discontent : Most liked Posts

I’m always curious when I go anywhere now how much people really seem to be spending still. Especially in certain shops. I think online influencing plays hugely into this also. I was in the line at Home Bargains last week buying a couple of things and everyone around me seemed to have trolleys full of stuff. Halloween and Christmas mostly. There was a woman directly in front of me and she had absolutely insane amounts of seasonal stuff and looked totally stressed out of her mind as she packed it all. When the bill came it was £180. She said she didn’t think she had enough then proceeded to get out multiple cards to spread it across. Constantly saying to the server she couldn’t really afford it, rubbing her head and sweating. Ends up putting it across 3 cards. Who is putting the pressure on people like this to buy all the plastic tat in these places? Kids? Social media? Or why do it to yourself for some Halloween cups and plastic pumpkins?

coconochanel said:

This may sound like a stupid question but why are the government letting us live like this?

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Because they're Tories and it won't affect them or their pals.

I thought he was too busy fucking 20 year olds to give a fuck about anything else.

maharini said:

Is it me, though, or are vet fees criminal? £32 for 7 liquid doses of a common antibiotic?

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This is a RANT

So I mentioned this previously on the thread but today at work at our daily meeting we were reminded that there's £10 to put in for a 50th, £20 for a retirement and £5 for flowers for someone who's gone off sick AGAIN. My pay day is tomorrow so that's £35 straight off my wage. Today should have been my opportunity to say sorry I can't afford this but it's so awkward. They even brought up that not everyone had put in so far and most people sat quietly so I think most people feel the same as me.

It's pay day tomorrow and I have £11.92 in my account currently. I've been on the bones of my arse since about the 2nd week after payday and this was a 5 week month.

I’m going to sound like a twat here but I wish old people would shut up saying they can’t afford to put the heating on. They were giving over £1000 this year including the warm home thing they get every year.

It’s parents and every body else that haven’t got the money to heat their homes.

I honestly think they talk shit when they tell you how much you can save by switching stuff off etc. Read an article the other day clickbaiting about HUGE yearly savings just from turning your TV off standby. £3.87. Per year. Aye fuck off. Can't even get a meal deal for that these days.

daridicule said:

Are only poor people who need food banks allowed to stand up for the disgraceful costs of living issues most of us are experiencing? What a silly attitude. Standing up to the system that would be happy if we were all using food banks as long as the 1% at the top weren't suffering can only be achieved by as many people as possible taking a stand.

Not sure how an 'it ain't my problem" attitude helps anyone, and I'm so glad that there are people that will stand up for others rights, even if they aren't personally affected. Do you have any more effective ideas apart from letting food bank users fend for themselves?

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Nowhere did I say 'it ain't my problem'. Please explain how a bunch of middle class people shoplifting is helping anyone? Shoplifting is already an epidemic, it causes distress to shopkeepers, customers, and creates higher prices in an already ridiculously expensive market. What is 'taking a stand' in this context? Why can they not pay for the food and then donate it to food banks? It's a bit like 'taking a stand' against burglary by burgling affluent homes and then giving the spoils to 'ordinary' people in their homes. I mean, a noble gesture perhaps in one way, but in another, simply wasting already over stretched police resources and time.

Trust me, these people are standing up for no-one other than their desperate need for attention. If they were paying and donating, fine. But they are breaking the law, and it will just result in even higher food prices and the poor and oppressed they claim to want to help will be more out of pocket. The CEO's of the big supermarkets will just up prices even more, it's a complete fallacy that this is doing anything other than creating more unrest and dissatisfaction.

One thing fucking me off is influencers and there ‘Please support my many upcoming ADs as we approach a busy time of year!’ Fuck right off.

Some People! said:

Just for balance and out of interest, how are you planning or hoping to keep your chin up this winter?

I'm so filled with dread about, yanno, all of the above , and then there is the added pressure of Christmas and the nights drawing in, the endless gloom till spring, etc, etc... My mental health is gonna be in the shitter! ().

Have you got something to look forward to? A strategy for not letting it get you down?
Tips & tricks for things to cheer yourself up in the cold, in the dark, and dark in poverty gratefully received!

I'm researching hibernation

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I’m going to sound like an absolute gigantic cock and I’m actually embarrassed to type this out but what does genuinely help me if finding the joy in small things.

It sounds stupid and pathetic but even something as small as the wild rabbit that hops around the gardens outside my house, or that my water is lovely cold from the fridge in the morning, getting home after a long day and snuggling up in my dressing gown, a new episode of a tv show or podcast, small things like that really help me. I find that it breaks up the shit of everything else when I can find the happiness in something small cause you’ll always have small things. For example, the thing that gets me through the thought of Monday is knowing that my favourite podcast releases its new episode so I know Monday morning I’ll get to the office, put my headphones on and listen to it and I’ll enjoy it.

Also knowing it’ll pass, it’s shit at the time but I just think “well in 6 months I’ll be bitching about the heat and the bright nights so might as well enjoy it”.

ETA: That’s actually what got me through the heat this time tbh. The thought of making the most of it because in a few months it’ll be dark and cold and I’ll be longing to go on my weekend walks without freezing my ass off

It’s not great but it does help me

Honestly I'm a bit worried. The lack of HGV drivers is a big problem. I'm concerned about medicines and food mainly.

Christmas has become a consumerism nightmare and honestly it needs stopping.

Also would just like to say to @Yel I always like the threads you start.

Sorry to just come here and rant when I haven't contributed to the discussion before now. I know I just have the same problems as everyone, but I just want to get them off my chest...

For the past year, I've blown through my budget almost every month, because costs of essentials are rising so quickly that I no longer have any concept of what I can live on. I'm still stuck in my 2019 mindset of "Oh, £30 til next pay day is ok, I can live on that!" only to go to the shop and find that my little routine grocery and toiletry basket is nearly twice as much as it was last year.

