tightening our belts

70p each?!! ?
A treat, not an essential

But now I have an ear worm, the New Word Symphony ?

70p Callistemon! 2 x mini Hovis loaves, 2 x gingerbread men, 1 x granary loaf (the only item for me) = £5.00

I’ve been reading all your posts about the current economic climate and the struggles that people are facing in terms of rising energy/fuel costs and food bills. It is truly frightening. I am a 61 year old widow and self employed and will have to work beyond 67 years old as I will not be able to survive on my current small NHS pension and a state pension , well not if I want to have any quality of life. Like maintaining my own home. Which I am fortunate to have. What I don’t understand is how so many people are able to go on holidays abroad ( I haven’t been abroad for 4 years) and have regular staycations. I feel so cut off from friends and former colleagues who seem to be still spending vast amounts of money. How can there be so many reports in the news about people struggling etc and at the same time so many people going away on holidays abroad? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

How much are they, Chewbacca?

Our bakery still does those little Hovis loaves Callistemon but you have to get in there early to get them and they cost a lot more than a penny! My GC love them!

I was sometimes bought a tiny Hovis loaf that cost a penny

I remember those, nannypiano
Somehow, they seemed to taste better than any other bread

9 in my family and we were poor, I am 74, dad worked very hard but was self employed and many a time, there was just no money. Mum got second hand clothes and re-purposed them. Thankfully we had good schools and aspiration from our parents and a very good library down the road. We 7 children grew up knowing how to make things stretch, how to survive on very little, no handouts or benefits

I happen to agree with the op. We were very happy, we lived within our means and the cobbled street by our 3 bedroomed terraced house was our playground. We were all in the same boat and neighbours looked out for one another

It was a golden age then in many ways, playing out, good plain food. Potatoes, carrots, bread, jam. we could not afford a tv nor a fridge and I remember the delight when someone gave us a second hand one. The family pulled together as one united unit. All of us 7 would know how to cope today but I don`t think the AC would as they have never had to but they will learn

We didn’t have much money£6 a week in 1976 when interest rates were 15 percent my husband went from weekly to monthly pay and I was not working as just had a baby .No food banks or help from government .Always had food bought cracked eggs from egg farm(couldn’t do that now get salmonella)The number of patients I found who had no basic cooking skills as schools didn’t teach them was horrendous we organised cooking lessons simple food but tasty We didn’t have the energy crisis though

I think that unless you happen to be very well off with savings & investments & can benefit from rises in interest rates, it won’t be long before many of us on fixed incomes will be struggling to pay our way.
I’m not sure what will happen if I can’t afford to heat my place or eat properly. I am hoping that’s a long way down the road.
I try not to think about having to replace major items. I believe that many people have less than 3 month income in savings. That certainly applies in my case. So the best I can come up with is to live in the moment. I’m not extravagant. But I do run a car so I can help my family out with the grandchildren.
The one thing that I have understood though is how much less certain life seems to be for my adult children.

Fiona44 We can't judge the present generation against how we lived, just as we can't judge how we lived against how our grandmothers did.....Life has changed and we need to help, if we can, and not judge.
I don't think anyone here is judging or criticising the present generation. Just making observations that many of them have had it easy over the past 40 years and will find it hard to understand the concept of frugality as it has never been part of their lives.

Times have changed so much, but the poor still suffer. Smartphones are indeed a necessity, as is access to the internet, yet another thing that the poorest will struggle to afford or find, as libraries offering free access close. We’ve had both our libraries within walking distance shut down in the last three years, yet people are expected to claim benefits and apply for jobs online. It must be so stressful.

We live in what we think of as an area with little poverty. During covid a local food bank was opened and as our eating out and social events weren’t happening we made a weekly donations of items to the food bank which we ordered along with our weekly in-line shop. Now everywhere is open and normal life supposedly resumed the food bank assure us that the need is even greater - especially with the increase in petrol prices and electricity etc. We are lucky as we both have work pensions and state pensions and can afford to help out others who are struggling. We feel it is the right thing to do - I guess others might disagree.

When I was a young single parent with a full time job, I couldn't imagine finding time to plant and harvest vegetables. The garden was bottom of my to-do list. For many years, it resembled that of Polly Garter from Under Milk Wood, featuring " washing and babies".

Correction: first sentence: Obesity is often the result of poverty

katy1950 Obesity is often the result of obesity. It is not the result of people spending lots of money on food and eating constantly. It is the result of people with minimal incomes and often in supermarket deserts, living on cheap takeaways, full of fat and carbohydrates. Buying cheap processed foods, UPFs (Ultra Processed Foods) like white bread, cakes, biscuits, pasta cheap sauces and tinned food.

When I was about 5, in the late 1940s, we moved house to an area where we lived in a relatively affluent area, with just a major road betweenus and a poor area. One of the things I noticed, compared with where we had previously lived was the number of fat women there were about. I must have asked about this because I was told that it was the result of not having much money. When money was short any good food went to the men in the family, then children and the women liveed on suga sandwiches, white processed bread, margarine and sugar. Filling but not nutritious and full of empty calories.

As I said obesity is the result of poverty, not proof that people are not poor.

