so expensive and when added up for a whole year is quite a fortune they could have saved. Massages and facials that after a day you don't know you have had costing around £60 a go. Waxing, eyebrow shaping, eye lash tint all could be done at home. Son struggles to work while she lays back.

Nope.
I'm the leader.
35 years the first time around, and coming up for about 5 this time.

I was a single mother for 15 years.
Do I win?

Chestnut

You are so easy to wind up, volver. The overreactions in some of these posts are just mind blowing. Apparently I am victim blaming, inciting hate, calling people scroungers, even inciting 'death to the enemy'. I never said any of those things! ?

Chestnut, Don't take any notice . I've noticed there are a few posters who regularly go on threads purely to argue the toss.
There are two on here at the moment that often work as a double act.
One will stir and the other will jump to agreement, like a loyal little lapdog ( (think Ann from Morherland)
I used to find it annoying, but now I've noticed it, it's mildly amusin and entertaining, tryng to guess at what point in the thread they will try to disrupt and derail the rhread.

That sounds like advice for the hard up. Forage for worms. It'll do you no harm at all. Good source of protein!!

Dusted down my copy of The Paupers Cookbook.

Are you going to eat them?

Well, that was what I was doing the other day.
Not intentionally, I was weeding but I was pleased to find we have some worms.