yup...
Last night, I dug out some wartime recipes and used up the veg in the kitchen making woolton pie - very nice and saved it from just going manky and getting thrown away.

We compost our veg waste (we have a *big* garden and I'd go bankrupt if I bought enough Fisons to do the job!), use old T-Shirts and socks as dusters, don't waste much and steer clear of ready meals. That and taking a packed-lunch to work probably saved enough to pay the electricity bill for the year, in all honesty.
(Chad, Mon 26 Jan 2009, 14:07, 3 replies)

people like you
make me go a big wobbly.
'yes we've got enough money to buy some new dusters,but we had these,they work and they were free.'
-weeps with joy-
(Fuckpig "That's not even a pound a midget.", Mon 26 Jan 2009, 14:09, closed)

well..
Whilst I might earn a decent wedge of cash, went to public school and all that jazz, I'm not rich or priviledged.

I went to the posh school by winning a scolarship, my dad worked 6 days a week (plus overtime and on-call) as an engineer/chargehand and my mum went out cleaning to make ends meet. During the last recession, my dad was sacked because he got asbestosis and had to fight for five years to get his pension, whilst the DSS screwed him out of money for eighteen months...I can remember times when we were praying that giros went in before bills went out on the same day or we'd lose our home. So, all the chavs whining about how they can't afford another new phone or have to buy their clothes from Top Shop, not Versace, can all just fuck off - they don't know what being poor or fighting through a recession is about. However, the point is that we got through and we'll do it again.

My wife's having a baby, so our income will come down, unless my bonus/pay-rise covers the difference (but not betting on it), whilst everything is going up in cost (bills, I mean - goods are nigh-on free at the moment!). So, I'm stressed, but we'll manage - by triming our cloth to suit and by being sensible.

So, no I don't waste money - we have a good lifestyle, but we don't go crazy and I'd rather spend £50 on taking my wife out for a meal than on sandwiches for lunch in London for a week. I cancelled my gym membership and rarely buy PS3 games (although I'll treat my wife to one now and again), as I'd rather work out and have fun by going snowboarding (at a snodowme) for a few hours - it costs less and unwinds me more.

So, the moral is that you don't have to be miserable in a recession, but you do need to be sensible and the best way of getting through is not to piss money away when there isn't a recession on. And to never, ever borrow money if you can help it - if you haven't got the cash, save up for it or you can't have it. Simple, really!
(Chad, Mon 26 Jan 2009, 16:04, closed)

i salute you.completely.

(Fuckpig "That's not even a pound a midget.", Mon 26 Jan 2009, 16:32, closed)

woo and yay for packed lunch
I make a much better sandwich than most cunts, so why would I want to spend £2.50 and above for the pleasure of buying one?
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 26 Jan 2009, 14:48, closed)

Shop-brought sandwiches
are fucking extortionate! If you look at the ingredients, you realise you're paying for the privilege of not having to buy in bulk and make twenty rounds of sandwiches cheaply. It's a joke.
( Noeli overtheshoulderboulderholderthingstraplatchboobs, Mon 26 Jan 2009, 16:42, closed)

I always do packed lunch.
Ok, I have the same lunch 5 days in a row (sandwich with some sort of sliced meat and some sort of salad, with marge and mustard or pesto), but it's cheap, tasty, made the way I want it, and I know exactly what's in it. I can't persuade my flatmates to stop using plastic bags when they do their shopping, so I use them to wrap my sandwiches in, at least that way they get reused.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Mon 26 Jan 2009, 16:01, closed)