To be more scared now than I was of Covid?

[Thesupercosyquilt]

I know IABU. I need to get a grip.

I wasn't frightened of Covid. The first few weeks were scary, all the uncertainty etc. But once my kids school closed, life for our family kind of carried on somewhat normally. DH and I were both out working at that point. I never thought we would catch it, we're all relatively healthy. I understood people felt differently and was sympathetic towards that, despite some of the more extreme opinions.

But now, with fuel price hikes, food shortages and now petrol being rationed, I am actually scared. It feels like all the panic of March 2020 all over again.

Don't worry, I'm not going to panic buy five million loo rolls. But I have such a sinking feeling knowing this is the start of really crap times ahead unravelling right before our eyes.

I'm worried about the gas and electric prices rising, because I don't really have any wriggle room in my budget to pay more, so I guess that's going to be using less, and again less when I bring home less money due to a rise in NI, and again less when I need to pay more rent, council tax etc as they rise each year, at least that won't happen until April though.
I'm worried about the reduced choice in shops, not because I am fussy, but because it may well end up with only the expensive stuff left, which is more money.
I'll manage one way or another I'm sure, but I'm not looking forward to working 12 hour shifts, then any shortages of fuel or drivers meaning I wait longer to get home, then not afford to have the heating on when I'm actually home. Hope there's plenty of overtime this winter, it's warm at work and I get fed 😉

"UK Lazies" how bloody ignorant and rude. Try looking at the actual reasons why this country is going to shit, NannyOggsward.

@wewereliars nope happy to stand by my statement.

My post makes clear the broader issue (Covid, BREXIT, civil service slowdown of HGV licenses etc etc.)

But the fact that there are many many MANY U.K. factories standing empty of staff that pay decent wages and have decent working practices, offering free training, while there are people unemployed perfectly able to work is because U.K. lazies don’t want to do the mucky jobs while wailing on about Europeans “stealing their jobs”.

Quite happy not to take that back.

Yes the economic shock was always gping to be greater than the health cost.

@Antiqueanniesmagiclanternshow

Petrol being rationed? Since when?

Got 2 garages in my town...one is out of everything and the other is rationing everyone to £20 each

The rise in gas/electric prices is the part of the crisis that is Europe-wide

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58650634

Looking on the bright side, it is:

-great news for hgv drivers salaries
-great news for the environment if we use less petrol

I must have passed 20 petrol stations yesterday none had queues or were even busy.

@ATieLikeRichardGere

I get what you are saying. I am worried about my gas bill for sure. But I also kind of get the vibe that the news and people are really hooked on the idea of a crisis and that things are very much being reported through this excitable lens of 24 hour pandemic news coverage. Some folks on Twitter are positively foaming at the mouth for a crisis to feed them the purpose in life that they are losing as the pandemic slips away.

@Underamour

To the person who said “I wonder how many if those commenting are affected” - I will be working every hour and limiting spending. I’ve just been through years of bad times. Eventually you get bored of being scared and anxious. That ball of nervous acid in the stomach causes health problems. You realise the anxiety is pointless. So, you say how can I turn this around so I can come out better and turn this into a win? Because anxiety is self defeating and self sabotage. In this case clearly we can 1) save 2) use less petrol 3) long term look at greener options 4)reduce our outgoings as much as possible 5) prioritise staying mentally healthy and resilient.

What choice do we have?

Yes, a bit of blitz spirit is all we need to solve these self-inflicted problems. 🙄

There wouldn't be any panic buying if retailers didn't allow it.

There are some well meaning people trying to be reassuring. I agree that I hope op feels reassured. However, there will be some people reading this thread who haven’t heated there house for last two winters, who use food banks, buy clothes and baby toys second hand who may be in rent arrears from the consequences of the past year or ten years and there is no leeway. Quite the opposite. Telling people who may be about to be evicted that their anxiety is unfounded because nothing will change between today and tomorrow is a bit dim.

I am a little worried, i dont normally worry too much about things in the news because i am powerless about them but this worries me.

We are already at the maximum of what we can afford, we cant afford any extra food money. We already have pay as you go gas and electricity and if it goes up it will be a case of the supply being shut off some days because we literally have no cash to top up.

We rent a flat which takes a huge chunk of our income (our income is too high for housing benefit etc but too low to live comfortably).

I am really worried what this will mean for us.

I cant go out and panic buy if i had spare money to do that i wouldnt be so worried about rising prices

Not everyone owns a car

The bus service in my city has gone from being dreadful to barely worth calling a service over the last few months. Last night my DP phoned from his usual bus stop to say the next two buses had been cancelled. He walked to another stop to get a different bus and that was cancelled. He ended up getting an alternative bus and walking home from the nearest place to home that it stops. It took him over 2 hours to get home when it should take no more than 25 mins. The reasons given are shortage of drivers due to foreign drivers going home, covid, poor pay and working conditions. So Brexit and Covid have finished off what was already a shit service. Local train services are equally awful.

I can manage by tightening my belt but I worry for all those people who were already in poverty or on the edge. Where there is just no other cuts they can make. We’ll have even more people relying on food banks, only less people will be donating as they won’t be able to afford to. There’s something very wrong when working people are worrying about how they will eat or heat their homes. The whole reason we have a minimum wage is so that people can earn enough to live, except it’s not enough. Prices on everything just keep going up and up. How much more can people take?

