America's down grade and the Europe Crisis

Well what can I say about the new crisis hitting the world, I am unable to really understand how this is going affect me personally other than higher energy prices, which to be honest is nothing new as the energy companies use any excuse to put their prices up anyway. I have no credit apart from a very small mortgage, as I have never earned enough for the banks to trust me in the first place, which is not such a bad thing in long run as it must be a nightmare for those who have been living for years beyond their income due to credit. I find it amusing sometime as I have neighbours who have been doing this for years and look down their nose at me, simple because I don't have a  fancy car, nor do I constantly keep buying new furniture just because I am bored with the old, rather than a need for new furniture. Now they are all moaning they are being squeezed and defaulting, and how it is not their fault, what a joke, it is common sense not to live beyond your means. The governments are the same spending more than they get. and then moaning that it is a global problem and again it is not their fault to!!One has to wonder when will the world wake up to the fact our current system of borrow, borrow, borrow is unsustainable. It is a times like this when I actually feel it is an advantage to have live below the poverty all my life, simple because I am able both mental and physically able to deal with having no money, by growing as much food as I can in my own garden, never use the car for a local journey, whereas my credit borrowing neighbours go as far as to use the car to go to the local corner shop which is stones throw from their house, I do not have the same idea of pride either, they are to proud to grow veg, forage, buy second hand cars and not buy the latest designer furniture. Whereas I'm proud that much of my food doesn't have to come all the way from the other side of the world, I pick local seasonal fruit and salads for mother natures cupboard, I have an old banger lol that although not flash and shiny serves it purpose when I need to go on long journeys, I also share this old banger with my daughter as we didn't see the point in buying two cars, and finally proud I reclaim or make a lot of my own furniture, I fondly remember a coffee table I once made out of pallets which the kids loved when they were younger as it was so big they could sit on it to, it was unique bespoke piece of furniture which I made my self lol it lasted ow goof 15 years which I'm very proud of. So I guess poverty has always driven me to become proud of different things and inventive both in terms of living costs and making bits and pieces of money, whereas my neighbours don't actually have a clue what to do when the credit has dried up.

Busy Busy Busy

I was so busy yesterday I didn't have time to write my blog. Well what have I been doing? I spent the morning reading leases and insurance policies for my new very part time job lol, it felt very strange to think I'm going to receive payment for knowledge, this is new thing for me, prior to this I have always done manual work, i.e cleaning. I feel a bit uncomfortable taking payment for knowledge but I guess I will have to get used to it as I can not afford to give it away for free, simply because that is not the way the world works. It;s strange really because I don't feel so uncomfortable making clothes and growing plants then selling them for small profit. I guess it is down to the fact imparting knowledge requires no cash to buy materials in the first place, but it does cost to do the training so I guess I could look at it I'm covering those costs.

In the afternoon I spent the day at the hospital with daughter number 2, she has an infection which has decided it it doesn't want to die, great I now feel sorry for the infection lol I didn't manage to get much more done today as we were in the hospital for 3 hours grrrrr.

Benefits

I know I should be grateful that I live in country which has benefits available to those who need it but by God it is soooo complicated, I went on SSP for a few weeks last month, therefore claimed council tax benefit, however I also live with my daughter who changed job during this period of time. Which has resulted in total confusion with council tax benefit agency. I had to spend an hour going through all my paper work, even the lady helping me found it difficult, this is due to my daughter not working set hours, i.e one week she can work 1 hour next could work 40, resulting in having to make a new claim for council tax benefit ever other week, what a waste of time and paper. No wonder those on benefits stay on benefits. It really does amaze me that in this day and age of technology that our system  can not become more flexible to accommodate the fact that peoples circumstances can change very quickly.

Job Interview

Wow, I have got a very part time job, although not full time as I would like it is a job that hopefully I can grow. To be honest I'm grateful to my boss, because he was not thinking of taking anyone on until I wrote a speculative letter to him. I am very excited as I can at last put my law and business skills to good use yippee at last!! Still doesn't lift me out of the poverty trap, however it is step forward. So what else have I been doing ? Well I spent last evening on the web looking for jars to put my homemade jam and preserves in, but it turns out it is cheaper to buy Lemon curd from Asda at 22p a jar and empty contents in to bin, than it is to buy empty jam jars, I find this absolutely insane!!! I am also trying my best not to buy anything from the supermarket giants if I can help it but I don't know if my budget for jars can stretch to £1.00 per jar empty. Although they can be used again and again the difference in price is nuts. I'm going to have ago at making home bread with my grandson tomorrow I have never tried making bread before so bit of research is in order this evening, hopefully it will go well, and I can save a bit of money because the price of bread has gone through the roof in the last year. Well I'm off to visit a friend for a cup of coffee and a chat, probably about the injustices of the world and the disproportionate distribution of the world wealth in the hand of the few, be back later.

