Also it’s a bit ridiculous to suggest everyone moves up North. Like yeah, we should all leave behind our family, friends and jobs to live somewhere on our own with no support network where we might not even be able to get a job on a similar salary or even in the same field as our career.
Discontent #10 food, energy, transport, cost of living, society etc
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A nurse was on sky news, after talking about how so many of her colleagues had to visit a food bank she said that they also had to tell their children that Christmas wouldn't be good this year due to their pay.
Why would you tell children that? Christmas is about having time off and spending quality time together. Not having money for expensive gifts (probably made in China) doesn't mean it'll be an awful Christmas. Without sounding patronising and a Grinch maybe spending less on tat isn't the end of the world, and could be good for the planet.
We were making wreaths last week with the children, we spent a few pounds on ribbon, twine and glue. But we had a fun afternoon collecting and didn't buy any plastic.
Why would you tell children that? Christmas is about having time off and spending quality time together. Not having money for expensive gifts (probably made in China) doesn't mean it'll be an awful Christmas. Without sounding patronising and a Grinch maybe spending less on tat isn't the end of the world, and could be good for the planet.
We were making wreaths last week with the children, we spent a few pounds on ribbon, twine and glue. But we had a fun afternoon collecting and didn't buy any plastic.
Part of the problem is we live in such a consumerist culture where kids expect extravagant gifts, and if they don’t get them, they wonder why Santa likes their friends more.
One of my old work colleagues (who loves to moan about the cost of living crisis while sat in a 5 bed house) was complaining how she couldn’t afford to take her six month old child to Disney land to “make memories” this Christmas. As if the kid would even remember it
Re consumerism I really think we need a reset across society, obviously this will always be most applicable to those with a disposable income as low income people have always made things last & acted sustainably.
Like #haul culture has SO much to answer for. As a young adult in the early 2010s things were SO different to how they are now and there are generations growing up thinking it’s normal to have clothes delivered to your house weekly? I don’t want to incur the wrath of anyone on the Christmas spending thread as it was a truly wild read but ppl getting themselves into financial difficulty for the day is just sad and shows how much pressure is put upon parents. I can understand especially for working mums the guilt is immense and you think what “should” you be doing and it is hard to tune out all those voices and go with what feels right for your family/values/budget. Again all roads lead back to social media, without it half this tit wouldn’t be a problem.
Stupid question but why can't the parents tell their kids that they can't afford expensive presents?
My parents were super honest about it and would tell us what they could afford. So my brothers and I only picked presents out of a very specific range. It didn't feel great but it was better than having nothing.
My parents were super honest about it and would tell us what they could afford. So my brothers and I only picked presents out of a very specific range. It didn't feel great but it was better than having nothing.
So many do seem to think that making Christmas special = giving a mountain of presents. We've got so use to having so much of this stuff affordable that 40-50 gifts per child + a couple of "main presents" is the norm for some.
A picture of the Ingham children and their viral vids paints a thousand words.
Maybe it's a good time to say you can't always get what you want, long term that is way more likely to help children.
A picture of the Ingham children and their viral vids paints a thousand words.
Maybe it's a good time to say you can't always get what you want, long term that is way more likely to help children.
Hey guys, sorry if this topic has been spoken about/ this isn’t the right place for it but I’m new to this thread and at a bit of a loss. I see people posting about how they keep their thermostat at around 18 degrees etc and I’ve no idea how to go about this. So I live in a 3 bed detached with family, in the mornings the house temp drops to about 9 degrees, when working from home I pop the heating on for about 2-3 hours to get it to 13 degrees. It then drops as the day goes on back to around 9 degrees so I do the same in the evening, heating for 2-3 hours to get back to around 13 degrees. The heating is costing around £1.35 an hour so this is costing around £8 a day, or £243 a month. This is without electricity. I’m at a loss what to do, if I was to put my heating up to 18 degrees it would take hours and cost a fortune! I work from home a few days a week and while I’m layered up I’m so cold and keep getting ill. We can’t really afford to just say screw it and leave the heating on constantly. Does anyone have any advice please, I’m so cold and at my witts end 
Maybe because they think that would be ruining their year and it wouldn't be a special Christmas unless they had x, y and z?
Maybe because parents think they're failing unless they get what the children want?
Life's not fair, so while it must be disheartening if their friends all get ps5's and bikes worth a grand that's the way it goes.
