Jumblie

 So ive been to at one of the posh villages this morning to a jumble sale and spent my whole budget for the month lol... these sort of jumbles are few and far between and when they opened the doors i was nearly barged to the ground in the rush by a gaggle of resellers determined to get what they wanted , i could have come home with so much more  if i had shot a few of them. But im happy with my haul and i noticed the couple of  loud resellers were getting really mouthy about some of the prices. Three trips to their laden car later, they were shooting off to another sale . so obviously the prices cant have been that bad . At that point as they drove away the old bloke running it shouted everythings now half price and we will take offers too now theyve gone. Had to laugh , but i have come away with a big bag of books lots of winter reading to be going on with , a 1970s Mrs Beaton and a few 50s kids books . a cardigan and a scarf  by some posh make and i have managed to buy two big lush red vintage rugs you know the kind they dont sell on Wayfair but they do sell in antique auctions . Struggled to get them to the car and can now barely move , but i was determined , ive wanted some for years and could never afford them they will spend a week wrapped in plastic with tons of Permethrin powder ,apparently they came from the manor house !! 

Blessed

 So another fun packed skint week on the horizon ..lol  the van has entered the garage and we await the verdict on how much damage it has done . Himself is still on his extreme economy drive , you know the one where we cant go out and hes no money for the groceries but the delivery vans keep arriving for him . Not that we needed anything im well stocked up, in the slow cooker i have a really weird version of chicken stew , son donated some vile extra spicy chicken portions and i defrosted them peeled most of the god awful orange coating off chopped them and added to a bag of stock from a garlic chicken , three years out of date white tinned kidney beans and all the dregs of last years dried veg , plus three aged sticks of celery from the fridge it smells gorgeous ..time will tell 

The slow cooker died last week i spotted a big crack in it , son had some amazon vouchers saved up, so i now have a blue one because they were £10 cheaper . I still had the huge slow cooker but thats for big chickens and joints , not that ive used it lately . the everyday sized one does us for 2 nights of stew of some description . As kids we both grew up on mystery meat stew and big wedges of bread and butter or dumplings . I sometimes think that its yet another out of fashion food kids miss out on .Sometimes you just have to feel blessed by what you have , with good memories and bad times in the background 

£30 and Counting

 So another week of the £30 food budget and off to the social supermarket , 3 red cabbages ,2 large bags of string beans , bag of mushrooms and a mountain of sprouts ,4 huge cooking apples , celery  , burger cheese slices one frozen curry , tin of potatoes tin of irish stew tin of soup and a pack of tiger buns didnt go anywhere else so saved the money till i picked himself up from hospital after a minor bit of repair and popped into little Tesco on the way back .  a big bag of 11p giant oranges, a load of bakery, yellow stickers bananas 25p  huge bag full .

Today has been prep day So ive microwave blanched all the beans and sprouts , just loaded the big slow cooker with redcabbage and apple for xmas and beyond , more apples from the garden for the dehydrator .

Best find of the week i decided to repot my scabby dead looking ginger plant to find 2 huge roots , so ive loads of fresh ginger , repotted two little nuggets and have bought the planter in for the winter funny what you can grow from a 10p Tesco dried up nugget of ginger .

My big question is why cant the food pantry get rid of a lot of the veg they are given?  I seem to be getting mountains of it . Im more than grateful the price of a cabbage in the Coop can be £2.50 , in fact i cant afford any of their fruit or veg its out of my price range. This isnt a food bank its a community waste initiative . i know energy prices are stopping a lot of people cooking but i use the slow cooker and microwave for practically everything . The mountains of exotic bread i sort of understand most people wont have a clue what to do with it if its stale , but why charge such a high price instore for it when theyre giving mountains away ?  Must admit on the veg front theres a couple of things id run screaming from the building about Advocados and Aubergines my pet hates ..lol

Bad Habits

 So off to the cat jumble i went , managed to buy a weird handbag bright yellow and furry , couple of books and it was fill a bag for £3 on the clothing front . so it had to be done . out of a bag full two items fitted such is life and if i can find a decent clothes rail by spring i may carboot my huge pile of dont fit which will have amassed by then .im a really odd shape and size so if i had to buy from shops or online it costs me an arm and a leg because it mostly doesnt fit , so ive given up on them and just buy a mountain of might fit from the jumble and sometimes get lucky.  It was the last carboot of the season so i dragged myself out of a nice warm bed and toddled off to Metheringham there was a good few stalls and plenty of buyers but it was really baltic and the frost light was on in the car , bag of veg, a couple of giant Kilners and 3 balls of wool , how will i cope till the Spring..lol  On the busy front im drying endless apple chips made pear jam that im told is to sweet ??  last of the pears used but still mountains of small apples. Highlight of life in a small village seems to be the antics of Mavis the escapoligist sheep , just the one sheep who because i get up early i seem to be bumping into an awful lot while walking the cats first thing it came with us the other day the cats looked suitably disgusted 

