Well the day has come when the savings have gone, ive flogged everything of value and still cant pay the bills , unless theres some kind of miracle , I may be having to bite the bullet and face the fact that ive failed in life just as my mother likes to remind me at every turn .
Its been bad before but this time feeding another mouth has proved one straw to many the cupboards are virtually bare , nothing coming in , cant pay the rent and nowhere left to turn . What wage i have this month wont even cover the charges on my bank account . The cars will be coming off the road in the next month , phones will be cut off shortly , we have 3 months free internet but its not a lot of good if you have no electric ..lol
Im disgusted with the lot of them , Mr Bah Humbug is in cloud cuckoo land , but at least he managed to get his pre paid prescription card , so he wont die from not taking his pills and may even lose some of the weight hes piling on every week when he starves , he can still afford scooter parts , fishing and scooter rallies
My daughter just gives me big eyes and thinks im making things up , then goes out and orders more online crap and books her next weekend away , admitedly shes stressed out because her jobs looking a bit uncertain. Ive even given her the letters i dont see the point of opening and still she carries blithly on .
Son can always find money for fags out of his JSA , but coughs for electric or he couldnt spend all day online gaming ..
Munchkin still makes me smile , but not so much when hes whining that theres nothing in the cupboard .
Young Baldrick ...theres nothing nice I can say , hes just another non contributing mouth to feed .
Its as if im the only one who realises that we are in really deep do do ...
I would pack a bag and leave the lot of them if i had a vehicle without bald tyres and with an MOT and insurance , nowhere to run and nowhere to turn , not a jot of help from anywhere to be had . Cant even find agency work now ive turned 50 , which is what ive always done when times are hard So this is my edition of Benefits Street , im the person youve just voted the Tories in to make life even harder for , dont ever get to the stage where a family member becomes disabled because theres no help out there . When ive cheered up I will post more interesting experiences , theres been some interesting ones this week , sorry for this ode of negativity , but its how life is these days .
Friday, 29 May 2015
Monday, 25 May 2015
Hooray Hooray Its a Holiday
Apart from a little drizzle yesterday , just as i was deciding to go do another car boot grrrrr...its been that rarity a glorious Bank Holiday weekend . Cant remember the last time we had one .
my daughter took me for a spin to Carrington car boot yesterday , by accident we were on our way to Stickney and the road was shut, being a little directionally challenged it was where we ended up . Now they have a car boot the day before the Steam engine Rally and its full of the rusty stuff I love , if I had a bottomless purse I would have needed a lorry to get it all home , but hey on the poverty plan I came home with a couple of tablecloths , ten packets of seeds and a dozen eggs , that blew this weeks grocery budget ..lol
Garden wise its amazing what a gimpy bloke with a nail gun and a bit of imagination can knock up , heres my new super duper bean frame . Complete with polystyrene nuggets to cover the nails that are sticking up
Now this year ive had to face the fact that neither of us can dig and that the kids couldnt give a monkeys that we are broke so wont help , cos theyre all right jack!! , so everything has to go by the no dig method , plus the gardens like the amazon jungle . So its been weight boxes and sheets of plastic down till the weeds die then pop the plants in and mulch them to hell , im not trying much in the way of root crops just carrots and beetroot , but there will be hoards of brassicas once I get my cabbage cages made . Ive lots of different squash to go into the wild lands , that we just strimmer , pumpkins and marrows . with a few slug pellets they thrive among the weeds.
So its been a garden and babysit kinda holiday ....shame it doesnt pay the bills or provide for Young Baldrick who has been dumped on us once again !!
my daughter took me for a spin to Carrington car boot yesterday , by accident we were on our way to Stickney and the road was shut, being a little directionally challenged it was where we ended up . Now they have a car boot the day before the Steam engine Rally and its full of the rusty stuff I love , if I had a bottomless purse I would have needed a lorry to get it all home , but hey on the poverty plan I came home with a couple of tablecloths , ten packets of seeds and a dozen eggs , that blew this weeks grocery budget ..lol
Garden wise its amazing what a gimpy bloke with a nail gun and a bit of imagination can knock up , heres my new super duper bean frame . Complete with polystyrene nuggets to cover the nails that are sticking up
Now this year ive had to face the fact that neither of us can dig and that the kids couldnt give a monkeys that we are broke so wont help , cos theyre all right jack!! , so everything has to go by the no dig method , plus the gardens like the amazon jungle . So its been weight boxes and sheets of plastic down till the weeds die then pop the plants in and mulch them to hell , im not trying much in the way of root crops just carrots and beetroot , but there will be hoards of brassicas once I get my cabbage cages made . Ive lots of different squash to go into the wild lands , that we just strimmer , pumpkins and marrows . with a few slug pellets they thrive among the weeds.