I was brought up poor with presents like a pencil case for Christmas and told that we were poor, in retrospect I'm thankful for that. Although my parents could have done a better job at not passing on the stress of being poor, but they did their best in difficult circumstances I'm sure.
We used to just make the stocking very exciting and practical because father Christmas only does the stockings. We told our children that those who got a lot of presents got them from family . You only had to look at the tags to see they were not from father Christmas. Anything outside the stocking was from other people.
I feel very sorry for those children who get so much they are overwhelmed.
I feel very sorry for those children who get so much they are overwhelmed.
Raising a child is a minefield anyway but I think it’s important to acknowledge the political and social elements of it. Like it’s hard to not listen to peer pressure in terms of a) BAU consumption and b) Christmas aka consumption on overdrive.
Like my child is incredibly privileged whereas neither of us were and I sometimes have moments of doubt and I know that if I was to disclose certain things to certain archetypes of mums I’d be slated if that makes sense? Like I buy 90% of her clothes preloved (same as for me!) and she has two or poss three preloved Christmas presents this year in addition to other things. There is such a stigma around both of these that I don’t want to invite nasty and ignorant comments so I’d never disclose it unless I knew it was a likeminded mum. I’m not saying oh aren’t we subversive at all but it takes strong conviction of ur principles to stick to this and it’s something you have to practice all year round for it to make sense at Christmas? Like you have to reprogram ur brain to ignore Instagram tit (I block a lot of it tbh) and focus on financial goals that bring your family joy and security rather than those images you shared that do the rounds this time of year.
It’s hard but with anything I think who does this benefit? Would £1k, £2k of toys benefit my child more than that in a savings account or overpaid on the mortgage? There’s not a scenario I can imagine that to be a yes for so it will never happen in this house.
It's really worrying me at present as it's absolutely freezing here, I bought a heater which is £50 out of my budget right before Xmas.
I keep mine at 16 over night and then up to 18/19 when we're in. It just turns on for a few mins every now and then to maintain the temp rather than going for 20/30 mins to increase it 4/5c. No idea what mines costing thoughHey guys, sorry if this topic has been spoken about/ this isn’t the right place for it but I’m new to this thread and at a bit of a loss. I see people posting about how they keep their thermostat at around 18 degrees etc and I’ve no idea how to go about this. So I live in a 3 bed detached with family, in the mornings the house temp drops to about 9 degrees, when working from home I pop the heating on for about 2-3 hours to get it to 13 degrees. It then drops as the day goes on back to around 9 degrees so I do the same in the evening, heating for 2-3 hours to get back to around 13 degrees. The heating is costing around £1.35 an hour so this is costing around £8 a day, or £243 a month. This is without electricity. I’m at a loss what to do, if I was to put my heating up to 18 degrees it would take hours and cost a fortune! I work from home a few days a week and while I’m layered up I’m so cold and keep getting ill. We can’t really afford to just say screw it and leave the heating on constantly. Does anyone have any advice please, I’m so cold and at my witts end
Can you look at insulating your house better? We just moved into a new place and it was so drafty you could literally see outside through the 'seal' around the windows. If you have a loft perhaps getting some extra loft insulation down in the far corners.Hey guys, sorry if this topic has been spoken about/ this isn’t the right place for it but I’m new to this thread and at a bit of a loss. I see people posting about how they keep their thermostat at around 18 degrees etc and I’ve no idea how to go about this. So I live in a 3 bed detached with family, in the mornings the house temp drops to about 9 degrees, when working from home I pop the heating on for about 2-3 hours to get it to 13 degrees. It then drops as the day goes on back to around 9 degrees so I do the same in the evening, heating for 2-3 hours to get back to around 13 degrees. The heating is costing around £1.35 an hour so this is costing around £8 a day, or £243 a month. This is without electricity. I’m at a loss what to do, if I was to put my heating up to 18 degrees it would take hours and cost a fortune! I work from home a few days a week and while I’m layered up I’m so cold and keep getting ill. We can’t really afford to just say screw it and leave the heating on constantly. Does anyone have any advice please, I’m so cold and at my witts end
For windows and door if they are old and drafty you can get insulation foam in a can which will help seal the edges. Also draft excluders or just cheap rolled up blankets around windows and doors to keep the warm air in. You can also get radiator reflectors to put behind radiator which helps circulate the hot air back into the room. Our house was about 13 without hearing on and now it's 16 in daytime which I think is pretty good.
