To have a thread for us poor folk?

[UsPoorFolk]

I'm really happy for people who have enough money for food/holidays/bills/savings etc...

But it sucks having nothing for anything extra in life, including increasing bill cost.

Anyone else.

We are struggling so much now. Everyone around us seem to be doing fine and spending like there’s no tomorrow though. It feels like they all know something we don’t about finances because some of them are in lower paid jobs than us.
We eat Asda essentials and have blankets for heating. My DHs mum is having a significant birthday and is throwing a party. We can’t afford to go as it involves chipping in for various parts of it. They aren’t the type of people you can tell that you are struggling financially (because they don’t and are judgy about people who do. They see having health problems as laziness) so we are in the dog house with them now. I am just so fed up with it all.

In addition:
Talking Pictures TV Encore is free, mainly old movies.
Discovery Plus has a free tier, from channels like Quest.
Freevee is a free channel on Amazon, currently has things like Parks & Recreation, Most Haunted, Judy Justice. You use the Prime Video app to access it, but don't need a Prime subscription.
Crackle, Roku Channel and Tubi are all US only but work with a VPN.

In case it helps anyone most water companies offer a scheme for low income, this is Severn Trent www.stwater.co.uk/my-account/help-when-you-need-it/help-with-paying-your-bill/big-difference-scheme/
it's worth checking your providers website.

Some banks will give money when changing to them .£100 or something like that.Halifax did all the donkey work when I changed over .U switch have a list of participating banks at the moment .

Also our local Church has 2 mornings a week where they give out free food.No need for a referral everyone is welcome .Long queues though. Seems frightful as South Coast prosperous town .

At the beginning of the pandemic I managed to get a third off my annual water rates bill by writing to their hardship department. May be worth a whirl for some people?

Apologies this is already covered!

@UsPoorFolk

Most of my clothes are second hand, better for my pocket, better for the planet and the local hospice makes some money too.

I don't understand the stigma of second hand - I was in my mid 30's before I finally bought a sofa new, similar for a dining table. Current coffee table was being thrown out by a neighbour, I rescued from the skip!

@Threadkillacilla

Pack up isn't the done thing? All of our dc take packed lunches to work as do we, I cook a roast on Sunday partly for the meat for sandwiches (plus get another meal if pork) thankfully they were brought up not to be wasteful. They also are keen charity shop goers and users of vinted (and similar). Myself and dsd are on minimum wage but being careful our money goes further, dd is on better money but is saving hard for a house

Not unreasonable but it seems like all the threads are about how poor people are and how hard life is right now.

Had a look at holidays before. We haven't been abroad in over 10 years.

I was utterly gobsmacked that most holidays for 2 weeks to say Greece were in the region of £3000.

Who has that kind of money knocking about to go on holiday with? I thought it might cost about £300 each...but no.

I'm poor. We live on state welfare, no heating oil but the fire has done ok so far (thanks to global warming I suppose!). It would be ok but we have a child and experience a rising panic every time there's a request from school for money. It's very unpleasant for us but we are lucky enough to be safe in our house and under our roof. I know the feeling of housing insecurity and i wouldn't wish it on anyone. So i feel for anybody suffering that's at the end of their rope atm. Growing up, 'on paper' my family was loaded. But my father was drinking every penny and more. So anyone who struggles, solidarity, i sincerely hope you can get through this and that life improves for you.

Just a thought it can help sometimes to contact the school if struggling as they sometimes have a fund to help parents. Ours have something where they can cover half the uniform costs for example. It might depend on the school, but worth asking.

Really? It's the done thing at my office of well paid professionals.

Morrison's cafe has a free hot meal if you ask for "Henry" it is supplied by Heinz. Not every Morrisons cafe is taking part, so check first.

Done thing in my office too, for all levels.

Pret and Costa are just so unreasonably expensive. £4.50 for a really basic sandwich.

We are finally in an 'ok' situation after years of hell and can manage to go on holiday. If you do flights and accommodation separately and can manage to go out of term - I know that's not always possible - it can be a 'cheaper luxury' if you get my meaning. DH and I have just had 10 days in the sun for under £900 for flights and s/c accommodation. I hope I'm not being tone deaf here - I just wanted to respond to an individual post, we really have been low on money before.

The difference is of course that 20, 10 even 5 years ago, the cost of living was no where near this high

Thanks x

I'll have to have another word about lunches, I've WFH for years so have no clue apart from the DC. One works at tesco so a mealdeal but the other goes out at lunchtime with office pals. Always somewhere decent never the cafe.

Thanks. I need to work out which we don't need a BBC licence for, as I refuse to pay it (corrupt Tory propaganda) even if I could afford it.

Also poor.

I'm really worried about the prices rises of food.

£1.65 for 4 pints of milk - in 2020 it was 98p!
£2.15 for butter - before it was £1.70!

These were the cheapest I could get.

I'm on UC, and I'm nervous that the chancellor will go back on the 'promise' to rise UC by inflation. I bet they won't.

I am too disabled to work (UC recognise this), but not disabled enough to get any disability payments, so it's £77 a week to live on, for everything except rent. I have £22 a month council tax also to pay.

Disabled people who can't work and are reliant on benefits - we cannot strike!! Feel so helpless, it's demoralising.

Morrison's cafe has a free hot meal if you ask for "Henry" it is supplied by Heinz. Not every Morrisons cafe is taking part, so check first

this was school holidays and limited to a number of meals (I think about 150,000) so it may well be over now.

It's been extended until end of November. It's a jacket pototo,beans and salad if it's any use to anyone

Well if we are doing money saving tips, you can often buy big bags of carrots leeks etc for the same price as small ones. Trouble is how many leeks can you get through in a week?

So I'm now peeling/chopping most of them up when I first buy them and freezing them in slow cooker or soup portions in freezer in sandwich bags. I realize this relies on having a freezer but in little bags they squish between everything else and it makes doing the slow cooker so much easier.

Chuck cheap stewing beef in, a bag of your veg (it defrosts as soon as pour stock on) and you are done. Because let's be honest no one has time for peeling and chopping before work.

I live in a rural area and we have a farm shed that does 8kg of tatties for £2.80 (and with mud on they last longer) so we do a lot of stews in winter.

My husband works in an outdoor environment with no cooking facilities (but they do have electric). I got him an electric lunchbox. It cost £20 but any kind of leftovers go in there. Works out cheaper than making sandwiches and I also hate doing that so it's saved us well more than it cost - and he's reheating it on work's electric. That's maybe quite specific to his type of work environment though!

My son is disabled and goes to a special school, every week for the past few weeks they have been sending a big bag of essentials home to all families ,i guess the idea is that families who have disabled children are more llikely to only have one parent working or none if single parent ,they also have amagic breakfsst scheme where the children get a free breakfsst every day ,my sons always had breakfast at school ,but i have slways had to pay for it in previous years ,every little helps i guess