Could some car/bus journeys be swapped for a bike, or more car sharing, so less petrol needed, I appreciate won't work for everyone

Now is the time to pick blackberries and apples and make jam and bits like that.
Its free (except sugar), you can use jars from family, friends and neighbours and its goof for the planet. Go on. it will make you feel better. Certainly makes me feel like I'm in control of at least a small portion of my food intake.

I am not saying start prepping but we have a vegetable patch, have gotten interested in foraging (nettles, dandelions, pineapple weed, cooked elderberry, elderflower are all edible.) It's my 'just in case'. I started looking at improving my survival skills if you will when I was learning about the potato famine in Ireland. Someone said that loads of the people starving to death were walking past hundreds of edibles that may have gotten them through the first few months at least.

Now, I am not saying I think we will all starve, but it makes me feel better knowing that if the shit hit the fan I would be able to spot several kinds of edibles, including mushrooms but I havent tried that in real life yet. It lowered my anxiety around climate change about 90% and I even planted a couple of apple, pear and plum trees 'just incase'. Nettle souple is delicious and the younv dandelion leaves are lovely. Dandelion tea is not my cup of tea but I wouldn't mind raspberry leaf or mint.

I am going to buy my children a couple of fruit trees for Xmas and I am asking family to chip in and get me a grape vine and maybe a water butt.
I know it sounds mad but we really like growing and are quite good at it. We know how to store pumpkins and apples and potatoes to use in winter. we are getting a handle on canning. it all makes me feel like I have control over my own families food. I would recommend 100% because even if nothing does happen, the skills are useful for your pocket, your health and mental wellbeing.

I recall just before the referendum, several posters talking about how they were struggling financially and they were voting Brexit to ‘teach London’ (no, me neither?!).

When it was explained to them that by trying to harm people you believed were wealthier wouldn’t make you any richer, it would also make you even poorer, they screamed ‘Project Fear’.

Looks like Project Fear is becoming Project Reality. I wonder if Farage will be popping up all over the BBC to defend this or whether Rees Mogg will be along to repeat his comments that the sight of food banks was ‘uplifting’?

@BlueberrySugar

Petrol being rationed? This man in front of us today filled his car then 8 cans.

We drove past our garage tonight and it was being refuelled. I'm an anxious person but there is a lot of scare mongering in the headlines.

They do but it’s 200,000 drivers to service half a billion people. We have a shortage of 100,000 to service 65 million people. So we’re short 1 driver per 650 people and they’re short one per 2500 people. They don’t have shortages, they aren’t closing petrol stations and they have a European agreement on gas prices which we were part of and they aren’t having such large price rises on their gas. But hey, those rose tinted glasses look great on you but take a look at the mess they have made or the fishing industry, exports, the city of London and then tell me how great Brexit has been and it hadn’t e en been fully implemented.

OP: I feel for you I do, I’m one of the relatively well off and I’m worrying about it too. If there’s any consolation it’s that the lying fockers who sold us Brexit are going to get found out as the liars they are very soon.

Many Brexit voters will stick their fingers in their ears and scream ‘nothing to see here’ or claim we should be pleased as it was worse during the war (which they never lived through) like that’s a standard of living we should be aiming for.

They will tie themselves into knots rather than admit they were lied to or that their irrational hatred of foreigners will mean they and their families will be much poorer.

@BiteyCatII

Not everyone owns a car

The bus service in my city has gone from being dreadful to barely worth calling a service over the last few months. Last night my DP phoned from his usual bus stop to say the next two buses had been cancelled. He walked to another stop to get a different bus and that was cancelled. He ended up getting an alternative bus and walking home from the nearest place to home that it stops. It took him over 2 hours to get home when it should take no more than 25 mins. The reasons given are shortage of drivers due to foreign drivers going home, covid, poor pay and working conditions. So Brexit and Covid have finished off what was already a shit service. Local train services are equally awful.

Same here several buses a day just in one route are no longer operating as they have no drivers. This has a knock on effect of slower fuller/crammed buses which is great in the middle of a pandemic!

Even saw one poster last week blaming this on EU migrants who’ve returned home for being cowards and leaving as things were getting tough!

You can’t make it up!

The bbc has said a HANDFULL of petrol stations where closed. The daily fail said petrol was being rationed.

The bbc article I read this morning said there is enough fuel but not enough drivers. There is a shortage of 100k.

20k estimated to have returned to the EU
40k cancelled tests

Mixture of pandemic and brexit

Petrol station closures spark lorry driver row www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58673567

It’s terribly expensive in this country to become a lorry driver (my family have a lot of older drivers but no young ones as they don’t have the cash.)

My DF hates his job and is now taking advantage of the shortage as he can reduce his hours and still take a a decent wage as the shortage has driven wages up. (Gone from being out the house 5pm to 6am mon-fri to a 37 hour contract day time driving job - he thinks he is now a part time worker )

The working conditions are truly awful. DF was a steward for his union and quit that after many years too as they don’t help.

We can’t keep taking advantage of workers like this and filling the gaps with poorer people from different countries, who will put up with horrible working conditions because they are desperate for the cash.

By the war, relying on yet the military to take up the slack is nonsense. They have 3500 at best and the great majority of them don’t have the specialist skills required to deliver fuel. When I was in, most of the LGV. Drivers had LGV 3 licences and can’t drive articulated lorries.

Sprostrongreen21. Yes the pandemic has ramped up the stress of bus travel up even more. The queues end up so long after all the delays and cancellations and when a bus does decide to show up it’s completel rammed. And the tickets/passes cost a fortune and are always going up so it’s probably not that much cheaper than running a car .