We can all point to the 'poor' who have iPhones, have their nails done and place orders with deliveroo, but equally far more 'poor', people struggle day in day out, 'robbing Peter to pay Paul'.

Most people nowadays have smart phones, indeed in many cases you need a smart phone to access basic services, many people access a phone like this by signing up to a contract.

Few young women in receipt of benefits spend money having a manicure but many get together with friends and have an evening ' doing their nails', is that so wrong?

And as for deliveroo, I haven't the foggiest what this is!

But I do think that youngsters do have a hard time. They are treated like 2nd class citizens. They are often never taught to budget, or to cook,they are criticised without being taught to manage.

For a while there was a real struggle with families needing to make the eat or heat decision. This has largely ended. Instead, it's become Neither heating or eating. Whilst there have been numbers of efforts to provide additional funding for the many who are struggling, fuel companies are posting massive increases to their profits AND their prices!

I was born in 1959. I had a rural childhood. My children and grandchildren live in a different world, just as I, as a child, was brought up in a different world from that of my grandmother. For me, as a child and adolescent, hair conditioner, going to the hairdresser, tights (strictly American Tan!), and Ski yogurt (how exotic!), were once a year treats. Now they are "essential" parts of everyday life. For my grandmother, someone in the family becoming ill was a financial catastrophe. No NHS. Now (assuming we can get an appointment...) we see free care as normal, taken for granted. Our right. I'm glad of this. We can't judge the present generation against how we lived, just as we can't judge how we lived against how our grandmothers did. The present younger generation is having a tough time. No free university education. No job for life. No real social security safety net if real disaster strikes. Life has changed and we need to help, if we can, and not judge. Can you imagine the shame of not being able to provide for your family without using a food bank? How did we, one of the richest countries in the world, come to the point where they need to exist?

For a few years, I've done the washing on a 30 minute cycle at 30 degrees. I've used own-brand stuff for many years - toilet rolls, bleach, shampoo, soap powder, that kind of thing. I've stopped using the dishwasher now, and of course, don't need to use the tumble dryer - the washing is hung on the line. I've stopped using the 15 minute extra spin (isn't that using more electricity, not less?)

I was born in 1937, lived all through the war.
We children didn’t know any different but our parents did, they really suffered.
Husbands and fathers went away to war, some came back, some didn’t.
Some of the ones who did were changed out of all recognition by their experiences.
Life was very very hard and I wouldn’t want to see my young families go through it for anything.
However I do believe things have swung too far the other way.
Everything is so easy for them, they can have most things by borrowing to get it.
Tightening their belts is something some of them would never understand and would find almost impossible to do.

Sorry - my typing mistake COVID19 - NOT COVID18.

In a way nothing has changed but increases in food, petrol and energy bills, as same old, same old as when i was a child growing up once a week my mother would buy me a tiny thin cadburys bar as my one and only treat. I myself went back to work 18 months after my 2nd child and had childminders as lived away from family due to husband job had moved away south. I grow some fruit in our garden still with just the 2 of us. I dontate if I can £1 item to the foodbank as there is always someone else in greater need. I myself dont get my government state pension for another 2 years when most of my female friends did at age of 60. So in a way its the governments fault on that issue, so my husband at age of 72 being 8 years older than me has to do a shift for us to have a few extra little treats, and so our weekly pub meal is now once a month due to british gas direct debit virtually has doubled. But we are of a generation of not having any of the takeaway foods or even takeaway coffees that know my 2 grown up children buy, and when they complain I simply say "well ditch these type of things" and cook from scratch, we both dont smoke and have small amount of alchol most at weekends - life is a gas, gas, gas as they say but at least we didnt die last month of the covid18 - yes its still around as my husband had antibiotics due to bad chest infection with it and near phneumonia, I found that hard going and pretty scarey. As we can all MAKE DO + MEND - A SAYING OF MY OWN GRANDMA's. We cant help being victims of the price rises but we are all capable of dealing with make cut-backs ourselves and we must not take these issues personally as friends + relations who live abroad are also facing the same issues on the increases.

You're right Espee. There is a certain level of society who live like that, and no-one is 'judging their parenting skills', just making an observation. And they will find it hard to economise and be frugal because as I explained up thread they have been living in a land of milk and honey for the last 40 years and do not know what it is like to have water, energy food and petrol rationed or at eye-watering prices. That is the society they grew up in and built their lives on.

Espee Oh dear!!

Perhaps they are better at not judging others parenting decisions though

Expectations are so different nowadays. I was born in 1949. For the first 5 years of my life we didn’t have an inside lavatory, a bath was a once a week affair in a tin bath in front of the range, we didn’t have a fridge until I was about 11, or a phone until I was 16 and a car when I was 18.
Nowadays the young people I know expect a detached house with en suite, family bathroom and downstairs toilet and a garage or at least off road parking for 2 cars. They all have the latest mobiles costing over £1K with contracts at £40, top of the range cars, eat out several times a week, always appear clutching a coffee, spend a fortune on nails, hair, facials, massages, tattoos, Botox, fillers, spa days, extravagant weddings etc., etc.
Both parents have to work to maintain this lifestyle so children get farmed out to be brought up by other people.
These are people with good jobs who probably have little or no savings and don’t know how to economise.