Economy Driven

 The repairs to our van are going to cost over £2000+ so at the moment the whole of our income has to be saved to pay it we are nearly there, we have barely spent a penny for 2 months and i was given a £30 budget for this month...lol ..i like a challenge . Anyway it was off to the Sleaford Community Pantry this morning thats a whole £7 for whatever this weeks list is , now i usually walk round and have a good look then sort of write a menu in my head with whats on offer, this week i got a big frozen pizza for himself and a big tub of cottage cheese for me , 5 shelf items , so a tin of potatoes and a tin of carrots , a tin of Fareshare soup bag of oats and some cheese nibbles ,  veg items so a bag of carrots , bag of tomatoes small cabbage , cress and large cucumber , freebies were all manner of spices so i got a box of some kind of indian chicken seasoning , then the lovely lady says its compulsory to take at least 4 lots of bread even if its just to feed your chickens , it seems they had a bread problem lol they had received an unexpected delivery of huge amounts of posh bread as the lady called it , nobody really wants it but to me this is a bonus i came away with 4 small sourdough loaves all have been sliced and garlic buttered and popped in the freezer , that will make a whole winter of soup bread , huge bag of different bread buns all weird and wonderful ive sliced and tomato pureed them for whatever pizza bits i may have, into the freezer again. Bread and butter pudding my favourite , done a huge one with dried egg , nobody will know if i dont tell them , i will portion some into the freezer . Now ive just got to make our favourite coleslaw with mayo and mango chutney . Pop into iceland to see if theres anything with a yellow reduced sticker got two big bags of some obscure fish fingers for £1.75 each . still had nearly £10 left so to the Moy Park chicken factory on the way home . £2 fresh chickens with todays date , southern fried chicken bits for himself x2 , 4 big kievs and a chicken crown for sunday  dont think i did bad out of £30 plus my endless prepper pantry just adds together all the obscure bits . Only thing im getting low on is milk but ive started to cheat and rinse out the cartons and refill with powdered , himself wont touch powdered milk but he never realises that ive done this for years when we are hard up 

Stocking Up

 So its that time of year , stock the pantry for winter , ive always got a pretty full pantry, but during the winter we dont get out much ..lol  crutches dont do well on ice so himself is pretty much grounded once that starts . 5 miles to find a god awful cheap coop bread loaf , a butchers we cant afford and a community market once a month for gold plated veg . But we are used to it, so its just stock up well this time of year and hope for the best . These days its cook as much in the slow cooker as possible and use the microwave for most other things . I dont batch cook because himself wont eat stuff thats been warmed up , however he will eat a crap ready meal with the nutritional value of hamster cage droppings. but give him soup or stew out of the freezer and he turns up his nose. Men are just weird. On a plus front i popped in M&S at just the right time the other day and filled a big drawer in the freezer with heavily discounted decent ready meals , they also have their soups on offer at 62p which makes them 2p dearer than the Tesco own brand ones so ive stocked him a bagful of them . Still struggling on the veg front most of it is unaffordable though im hoping to get to the Community larder this week , ive tons of apples and pears still so im still dehydrating them and canning them Theres little leeks in the garden and thats pretty much it , desolate windy weed patch sums it up this year . Dried stuff wise i found a decent offer on amazon for red lentils and mung beans so i ordered a box full , amazon is a weird mix of tread carefully and decent offers that even with the monthly fee can work out really good .  Im a fan of Maggi instant catering mash that you can get in big sacks but its now got very expensive its much the same as Idahoan and lasts all winter . I ordered Sun mash this time its powder rather than flake very bland and hard to mix but hey it was on offer and adding a bit of flavouring never killed anyone . Im missing having squash but not having seen any around the boot sales i would imagine nobody has many this year , i will wait for the day after Haloween for the cheap pumpkins..lol i noticed a single golf ball sized one has set on down the garden im not holding my breath , the Tomatoes having yielded not a thing have now decided to go mental and ive  a windowsill full of green ones ...Its been a funny old year garden wise and im finding that its that time of year when i get really fed up and keep just staring out the window when i should be full of life and getting on with things . Winter is coming and i bleedin hate it , hes already moaning he wants the heating on and its to early yet...lol