Come gain the skills to be self sufficient at Start Day! « Start Blog

Come gain the skills to be self sufficient at Start Day! « Start Blog

found this interesting but can not work out why Asda would be in partnership with a website promoting self sufficiency? Maybe they will change their marketing strategy to providing the various products a self sufficient person may need. Christ Asda get in everywhere grrrrr.

Plans for today!!

Seeing as the weather is nice, I'm going to make some more fire bricks, (I do hope it works lol) I'm also planting lots of plants from seed to hopefully sell at car boot sale next spring, I hoping thinking ahead will help, I'm also re potting runners off my strawberry plants hoping they will take so I can again sell them in the spring, I think I should do a bit of research to on all this plant growing as at the moment I'm unsure if they are going to work but one has to try.Later in the week I'm going to pick some wild fruit to make jam etc for the winter, I was out walking with family last week and was fortunate enough to stubble on wild raspberries, winberries, hazel nuts and finally the good old blackberry. I've also managed to acquire a small book by Richard Mabey: Food for Free which is proving invaluable in finding and identifying food which grows wild and since finding many of the plants and having eaten them it would be difficult to go back to shop bought products as they are so flavourless, if you have ever tried wild strawberries for instant you will be aware that those tiny little fruit pack a flavour punch way above those large shop bought strawberries, my daughters were amazed when we found some in the wild.

Bloody corporation, investment banks and pensions

While listening to to news this morning I found it interesting that the banks owned by the people of the UK aren't doing so well, however the investment banks are ok. Which to be honest is no surprise as those in investment banking will be making a fortune from borrowing money to the various governments round the world, although I do not understand banking or economics very well, it still seems crazy that the reason this crisis started is because of bad investments in the first place, now they are making more money out of it. Grrrrrrr. I'm also curious which investment banks  the governments of USA and UK borrow from, if anyone can answer this I'd be interested to know. Then there is the debate regarding pensions, the only thing I can say is how the hell are we suppose to save for a pension in private sector when many are on min wage which make it impossible to save anything as there is not enough to live on now let alone save for the future, besides the fact we have just seen what has happened to earlier generations of pensions being worthless. Which again doesn't make sense as if investment banks are doing ok why aren't peoples pensions ok as I believe that is where many pension saving are concentrated. As I said I am not very knowledgeable with economics but I'm not so stupid as not to spot these anomalies

weekend brainstorming with family

Well my daughter attended a car boot sale on Saturday and came back with an interesting idea to make a bit of extra cash, we are going to make some clothes, it has been a long time since I have done this but there is a huge market for reasonable priced large sized clothes, these were the first items sold at the car boot. In fact my daughter described it as a frenzy!! So I am now on the look out for discount fabric, I will update at later date whether we make any money out of it lol. Another idea which came to mind this morning was making coffee tables with old doors a table top, I spent a couple of hours this morning checking out average price for such a product and found I may be able to make a reasonable profit. Now I have to find the old doors, um maybe I should keep an eye out for new developments in my area when they strip the houses bare to turn into flat, again we will have to wait and see if this makes any money. I am currently busy making fire bricks for my wood burner made out of an old gas bottle, with price of fuel going up, up and up again I felt I had to find a way to heat my home which wouldn't leave me with another winter wondering which is more important food or heating which I know I am not the only one at the moment. I used to collect wood but legislation has now made this impossible and illegal, which forced me to think of new ways to heat my home, I now run up and down the road in the evening before collection day and take every ones old newspapers to make fire bricks, I haven't tried the bricks yet but I hope they would as they are very labour intensive, what this space lol

daily life

Like everyone else at the moment I'm struggling to survive, this blog is about my day to day life of just that and my various attempts to escape the poverty trap.