So its been a garden and babysit kinda holiday ....shame it doesnt pay the bills or provide for Young Baldrick who has been dumped on us once again !!
Thursday, 21 May 2015
Daft Things You Notice About Being Poor
Well today I was going to show you the amazing things , id found at the car boot on Sunday , yes it was the first rain free sunday this season , so you guessed it I decided to do a car boot sale to fund a trip to auction this week and fuel. I sold some truly awful things , lots of strange 80s curtains to the Polish , who do seem to have a very different version of fashionable to the English . Blankets seem to be very popular with little old ladies and men still buy loads of engineering and car magazines , didnt make a fortune but it was all old ebay shop stock that i was sick of falling over . So guess what I bought ..lol.. yep a cauliflower, a celeriac and some more green beans because the damned pigeons have been at it again .
I was comparing notes with the lady on the next stall , who also has done car boot sales down the years . We got to discussing how times have changed.
Books dont seem to sell anymore has the world turned kindle?
Clothes and Shoes , you can sell tons of these where once upon a time nobody would buy second hand shoes .
Electrical goods , they are gone in a flash..OK that was a bad one .
Good Old Vinyl LPs are staging a big comeback , even the really bad stuff you couldnt give away a few years ago . Usually bought by hipsters with man bags
Veg plants may be the way forward , if they ever get round to building up the greenhouse , they were all sold in minutes . but then again have you seen the price of a tray of 6 cabbage plants in the garden centers?
Our next topic is shopping .
Last week after dropping Mr Bah Humbug off at Physio , I had an hour to kill so toddled to The Carlton Center , a small out of town shopping center at the top end of Lincoln . Noticed they had opened a Barnardos Children and a regular Barnados , wandered in and realised this was a named brand expensive Barnados , way out of my price range . Barnardos have tiers of shops from the £1.99 good ones, to the were next to a posh housing estate ones . I was somewhat cheered at the shoe shop next door to notice they had the shoes on my feet at £50 in the sales !! mine were still tagged and 50p from the jumble .
Now still having time to spare , I wandered into Dunelm , Started looking at curtains and nearly fainted £100 plus for a pair of made in China trendy curtains , bedding £109 for a bedspread !! I dont shop often but when did people leave their brains behind , never even if i won the lottery would i pay for overpriced tat like that .
So now I know why folks like bad taste curtains and bedding from the carboot .
I was comparing notes with the lady on the next stall , who also has done car boot sales down the years . We got to discussing how times have changed.
Books dont seem to sell anymore has the world turned kindle?
Clothes and Shoes , you can sell tons of these where once upon a time nobody would buy second hand shoes .
Electrical goods , they are gone in a flash..OK that was a bad one .
Good Old Vinyl LPs are staging a big comeback , even the really bad stuff you couldnt give away a few years ago . Usually bought by hipsters with man bags
Veg plants may be the way forward , if they ever get round to building up the greenhouse , they were all sold in minutes . but then again have you seen the price of a tray of 6 cabbage plants in the garden centers?
Our next topic is shopping .
Last week after dropping Mr Bah Humbug off at Physio , I had an hour to kill so toddled to The Carlton Center , a small out of town shopping center at the top end of Lincoln . Noticed they had opened a Barnardos Children and a regular Barnados , wandered in and realised this was a named brand expensive Barnados , way out of my price range . Barnardos have tiers of shops from the £1.99 good ones, to the were next to a posh housing estate ones . I was somewhat cheered at the shoe shop next door to notice they had the shoes on my feet at £50 in the sales !! mine were still tagged and 50p from the jumble .
