|
Do you prefer the extended summer thread format? This poll is closed. |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Yes |
|
126 | 44.21% |
| No |
|
39 | 13.68% |
| I'm Scottish |
|
120 | 42.11% |
| Total: | 285 votes | ||
|
Guavanaut posted:It's like the euphemism treadmill that took place elsewhere (e.g. in mental health) where you start off calling people 'vagrants' and 'asocial' and 'insane' and things where the implication is that it's an intrinsic moral flaw or they're doing it on purpose to piss you off, so off to the poorhouse or prison or asylum, then that gets you eugenics and Hitlers and everyone goes "oops, well that wasn't us" and you get a move towards language like 'homeless' and 'unintegrated' and 'mental illness' where the focus is at least in theory on addressing the issue and helping the person rather than work camps, then suddenly there's no such thing as society so we can't do any of those things but you can still ratchet the euphemism along without actually doing anything. It feels like that kind of process where people are aware that the word homeless indicates a bad thing, but then instead of adressing the actual problem they just shift to a word that doesn't have those negative connotations. E: bog 
Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Aug 31, 2021 |
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 22:24 |
|
|
My last dental emergency was about 10 years ago where I had developed an abscess underneath my wisdom tooth. I was not registered with a dentist at the time. Ended up going to the Glasgow Dental School and had four extractions done on the same day, total cost came to £0 along with a free prescription for Ibuprofen.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:08
|
|
|
knox_harrington posted:If you have an actual dental emergency, which should be fairly rare, there should be some way to get treatment. Not saying I don't believe you but it isn't really worth most people keeping thousands specifically in liquid £ for. It wasn't quite that emergency of an emergency but a situation which could not prolong lest more teeth were affected. And to go to Cardiff would involve me in over £150 of taxi fares and / or 3+ hours on a bus each way with an overnight stay in between! My (adult) niece has a major problem at the moment with a wisdom tooth extraction (NHS) which has gone badly wrong. She's in excrutiating pain and my sister took her to a dental hospital (not the Cardiff one) and the consultant essentially laughed at her and said something along the lines of 'do you expect me to magic a dentist out of thin air'? So she's still in agony after 10 days and 'nothing can be done'.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:14
|
|
|
Jaeluni Asjil posted:It wasn't quite that emergency of an emergency but a situation which could not prolong lest more teeth were affected. Well that sounds like it sucks and I am absolutely in agreement that the state of NHS dental services is dreadful. I don't think it's something everyone needs to keep money on hand for unlike the US equivalent where any kind of emergency medical care is potentially ruinous - and so don't think the standard US advice to keep 3-6 months in a cash account makes sense for Brits.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:19
|
|
|
knox_harrington posted:The internet advice to have X months expenses or Y thousand as an emergency fund is hugely skewed by US views, where healthcare is super expensive and always has some out-of-pocket component to be covered, IMO. Even without health care costs, 3 months outgoing is very sensible. If I got fired tomorrow (and I easily could be thanks to the lib dems helping change rules around protections) I need to pay bills somehow until I got a new job. 3 months to find a new job is pretty common. But yes beyond 3-6 months you should be putting it somewhere more sensible than savings account.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:22
|
|
|
knox_harrington posted:Well that sounds like it sucks and I am absolutely in agreement that the state of NHS dental services is dreadful. If you could just draw up a list of who exactly needs to have spare cash on hand that would help. Clearly some people do, some people don't. And yeah the UK is not (yet) at the hellworld level of the US but just saying "put all your cash into your pension because NHS" is a bit mad, people have complex lives
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:24
|
|
|
*runs into the thread wearing a bloody woollen hide* I guess you could say that today he really.... alpacked it in
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:26
|
|
|
Mega Comrade posted:Even without health care costs, 3 months outgoing is very sensible. If I got fired tomorrow (and I easily could be thanks to the lib dems helping change rules around protections) I need to pay bills somehow until I got a new job. Except then you run the risk of being locked out of your savings for 12 months when, say, a pandemic hits and your special high interest savings account stops allowing withdrawals for a year! (Source: me - this happened and I would have been in poo poo if I had still been renting instead of having bought this place 3 months before lockdown and without the wherewithall to pay out council tax and service charges for several months in a cash account. If I'd been having to find rent £600pm instead of s/charges £116pm I just couldn't have done it.)