Rained Off

 Well i hope this helps my final bid to get the ruddy potatoes out of the ground , so what do you do when rain has reached the level of monsoon ? Of course you go outside and pick apples...lol . So its been apple sauce day today , i dont use sugar i just peel and chop with the posh apple peeling tool , glad i paid a whole £2 for it in the Spring at the car boot. Then boil them with minimal water so theyre at the mush with chunks stage , fill loads of old jam jars then boil for half an hour in the big jam pan , ive sat here counting the jars popping shut and it sounds like 100% sucess , if your tight like me you sometimes get the odd jar doesnt seal but im not wasting money for new lids this year , every penny needs to be saved for the van repairs . I did go to the carboot but that was to drop off a batch of ghastly china modern dolls , to someone who revamps them into Haloween creatures , she pays me well for them and i spent a whole 20p on a couple of hand towels because all the kitchen ones are missing . No idea what oily handed cretin that was!! 

So lets talk the world , im suffering from ostrich syndrome at the moment , you know dont mention the war , Armegeddon , plague etc etc etc , just ignore the news cos theres never anything good in it . Dont mention politics same shits different coloured ties.  We live in terrible times , where our opinions count for nothing, so i guess i will just stick my head in the sand and bugger on with life  

R Soles

 We did a second car boot sale yesterday , we had had heavy rain last night so it was very misty and gloomy daughter and her friend set up next to me . We had some big tarps that himself had chucked in the garden once he had used them once , whats new . Anyway i just flung everything on the tarp and left anything that the damp could damage in bags and boxes sold loads of stuff i wanted rid of for a quid or two but what really peeved me was early on a bloke who im well aware has a music shop come and offered me £1 each for some vinyl i  offered him them at £5 each and he threw them down and stomped off muttering . Now i was well aware that online a couple of the LPs sell online for over £30 each and they were immaculate . Later on i toddled to the loo and left the girls in charge came back and the crafty arsehole had offered them £3 for the whole pile and they took it . Now am i annoyed ..very..but i will share the story around and make shore that everyone at the boot sale is well aware of him , crafty arsehole hope he doesnt get many bargains now  

Whats Going On

 Today the dehydrator is hosting a fridge pity party , cucumber ends , last of a punnet of cherry tomatoes half an onion , celery trimmings and a sad tiny red cabbage , ground down this will make veg powder , great as stock powder or a couple of big spoons in a pan of mash . Still struggling with motivation on the apple front ..lol. they are everywhere.

Managed to do myself a bit of an injury while chopping down branches , twisted my back and couldnt move for a couple of days and then dropped a big branch on sons head so thats a work in progress at the moment .

We have now been a year of the builders over the road , they have built mcmansions instead of the eco homes on the original plans , ghastly things twice the size of the original plans , theyve been reported umpteen times for the huge bonfires they built next to the old farm buildings the idea being to smoke out the bats living in there , they have suceeded and are now demolishing the building and squeezing in another house , the fires are now being built against a giant sycamore with a preservation order on , doutless it will die and they can squeeze another property on there, what was originally to be just 4 eco homes has turned into a housing estate . In the world of planning these days once the original plans are granted they go back after 6 months and get granted whatever they want to change.  Dread to think who will move in to these monstrosities , 4 bedrooms with two retiree occupants is the norm . Why they cant put a bedroom tax on private properties I dont know  

Being Prepared

 Woke up at 4am for a change and got watching a few of The American preppers on You Tube while i added yet more granny squares to my mountain . Good grief half of them have gone biblically batty, quoting the bible , Revelations seems to be a favourite or theyre all about to be raptured , which i always think sounds a bit like the aliens coming to harvest theyre food crop . What is  going on ? are they putting something in the food? 

Meanwhile im sat here with the jets screaming overhead because its Cobra Warrior the airforces annual war games season , we have Italians Americans Canadians Polish all spotted in the Coop looking baffled , theres others here as well so the plane spotters are going mental . Being between two of the major bases its a bit like living on the side of a motorway during this exercise . Not sure what night shifts are on this week but its dig the ear plugs out time .

