Discontent #7 food, energy, transport, cost of living, society etc

[WilmaHun]

Its definitely still doable to dry outside. I put an eco wash on in the evening and peg out at 7am. It definitely needs the full day now but also even if it doesnt fully dry outside its less time in the dryer or on airers!

I agree. I'm still putting mine outside too, like mentioned above, if the ground is dry your washing will dry. I bloody love line dried washing I'm not ready to give it up yet for the rest of the year

 

[CrystalWench]

I've just cancelled our weekly shop with morrisons for ocado this week.£20 if you spend £70 and free delivery. I've stocked up on canned food. The biggest surprise is m&s bread is now cheaper than morrisons along with milk, yogurts and cheese. We've said we'll review each week which is cheaper.

Our energy supplier want £388 per month going forward. It's ridiculous and completely unsustainable. We've been talking about single hob meals, slow cooker meals etc. It's ridiculous when we're both decent earners.

People keep looking at me like I’ve grown another head when I say M&S has been cheaper for me than anywhere else, including Aldi. Mainly because I don’t go buying things I don’t need but also they do have really low prices on the essential things.

 

[MissTeddy]

The primark fleece lined leggings are absolutely amazing - I buy a few pairs every winter and they are literally the warmest things ever.

 

[Purrrrrrr]

Yes, I have a lot of friends who's entire life is on tick & bnpl

I think it's very scary. They could lose everything and for what? status symbols that no one other than other status symbol carers ( can't think how to word that) gives a shit about?

 

[underwhelmed1985]

My health visitor advised us to use a hot water bottle to warm up the crib BEFORE putting the baby in. They also told me a cold baby will cry, but a hot one may just overheat. Definitely worth doing layers but read the Tommy's / lullaby trust guidance for sure.

my sister puts it more brutal than this “cold babies cry, hot babies die” brutal but it bloody stuck with me!

 

[JoeBloggs]

My energy supplier has put my bill down by £40 per month all be it, it has still risen 110% since my fix ended.

 

[Fauxphiehinchcliffe]

I have a kallax unit in the understair cupboard. When I sorted out under there last winter (pregnant and reorganising the entire bloody house ) I made a ‘power cut box’ with torches, batteries, lighters, candles matches, and some blankets so I always knew where those things were as they seem to wind up stashed everywhere round the house and when you’ve a power cut you can’t see to fumble around various drawers for matches etc. tempted to sneak some chocolate bars in there although ironically the power cut box is virtually inaccessible now as there are bags and bags of baby clothes etc in the way sorted and ready to be posted should they sell on Vinted

I’m wondering how realistic the headlines are about blackouts and energy shortages in the UK? I’m not sure how much is catastrophising and fear mongering and what is a realistic possibility.

 

[emmer_moans]

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.View attachment 1557642

Surely very few businesses can afford such a hike? It would be such a shame if so many shut

6000 a year to 30,000 a year?

Also how are schools supposed to be able to afford this on their tight budgets?

 

[Skyeball]

I've just bought oodies for the kids which was a bit of a stretch on top of having to get more clothes for them and I'm looking forward to payday.
However, it is chilly tonight and I can feel the nip in the air, even in the house but I haven't had the heating on at all because of the oodies. (And the thick bedspreads on the adults bed that we've had for a couple of years)
The kids actually said they were hot before they went to bed. Definitely recommend them if it's in budget.

 

[emmer_moans]

A lot of negativity in the comments people feel she’s being patronising when she’s got so much wealth ,able to pose for Vogue in the midst of a crisis .

It doesn’t sit right that she can dismiss peoples’ legitimate fears about feeding themselves and heating themselves this winter. Just because they are at war doesn’t mean we aren’t in for a rough ride too. The UK is one of those helping Ukraine, why is she patronising us?