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:27
|
|
|
Julio Cruz posted:I think 3.5 years of a miserable and joyless existence is entirely unrealistic for a lot of people, really Bobby Deluxe posted:It feels like that kind of process where people are aware that the word homeless indicates a bad thing, but then instead of adressing the actual problem they just shift to a word that doesn't have those negative connotations.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:32
|
|
|
Jaeluni Asjil posted:If only people would stop buying avocado toast, Starbucks, and 55" plasma screen tvs with a full Sky sports package. Yeah, I was going to say that post had gone full avocado. I've saved six months salary in the last 18 months, but that's been achieved by almost never leaving the house. It's amazing how much you don't spend when you're completely unable to eat out, meet friends, go on holiday, or anything else. It's almost as unhealthy on a psychological level as catching COVID-19 is on a physical level, but sure, you can do it. But doing it voluntarily or thinking it's a good idea that someone else do it requires a level of skullfuckedness that I don't like to consider. E: that isn't to do down people with genuine mental health issues that prevent them going out. Those people aren't doing it voluntarily.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:34
|
|
|
Jaeluni Asjil posted:Except then you run the risk of being locked out of your savings for 12 months when, say, a pandemic hits and your special high interest savings account stops allowing withdrawals for a year! (Source: me - this happened and I would have been in poo poo if I had still been renting instead of having bought this place 3 months before lockdown and without the wherewithall to pay out council tax and service charges for several months in a cash account. If I'd been having to find rent £600pm instead of s/charges £116pm I just couldn't have done it.) How does being locked out of your account make you worse off than having no emergency fund in the first place though? I'm curious to hear what kind of savings account can up and change its terms without allowing you to close it cos that sounds illegal to me.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:44
|
|
|
Jedit posted:Yeah, I was going to say that post had gone full avocado. I've saved six months salary in the last 18 months, but that's been achieved by almost never leaving the house. It's amazing how much you don't spend when you're completely unable to eat out, meet friends, go on holiday, or anything else. It's almost as unhealthy on a psychological level as catching COVID-19 is on a physical level, but sure, you can do it. But doing it voluntarily or thinking it's a good idea that someone else do it requires a level of skullfuckedness that I don't like to consider. "gone full avocado" I love that expression. I'm going to steal it for future reference on fizzogbok.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:45
|
|
|
It potentially makes you worse off than just keeping it in a normal savings account you can access at any time.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:45
|
|
|
Oh my god jo swinson has combined her two favourite things in the world. https://twitter.com/mulegirl/status/1432691969378041864?s=19 Spoilered for... stuffed animals I guess?
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:49
|
|
|
Mega Comrade posted:How does being locked out of your account make you worse off than having no emergency fund in the first place though? OK say I was still renting. I would not have been able to pay the rent. So it doesn't make it worse than having NO emergency fund but it makes it worse than having A sufficient reserve in a cash account. Re the type of savings account, it's more an investment account - in terms of risk I place it halfway between a regular savings account paying 0.000000000000000001% interest and the ups and downs of the stock market. And what's more they've ed: taken* £5k off me too since last November  On the other hand, the interest I was getting before I bought the flat was sufficient to cover most of my rent which as I was unable to find a job (not being a driver and with lovely public transport, I can't look outside of the town) I now have the one and only admin job - part time - advertised in 5 years in this town. Everything else was/is hospitality, care or retail requiring a lot of standing which my problems with my leg would have made impossible for me to do and not because I'm a snob about jobs. (I had a p/time job as a pub cleaner for a few months when I first moved into the town but had a dust up with the management and quit. They had 13 new cleaners in 3 years before I stopped looking at their ads.) *ed: thanks to Brendan VVV for pointing out I was using a word which doesn't mean the same now as it did when I were a lass. Jaeluni Asjil fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Aug 31, 2021 |
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:52
|
|
|
Jedit posted:Yeah, I was going to say that post had gone full avocado. I've saved six months salary in the last 18 months, but that's been achieved by almost never leaving the house. It's amazing how much you don't spend when you're completely unable to eat out, meet friends, go on holiday, or anything else. It's almost as unhealthy on a psychological level as catching COVID-19 is on a physical level, but sure, you can do it. But doing it voluntarily or thinking it's a good idea that someone else do it requires a level of skullfuckedness that I don't like to consider. Ok sorry for being that avocado bootstrap guy. In my defence I did spend my 20s where every spare penny went on tobacco and weed, which resulted in me considering a month where I was into my overdraft with only 7 days to payday a sensible and adult time. Living more like a savings maniac in the last few years has shifted my perspective on spending, and it's just so much easier to breathe when you know that you wont starve for at least x months if you lose your job. keep punching joe fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Aug 31, 2021 |
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:53
|
|
|
Jaeluni Asjil posted:since last November That word might not mean what you think it means. 