Managed to buy 3 books and a tshirt for son from the jumble , the carboot however fielded a load of plastic coated metal garden stakes for a bean row , the bloke had only used them this year and his beans much like mine yielded bugger all so hes given it up as a bad job , so i snaffled them and proceeded to javelin everybody as i wandered round with them , still looking at raised bed ideas I dont think im going to get any better at digging my concrete ground , all i know is that it has to be cheap..lol 

Winter Checklist

 So its the time of the year when i start to check off the stuff i need to get done for the winter , apart from the usual 10 tons of garden jobs that im not hurrying with due to disalusionment . The never ending saga of the jam jar lids that i finally have the right sort of , still havent figured out why all the bleedin suppliers cant put on , these will fit  a Lidl pickle jar or these fit a standard jam jar along with the size and the number of lugs . I have a huge box of jars seals lids etc etc that are unused but i figure they will be ideal if the freezer dies or we have a big power outage , himself doesnt like me canning meat based stuff but i know how to do it .  we cant afford a generator or solar big enough to power a large freezer .Still have to source the Camping Gaz cylinder that i emptied , nobody locally supplies it anymore so im waiting till im in town to go on a hunt . ive a mountain of apples to tackle but i could do with a few more cookers to make the apple sauce and pie filling a bit more tart  . Pears sit happily on the tree yet before i start making endless pear chips which i could happily eat all winter. Popped into the chicken factory shop today they were practically forcing big tubs of chicken drumsticks on you at 75p a tub so i got a load that ive bagged and split for chicken soup and stew for the winter . Got a big bag of veg from the Community larder that will be mainly dehydrated , they were also forcing carrier bags of broad beans on you which is no hardship they will be podded and blanched into the freezer they will go . Im missing the squash that usually sits on top of the kitchen units , nobody seems to have any so im not the only one had a massive fail this garden year . Noticed how well plants sell these days at the car boot so ive been frantically taking cuttings and splittings galore .

Jumble sale season is upon us now, the little Cat Charity has one tomorrow  so i will see what i can find just to annoy himself...lol

Meanwhile

 In the meantime ive not done a stroke of gardening , think ive lost the will to even venture into the depths . Best ive managed is popping a few mini daffodils in the planters round the door ive got a big tub where ive thinned out the ones in the back yard planters, how a dozen daffs have turned into a couple of hundred never ceases to amaze me. 

Himself has been a tad mentally challenged he blew up his new van on the way to Mablethorpe and we had to pay to have it recovered because Mr I know what im doing didnt bother to tick the recovery box on his insurance !!!  i havent said a word . The fact he was 3 days over the warranty about finished him its going to cost thousands for a new engine if it cant be repaired . Ho hum we will be skint till next year and there wont be any heating oil so he had better get used to it being cold . I have enough food and pet supplies to last 6 months so we will be fine . Im still off to the Jumbles no matter what he says ...lol 

On a plus note my cousin  rang me up whinging that mother had a black eye and she was being abused yet again trouble is theyd sent me the video already as she walked smack into her toilet door, he insisted that the doctor see her straight away , poor little love was there to see someone else so obliged , mother decided to attack her , nothing new but it rattled the poor girl .  As he said ..God shes fast, not sure if he meant mother or the doctor running for her life  

The Little Things

 Its been a busy sort of day , lots of online sorting out, then i finally managed to get some plums bottled , i thought they would have finished by now but theres a couple of shady branches left , theres nothing more satisfying than hearing the pop of the jars sealing shut . Nearly didnt get any canning done as i had no lids. himself having crushed and damaged most of them , everywhere on line was sold out of the ones i needed, found some only to find id ordered 4 lug instead of six , ordered a test lid from a different supplier only to find out theyre a drop shipper and they may arive next month sometime . The other supplier i ordered from sent a sample that was great , but they dont have any in stock AAARRRGGGHHH  managed to find 4 lids so that was this afternoons project . Himself wants plum jam , but i use Kilner orange tops for that and ive packs of seals for them so that will be later in the week ..its all go then its the cooking pears next, once lids arrive from somewhere...memo to oneself order loads of lids once the autumn rush is over.  Bleedin useless prepper thats me   