 

[emmer_moans]

It’s a bit chilly here today and yesterday, but not cold enough for heating, however I have cracked out the heated airer to dry things like socks as this week the washing started to smell a bit mouldy as was taking longer to dry. I don’t have space for a tumble dryer. I’ve got the window open to help air the drying clothes too, it has made the house a bit chilly but I’ve started wearing socks and joggers again in the house. I wonder if it feels relatively colder because we’ve had a long summer where it rarely dipped below 18 degrees? It’s not that cold but it just feels sudden, if that makes sense?

 

[Thetruth123]

Does anyone else feel like the supermarkets are getting bear again ….for the last week I’ve really struggled to buy fresh meat , nappies in size 6 , bottled water and then just bare parts of some of the shelves ….it’s very odd

 

[jackolantern]

Sainsburys was like Armageddon has hit today. Back to lockdown vibes. They had my crunchie bars tho so not all is lost

 

[Yel]

I wish ofgem were better at using social media. Martin lewis is getting so many followers and shares from repeating information from their site. It really would be better coming from the organisation itself. Some gov departments do it well.

 

[Thetruth123]

First day of secondary, £3.20 for a wrap, flapjack and tiny drink!

Oh don’t get me started on my daughters secondary school lunch time food!! She sent me some pics of just how bad the food was once and the price was shocking ! £3 for a tiny slice of pizza with hardly to no cheese dry tomato sauce , hard pasta with sauce and cheese , dry rolls with a cheap nasty slice of ham oh the list goes on !! She was getting through £15 / £20 a week and the portions were shocking !!!! So I refuse to give her money for lunch at school either a Tesco meal deal or a packed lunch now!! It’s so sad how these private catering companies run these things back when I was at school the dinner ladies were employed by the school and the school purchased the food no profiteering and I remember my lunches being really good value !!

And that wasn’t even long ago like 15 years ago!!

 

[jackolantern]

Trying to batch cook spag bol, lasagnes things like that for the freezer. But really our food shops are costing £100 a week at the minute and we are still having to go back halfway through the week for milk bread and things which is usually another £25. Its getting ridiculous, im trying but nothing im doing is cutting it down. Now its September ill be getting my soup maker out and ill be having wonky veg soup most days for lunches meat is going to be something we have much less I think, to my other halfs dismay

We've noticed this too, midweek top up's are starting to cost £20-30 for fuck all, I seem to come out with some milk, bread, juice and maybe a bit of meat and have spent a fortune

 

[Jc456]

Asda always had a value range, they've just changed the packaging. There was something in the news about it being yellow and standing out your buying value then everyone's went crazy for it

 

[Sglodion]

Re. the news, I got extremely anxious when the war in Ukraine kicked off and eventually worked out that for me the best way to manage it was checking the BBC headlines once a day in the morning and then switching off from it. Avoid the Guardian (doomy), the tabloids (hysterical) and opinion pieces/online speculation (pointless, no-one can predict the future), but the BBC headlines usually just give the main facts using quite neutral language. Personally, when I tried staying away from the news altogether it just caused my imagination to run wild and come up with worse scenarios than what was actually happening. YMMV though.

 

[Doctor_Wibble]

Other stuff noticed while obsessing over the power usage display because when it was shiny and new you spent hours staring at the thing...

A 2kw fan heater was using around 1.8kw when on full.

The 240w rated fridge only ever gets near that when firing up for a cooling cycle and would then run at about 60-80w.

The laptop says 40w on the power supply brick (needed a magnifying glass to read it) but that's another 'up to' thing, being the max rating for it. Not sure of actual usage but it's going to be well under half that.

The (old) desktop PC with the 300w rated power supply was using about 100w normally, but 120w while starting up.

The central heating even when off would do a pump cycle twice a day, for less than a minute at about 40w.

TLDR as noted in various posts, many of the numbers being waved about in the flurry of clickbaity media omg's are total horsebollocks.

 

[Jc456]

Just seen our local town aren't likely to have Christmas lights due to the cost