Sorry I'm not the best at this and I appreciate all these suggestions require some spending, but just a few ideas that helped us, I'm sure if you look into it you can find more online.
The only person I remember mentioning having heating to 18 degrees doesn’t live in the UK - I don’t think it’s feasible here anymore without a bill in the hundreds sadly.Hey guys, sorry if this topic has been spoken about/ this isn’t the right place for it but I’m new to this thread and at a bit of a loss. I see people posting about how they keep their thermostat at around 18 degrees etc and I’ve no idea how to go about this. So I live in a 3 bed detached with family, in the mornings the house temp drops to about 9 degrees, when working from home I pop the heating on for about 2-3 hours to get it to 13 degrees. It then drops as the day goes on back to around 9 degrees so I do the same in the evening, heating for 2-3 hours to get back to around 13 degrees. The heating is costing around £1.35 an hour so this is costing around £8 a day, or £243 a month. This is without electricity. I’m at a loss what to do, if I was to put my heating up to 18 degrees it would take hours and cost a fortune! I work from home a few days a week and while I’m layered up I’m so cold and keep getting ill. We can’t really afford to just say screw it and leave the heating on constantly. Does anyone have any advice please, I’m so cold and at my witts end
Re wfh - I have an oil filled radiator that I love. I can’t give you indication of running costs sadly but feel like they’ll have some rough calcs on product description pages? We’re in a v old/big house and the rest of house is currently 8-9.5 degrees
but my office is registering at 15 (the oil rad is at 20!) thanks to the heater.I turn the heating to 18 between 4pm - 8/9/10pm laundry and bedtimes dependent and on weekends if/when we’re in it’ll be on 18. November bill was only £100 which was a v pleasant surprise, we do have good insulation in certain parts of the house so am lucky that it’s retained.
I don't think you can really compare themostat temps. It depends so much on your system, house and position.
We live in an old drafty house. Themostat is put on to 16 in the morning and we adjust it up and down as needed. Turn it down to 14 when we leave the house and it works better for us to not go from freezing outdoors to a very warm house so turn it up when we get home to warm up gradually with the house. If we left it on 18 while it's nights like -5 last night then it would cost a fortune.
We live in an old drafty house. Themostat is put on to 16 in the morning and we adjust it up and down as needed. Turn it down to 14 when we leave the house and it works better for us to not go from freezing outdoors to a very warm house so turn it up when we get home to warm up gradually with the house. If we left it on 18 while it's nights like -5 last night then it would cost a fortune.
Hi! I am in Canada, yes I meant to put a £. We are on a fixed rate for electricity and floating for gas. Then city rates for water.
Our house is 2400sq ft, just the two of us. I am home all day during the week and my husband is at the office for work. Summer is a bit more expensive with the air conditioning and irrigation system. We don't have radiators here, we have vents in the floor which push the air out... I think the air flow heats more evenly than a wall radiator. The thermostat only comes on when it dips below 18 so the heat isn't constantly running. We are south facing so even in winter the sun heats up the house. I am originally from the Uk and new houses here in Canada seem to be much better insulated than those back home too.
I'm lucky that my 5yo loves the most simple things and top of her Christmas list this year was a new notebook and gel pens 
but on a serious note about christmas spending for the children this year we have really tried to keep a tight budget on it, but spread it out over half the year and started buying in August and then got bits each month. My kids don't have piles and piles of things, they have a few things that they have specifically asked for then allways an outfit for Christmas day and a few little stocking fillers choccys and bit and bobs. Weve allways said that christmas is about great food My and drink and spending time with the people you love. I was taught this as a child.
My daughters freinds parents have described spending thousands on christmas this year and I just can't understand it at all.
but on a serious note about christmas spending for the children this year we have really tried to keep a tight budget on it, but spread it out over half the year and started buying in August and then got bits each month. My kids don't have piles and piles of things, they have a few things that they have specifically asked for then allways an outfit for Christmas day and a few little stocking fillers choccys and bit and bobs. Weve allways said that christmas is about great food My and drink and spending time with the people you love. I was taught this as a child. My daughters freinds parents have described spending thousands on christmas this year and I just can't understand it at all.
My 9 year old has asked for an orange, a hug from her sister, a note book and a sewing kitI'm lucky that my 5yo loves the most simple things and top of her Christmas list this year was a new notebook and gel pens
My daughters freinds parents have described spending thousands on christmas this year and I just can't understand it at all.
11 year olds tutor group are doing secret santa
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