Now still having time to spare , I wandered into Dunelm , Started looking at curtains and nearly fainted £100 plus for a pair of made in China trendy curtains , bedding £109 for a bedspread !! I dont shop often but when did people leave their brains behind , never even if i won the lottery would i pay for overpriced tat like that .
So now I know why folks like bad taste curtains and bedding from the carboot .
Friday, 15 May 2015
Its The Little Things
Another week of grinding poverty comes to a close , the baffling world of job hunting continues ..lol
havent achieved a lot this week at all , yet more endless form filling , on the one day I got out to go to work , I couldnt see anything interesting in the thrifts , not a jot of crafty pursuits , veg gardening proceeding very slowly , all my peas have been eaten by the damned wood pigeons yet again , im sure they breed them harder in Lincolnshire nothing scares them , you can literally walk up to them and stick a foot up there butt and they carry on munching .
We did manage to get updated to fibre broadband here in the back end of nowhere !!! its sort of scary , my poor old puter can hardly cope from 1mg to 38mg in the space of a day , we changed supplier as well because we could get line rental and broadband together for a decent saving and monthly billing , plus they were throwing around Sainsburys vouchers for changing !!! though it looks like a bit of a rigmarole to get them I will persist .
You know when things are bad when the highlight of the week is a jar of Roots & Wings Lemon Curd through the post , a little prize from my competition efforts . Its gorgeous and has a big MINE label on it . Ive tried to eat all the value Lemon Curds but theyre all so sweet that I cant stick them , this is lovely stuff, thick and tart . I could never afford it on the current £1 menu , but ive noticed that Approved sometimes gets bits and bobs of there stuff on , so I will keep my eyes peeled .
One of the highlights of spring is Garden Mary looking beautiful clad in clematis and then the honeysuckle , she makes me smile everytime i pop into the back garden , next door keeps moaning shes creepy , tough , we like her .
Heres another strange plant , has anyone else got the lime green leafed version on this , ive had this living in the same bucket for about 15 years , never potted it on changed the compost or anything and it seems to thrive .
havent achieved a lot this week at all , yet more endless form filling , on the one day I got out to go to work , I couldnt see anything interesting in the thrifts , not a jot of crafty pursuits , veg gardening proceeding very slowly , all my peas have been eaten by the damned wood pigeons yet again , im sure they breed them harder in Lincolnshire nothing scares them , you can literally walk up to them and stick a foot up there butt and they carry on munching .
We did manage to get updated to fibre broadband here in the back end of nowhere !!! its sort of scary , my poor old puter can hardly cope from 1mg to 38mg in the space of a day , we changed supplier as well because we could get line rental and broadband together for a decent saving and monthly billing , plus they were throwing around Sainsburys vouchers for changing !!! though it looks like a bit of a rigmarole to get them I will persist .
You know when things are bad when the highlight of the week is a jar of Roots & Wings Lemon Curd through the post , a little prize from my competition efforts . Its gorgeous and has a big MINE label on it . Ive tried to eat all the value Lemon Curds but theyre all so sweet that I cant stick them , this is lovely stuff, thick and tart . I could never afford it on the current £1 menu , but ive noticed that Approved sometimes gets bits and bobs of there stuff on , so I will keep my eyes peeled .
One of the highlights of spring is Garden Mary looking beautiful clad in clematis and then the honeysuckle , she makes me smile everytime i pop into the back garden , next door keeps moaning shes creepy , tough , we like her .
Heres another strange plant , has anyone else got the lime green leafed version on this , ive had this living in the same bucket for about 15 years , never potted it on changed the compost or anything and it seems to thrive .
Sunday, 10 May 2015
Diary of a Lax Blogger
Im still here folks , somewhat subdued and lackluster , but still here .
Still fighting benefit wars and losing the will to live , so what has this week had to offer inspiration wise . This week about the only thing ive managed to achieve is putting up the summer curtains , fibreglass roses and 10p from a jumble sale last summer , theyre all shaking there heads in horror and i just think theyre cheery and will probably disintegrate by the end of summer...lol
Well today its Pain Clinic with Mr Bah Humbug , its only taken 5 months to get this appointment so were hoping for some help . doubtless it will take hours.