Temper Temper

 During the week i had a bit of a paddy , id a stack of boxes of stuff to go from the renovation , stuff id found bits of auction lots , etc etc  now this has been under my feet since June so i told them i was doing a car boot regardless of the fact i might die or cripple myself . I got the usual high level response my daughter offered to take it all to the charity shop but there was a few decent bits among it and i wanted a bit of cash . So yesterday i crippled myself loading the car and then it chucked it down it chucked it down during the night as well but i was still going and it turned out very humid but warm and i had two huge plastic sheets hed saved and chucked in the garden from when his gazebo died last summer . I just chucked it all on the ground and let folks get on with it . Daughter turned up so i could go to the loo and to look in bafflement at what id sold . Loads of 50s dress patterns , Sindy caravan and stable , lots of paperwork , big meat plates , bags of fabric scraps 2 boxes of knitting patterns and various weird craft stuff , i sold a good 3/4 of it then it chucked it down and i was home by half past ten ..lol  I made £45 which is good for me and now daughter wants to do one next weekend , she did say folks will buy anything at Metheringham , no we are very rural and you cant just pop to the shops all the time so we craft through the winter on budgets of pennies . I think it was worth my while but the folks either side were moaning they hadnt made a £100 this week !!! I did buy a couple of bits A half bag of king edward potatoes nice big bakers that will keep for the winter a whole £2  and an Alvingham Pottery toilet sign from 1976, id never seen before and i have a whole lot of Alvingham...lol

Spooky Stuff

 Heres a Mumsie post , we are having a few problems Mumsie is collaring everybody who visits her and announcing that she wants to go home , someone seems to have been filling  her with the idea of how much cheaper it will be . Its costing £1700 a week for her care and those who visit her for the odd hour here and there think it would be cheaper at home . Shows how much they know about the cost of decent care , she would require 24/7 attendence , shes still very mobile and can be quite aggresive at times , she has hallicinations really scary screaming stuff , she has no concept of time so theres no sleepy time or feeding time , so the care would need to be very skilled and theres the fact that shes so paranoid that shes constantly accusing her carers of assaulting her and stealing from her .

Now for the spooky stuff daughter went to visit at the weekend and Mumsie was talking to the people she sees around her , whole one sided conversations but then she told my daughter that they were all dead and were waiting for her .  Now i come from a family of spiritualists my great grandmother was a medium and talked to all her three husbands as if they were in the room , my grandmother was a regular attender of the church and i grew up with this as did my mother who hated it and labelled it all a freak show . Now i have seen things all my life and i have a son and grandson who do . Does this mean we all have a mental illness ???? Or is the world of Spirit just a genetic reality for some people ? Gran used to tell me as a kid not to worry because spirit cant harm us and ive done the same with my son and grandson ...Bunch of weirdos arent we..lol

Gardeners Curse

 Well this year has been a stunning failure in the garden , what hasnt been eaten has just failed to thrive , i suppose with an indian summer i may yet get a few squash , my corn has just never grown its about a foot high and thats it , the potatoes are tiny and i need a pickaxe to get them out of the ground , runner beans lush covered in flowers but hardly any pollinated , onions just sat and sulked .  Leeks however look good the only things thriving are the weeds and ive never seen them look so colourful and varied . Broad beans were great but are done now . Fruit wise theres tons of apples tiny but tons , plums are very late and doutless the gales are threshing them into a pulp , i picked a load a couple of days ago with the intention of canning them but then found that all the lids are mouldy so im waiting for more , the joys of having to keep everything in a shipping container during the renovations .  This is the first year ever that the garden hasnt earned its keep , but hey ho that is the nature of gardening . But i have to say the cupboard is bare of its usual jars of winter food and all i have is half a dozen jars of fruit from last year . Not even a single tomato this year so i may have to make an effort and venture to Stickney to the Polish guy who brings a van full every week , then spend a week canning ..ho hum 

Shoppin

 Now that Mr Bah Humbug is mobile i took him with me to Sleaford for this weeks little expedition , hes quite enjoying his freedom though he does get a tad irate when he gets folks bipping at him as the crane delivers his buggy to the ground in a busy car park disabled space , sorry for the inconvenience folks ..lol But then again he does very easily go off like a bomb and threatening to rip someones wipers off  and ram them up their arse in a busy car park is a tad excessive . But the guy was shouting that he had the right to a disabled parking space and it wasnt for delivery vehicles. When he calmed down we went to the community pantry , got veg including a marrow, mine once again have been eaten , i think  i may have a muncjak visiting  the rabbit wire is all intact so its got to be something that can jump , winter project i think trying to fence even higher with a zilch budget and no help grrrrr.  Anyway we have found a few shops he doesnt demolish with his muscle spasms and dodgy driving , he wanted to go round iceland and hes loading up with all the stuff he loves that i dont often buy  we get to the till and hes spent £87 on a bag full the look on his face was brilliant he hasnt been food shopping since before covid he hasnt shut up about it since .  lol