I've worked so hard all my life to have the good quality of life they said we could have. I grew up in the 90s/00s and it was always drilled into you that if you worked hard, you could get a good job and be rich. I started life on a shitty council estate with two addict parents, caring for a disabled sister - I worked hard to get into a good university, and I'm quite high-up in my competitive industry... and yet I have to have a cleaning job to even get by. I have a friend who is a lawyer who has to do Deliveroo deliveries to make ends meet. I know so many people my age in supposedly prestigious jobs who live hand to mouth. I don't even drive, I walk everywhere, I don't have Sky or expensive subscription services, I just have Netflix and my £12 a month mobile contract and the regular broadband package. I don't go out boozing more than once every couple of months. I live in a small 1 bed place (rented).

But I'm worried about money all the time. I can physically feel the stress on my body. I can feel all the tightness in my muscles from the worry, I feel much stiffer and heavier than I physically am. And occasionally, when I have money in the bank, it lifts for a few days, so I know it is caused by financial woes.

It's at the point where I need a radical life overhaul. I actually don't want to, I'm perfectly happy being some non-Mumsnetter who buys microwaved dinners and plastic bottles of orange juice. But I'm running out of money too often and too severely. I think I might have to go meat-free and start only having really cheap batch-cooked stuff. I know that doesn't sound drastic, it's how a lot of people live, but it's just the idea itself that I find daunting - I can't even afford to keep getting a cartoon of orange juice at the shop, or randomly buy a sandwich when I'm dashing all over for work. For about 6 months this year, I wore a pair of shoes with holes in, because I couldn't afford any others, and I lost a lot of weight so I spent all that time wearing clothes that swamped me. I'm just about able to buy a few things on Vinted that fit, little at a time. Surviving has become a full-on job.

I’ve never met a long-term user who was anything less than a waste of space and claiming that it’s good for them/helps them.

Tatooine_legend1 said:

Someone I know is on benefits for her mental health condition. She receives around about £800 or maybe a little more than that per month, but when she is taking her medication she is perfectly fine to work and function as normal. I don't mean to be harsh, but how is this possible if she is fine to work?

She has spoken to a job advisor from the job centre and told she should start trying to get back into the workplace, but it's been a few years she hasn't worked. If a person is fine to work when they take their medication, do you think they should be finding work and not receiving the 800 quid?

Because it does seem as though she has not bothered to get back into work. Maybe it's because she is lacking confidence to return to the workplace after so long, but I just find it surprising how she hasn't been pushed to get back into the workplace before now given she is mentally stable when taking her meds. Am I bring unreasonable here? I don't understand the system that well, so when I hear cases like this it doesn't surprise me how people can rig the benefits system.

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Unless you are her or her doctor how do you know she’s ‘perfectly fine to work’.
You say she’s on £800 which is the higher end of the allowances. A single person under 25 gets £316.98, while a single person 25 or over receives £400.14. To get £800 she probably has additional elements to her claim such as housing, having a partner, childcare, being a carer or having a Limited capability for work element (LCWRA).
If it is an LCWRA then you have to go for a very invasive interview with a jumped up DWP employee.
With mental health conditions it’s not as simple as ‘she’s fine when she takes her meds’. Mental health conditions don’t switch off like a light. Stability can take months or years and meds don’t always stop the side effects, fatigue, or relapses. The goal is usually to get someone well enough to live safely not to immediately shove them into work just to tick a box.
Honestly, I’m tired of these kinds of stories that frame people who are unwell as the problem, when the real drain on the system isn’t the ill and vulnerable, it’s politicians and the ultra rich.
And even if she was one of the tiny number of people milking the system that’s pennies compared to what the wealthy dodge in taxes or what politicians waste on failed projects.

Anne1448 said:

Do people even cook anymore?

I am always brown away by the amount of people who talk about cooking when all they do is shove pre-made food in the oven. It is frightening to see the amount of adults who cannot cook a meal from scratch.

No wonder we have an obesity epidemic all over the world.

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Probably because people are so time-poor nowadays. Factor in the increasing time and distance to get to work plus working 8+ hours a day, I don't blame people wanting to just get a takeaway or shove something in the oven. Plus the increasing amount of people who house-share, it just isn't practical to hog the kitchen. I'm sure it would be lovely to be Nigella Lawson and have a wonderful big kitchen with all the indegridients and time in the world to cook a meal but for a lot of people that just ain't going to happen.

What we have been quoted for electricity for my husband's work space. Currently paying £500 a month. We cannot afford this and will most likely shut up shop. Will have to let go of atleast 6 people.

HeroToZero said:

If we are taking in 800 per day… then yes! We need to Be able to provide for the population we have surely? As a country/economy we are struggling…no need for the eye roll.. it’s common sense surely?! Maybe I take it personally? My 84 year old nan won’t accept anything financial help from me… but she worked from 17 years old till retirement age + for the ministry of defence… yet she’s been totally fooked over by pension scheme and is debating whether or not to switch her heating on??!! Really???! It’s a disgrace.

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The government is the reason your nan has been fucked over by the pension scheme. Nothing to do with immigrants.

My parents benefitted from decent final salary pensions and buying when it was affordable. They spent their cost of living payments whilst on approx their 4th holiday of the year.

Whilst I'm living in a damp rented tiny house with a child, with no chance of ever affording to buy or even move.

My mother asked how I was going to afford the heating, when I said I couldn't, she suggested a fleece.

My friend saw someone filling a kettle up with petrol yesterday, not sure how the forecourt staff let them do that but anyway. Then last night there was a house fire near me, probs the idiot with the petrol in the kettle went to make a nice cup of tea