Tuesday I may go tout my CV round a few agencies , fairly sure they wont entertain me due to my age but got to go through the motions .
Wednesday , a full days work , put the flags out , have a party then realize it will take months for them to pay me for it ..lol sadly this means that Mr Bah Humbug will have to venture to benefits land on his own , could be interesting on the grounds that his walking is dire at the moment and theres no disabled access or parking anywhere near the building.
Thursday , Auction at Market Rasen , if I have any fuel , I cant afford to buy , but I just need some adult company , that doesnt ask how things are at the moment .
Friday ...relax blog , pot on cabbage seedlings.
Add on to this endless domestic servitude , a week of munchkin minding , job searching cooking and living on a budget of zilch... etc etc.. seeking inspiration from a pile of vintage 70s womens magazines that i dont remember ever buying
Friday, 1 May 2015
Ohm...........Benefits Land
I was struggling with the concept of blogging today when we got a phonecall. Yes its the Department of Work and Pensions , good old DWP for Mr Bah Humbug . Very polite lady who informed us that because it was a Bank Holiday Weekend , they had put the results of Mr Bah Humbugs last medical in the post , but were ringing us to inform of the results ....
Yes could we have them
We are sorry to tell you you will no longer receive any Employment and Support Allowance ESA
OK errr
What your partner needs to do is apply for Job Seekers Allowance JSA
But hes classed as severely disabled and it was JSA that told him he must apply for ESA Just a minute , he has a sick note till June saying he is unfit to work .
That doesnt matter he must re apply for JSA
Please could you tell me how many points he got at the medical .
He scored 0 out of 15
Isnt that impossible , that would mean hes perfectly fit ?
That is correct
But hes just been given disability payments from a medical with you 2 days before this one .
Thats to help with the expense of his disability.
But youve just said hes perfectly fit .
There are different criteria for this medical , if you can sit through the 45 minute test then your perfectly fit for full time work .
So nobody can pass it then?
OK we would like to lodge an appeal . I gather we can have a full copy of the medical report as well
We will post it to you , you cannot appeal until you receive these documents
So thats it back at square one again , Mr Bah Humbug says hes going away to die because thats all hes worth . Meanwhile ive got to start the whole sorry procedure of appeals , which i gather will take months during which its likely we will be living on his bit of disability and my scabby £50 a week , guess its back to living the £1 challenge for us all yet again .
Just so sick of it all , every night theres programmes on the TV showing benefits claimants living the life of Reilly, disabled folks off winning olympic medals in the normal olympics and bleedin Gwyneth Paltrow buying a basket of limes as groceries .
The reality of it all is very different week in week out
Yes could we have them
We are sorry to tell you you will no longer receive any Employment and Support Allowance ESA
OK errr
What your partner needs to do is apply for Job Seekers Allowance JSA
But hes classed as severely disabled and it was JSA that told him he must apply for ESA Just a minute , he has a sick note till June saying he is unfit to work .
That doesnt matter he must re apply for JSA
Please could you tell me how many points he got at the medical .
He scored 0 out of 15
Isnt that impossible , that would mean hes perfectly fit ?
That is correct
But hes just been given disability payments from a medical with you 2 days before this one .
Thats to help with the expense of his disability.
But youve just said hes perfectly fit .
There are different criteria for this medical , if you can sit through the 45 minute test then your perfectly fit for full time work .
So nobody can pass it then?
OK we would like to lodge an appeal . I gather we can have a full copy of the medical report as well
We will post it to you , you cannot appeal until you receive these documents
So thats it back at square one again , Mr Bah Humbug says hes going away to die because thats all hes worth . Meanwhile ive got to start the whole sorry procedure of appeals , which i gather will take months during which its likely we will be living on his bit of disability and my scabby £50 a week , guess its back to living the £1 challenge for us all yet again .
Just so sick of it all , every night theres programmes on the TV showing benefits claimants living the life of Reilly, disabled folks off winning olympic medals in the normal olympics and bleedin Gwyneth Paltrow buying a basket of limes as groceries .
The reality of it all is very different week in week out
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)