 

Prepper Tale

 Thought this might give some folks a giggle , i listen and watch a fair few prepper and survivalist blogs , podcasts etc  and the more you watch them the more you realise that there are a few extremist nutters out there, along with folks who are just fascinated with the ways you can be prepared . Himself is into the radio and cb scene and you get a few of the more extreme nutters on there , so im sat reading as he listens and chitters to folks all over the world . Then he starts rolling around in fits of laughter and this would seem is the story . A notorious local prepper nutter has been burying caches for the event on local roundabouts (just why?)  he had used the usual blue barrels but had then encased them in big oil barrels , the local council is doing local road alterations at one of the local roundabouts . You guessed it they hit one of these big metal drums with a digger . They then have hysterics and ring the bomb squad thinking theyve found a WWII bomb , full circus time with evacuations etc . robots the works . Anyway they quickly sussed that it was an oil drum, panic over , carry on digging .  Meanwhile the nutjob in question is all over the airwaves going off his head about the Council infringing his human rights , hes going to sue etc etc etc . The trouble is Himself and his partners in crime are busy egging him on . They have even suggested digging his other  caches up and putting in ha ha letters or filling them with stuff like cuddly toys .  Me i just hope i have the comman sense to not hang round for Armageddon , would you want to be stuck with the Camo clad nutters who plan to be left?

Chaos

 So by now everybody in other countries thinks their are mass riots in the UK , well thats according to all the news anyway , but really theres an awful lot of protest marches going off peacefully . I watched the "riots" in Blackpool then i watched actual footage from people who live there and regularly you tube about the place . More police than thugs seemed to be the rule , so the coppers gained lots of overtime , the thugs didnt get the result they wanted and the Punks had a good weekend at their rally . What i did notice in more than one video was the same  man young and smartly dressed chucking bottles at both sides of the argument and the police , then melting away and reappearing at another group . The police seemed to be concentrating on circling the groups of idiots then taking loads of photos which they didnt like much . Knock on the door for them once things are calmer I would think . They always go on about Muslim no go areas but theres far more estates where the police need to turn up mob handed for a simple arrest . I cant say im much phased by this its quite obviously been orchestrated for someones agenda  theres a lot of suspects including the current government the Tories , Putin  etc etc etc  but if you lived during the Miners Strike in a steel town and witnessed the cavalry charges and the truncheon happy coppers first hand this is nothing been made to look something by the media . There were more news crews than rioters at these happenings 

Stating to feel a Bit Monty Python , The Three Yorkshire Men ....Call that a riot ? 

Transport

 Well it would seem that our new rulers are continuing on with there plan to make PIP a voucher scheme , I have read some of the proposals most of the ideas floated are idiotic , some are good but the fact is it was originally floated by the Tories as a way of robbing the benefit back to the benefit of their donors . The problem with a voucher system is disabilities will never be a one size fits all situation . Currently theyve screwed the Motability system into the ground , the vehicles on offer are all electric the benefit wont cover even remotely the lease hire for the vehicles , theyre all huge vehicles as well . We bought a new to us van recently, hes saved ages for it , its a specific model that he knew could be fitted with a wheelchair hoist , to have a new hoist fitted would have cost well over 5k . Over the course of a few months he has bought all the bits needed from here there and everywhere and because he knows what hes doing but is physically incapable of doing it , he has begged hassled and annoyed every family member and friend into doing bits on it . Its brilliant it can lift his chariot and the wheelchair without dismantling them . All with change from 1k .  The proplem i see with the new voucher system is that it will make disability totally unaffordable for many . I know those who have to use taxis all the time because they cant drive , what use is that if you have no taxis ?  We got told he should use the Call Connect bus service but its not suitable for his particular disabilities. Had to laugh hes supposed to be able to get disabled road tax reduction but he cant get it because he has a van . Plus if your using the disabled tax scheme your vehicle insurers will likely double or treble your insurance . If the benefit is paid as cash it allows each individual disibility to cater to its needs and they are widely variable.