Brendan Rodgers fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Aug 31, 2021 |
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:55
|
|
|
It is what harold enfield does with his wads of cash.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:57
|
|
|
My boss and I were chatting yesterday. When I was about 20 and up to my eyeballs in debt (I had an Access card - who else remembers those - and treated it like 'free money' for a few months) I shelled out £120 or maybe £250 I can't quite remember - for a particular charitable cause that has been hot news lately - over 40 years ago that was a lot. She asked me why, and I said "I was so much in debt - £000s - that another £120 on top was nothing." She said she'd been the same at a certain point - once you are in big debts relative to income, and paying it off looks completely hopeless, a bit more is like 'so what' whereas if you're just a relatively small bit in debt it's easier to be more careful.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 15:59
|
|
|
Brendan Rodgers posted:That word might not mean what you think it means. Oops - I'll go back and edit - shows my boomer age.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 16:00
|
|
|
Jaeluni Asjil posted:OK say I was still renting. I would not have been able to pay the rent. So it doesn't make it worse than having NO emergency fund but it makes it worse than having A sufficient reserve in a cash account. Right yes, I probably wasn't clear. An emergency fund should always be in an account you can withdraw from at the drop of a hat, even if it's the case that the interest causes it to lose value. Once you've saved up that fund, you put anything on top either in your pension or a S&S isa (or both) Also it's wise to have the emergency fund in a different account to your main one incase your account gets frozen for whatever reason (say for example a purchase triggers some money laundering flag) , your hosed until its resolved. This happened to a friend when they cashed out some crypto.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 16:05
|
|
|
Jedit posted:Yeah, I was going to say that post had gone full avocado. I've saved six months salary in the last 18 months, but that's been achieved by almost never leaving the house. It's amazing how much you don't spend when you're completely unable to eat out, meet friends, go on holiday, or anything else. It's almost as unhealthy on a psychological level as catching COVID-19 is on a physical level, but sure, you can do it. But doing it voluntarily or thinking it's a good idea that someone else do it requires a level of skullfuckedness that I don't like to consider. Financial security doesn't just mean having some money to spend when your income isn't enough, you need more income for that. & then a lump sum in case you lose that income. And then, the really important bit: a society that facilitates being able to find work at a living wage within a reasonable period. Since we don't have that last bit I'm just gonna spend all my money on nonsense thanks, if I can't have financial security I'll just try & have a nice time instead thx *takes a big drag on a lit avocado*
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 16:05
|
|
|
Jedit posted:Yeah, I was going to say that post had gone full avocado. I've saved six months salary in the last 18 months, but that's been achieved by almost never leaving the house. It's amazing how much you don't spend when you're completely unable to eat out, meet friends, go on holiday, or anything else. It's almost as unhealthy on a psychological level as catching COVID-19 is on a physical level, but sure, you can do it. But doing it voluntarily or thinking it's a good idea that someone else do it requires a level of skullfuckedness that I don't like to consider. I don't do most of those things, or I do them rarely (like eating out), and I don't think i got mental problems or a bad life quality. Quite the opposite, I like that my life isn't based around consumption.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 16:16
|
|
|
Yeah, it didn't work out well for Geronimo the alpaca.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 16:16
|
|
|
Mega Comrade posted:How does being locked out of your account make you worse off than having no emergency fund in the first place though? If you think you'd be able to explain your circumstances to anyone involved in this process then you've clearly never dealt with the British welfare system. Guavanaut posted:Autistic people have leveled this at people pushing 'people with autism' And I find the kind of relentless positivity of 'you're not disabled, you can still do things' is the smiling, liberal end of a mentality the tories have conflated into their absolute refusal to pay anyone any kind of benefits.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 16:22
|
|
|
Mega Comrade posted:Right yes, I probably wasn't clear. An emergency fund should always be in an account you can withdraw from at the drop of a hat, even if it's the case that the interest causes it to lose value. And keep an eye on accounts which were with separate institutions but then suddenly aren't. Eg Lloyds and Halifax! I had this policy after experiencing the trauma of a malfunctioning debit card which wasn't replaced for weeks because the bank assumed that when I said it had stopped working I must have meant I'd mislaid it at home and would find it again :rollyeyes: The reason it stopped working was because I went through a machine at the airport about 10 x because it kept squeaking and myself and the Hofficers were trying to figure out why as I had turned out all my pockets. Guess what it was? The little metal skulls fixed into the back of my leather jacket. Anyway, while going through the machine once doesn't affect cards, turns out that going through 10x does (or did anyway, this was about 25 years ago). Anyway, I digress. So I started the Halifax as a separate entity. But now for the last few years they've been joined up so if I make a change to my address in one, it automatically changes in the other. So I started a third completely separate bank account (so far unconnected!) 
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 16:40
|
|
|
keep punching joe posted:Well ok, at first glance it seems like an unachievable goal, but is it? Just want to pick up on this with regards to the median income stated above. The most up to date statistics from the ONS don't bear these numbers to be correct. I did find a source for the £31,000 median income, but that was GQ who also appears to have done the maths wrong. The data from the Annual Survey for Hours and Earnings (ASHE) show that the mean salary in the UK was £572.70. This report was in November 2020 so the number will have gone up a bit since then. but at that point it was £29,700. The MEDIAN however is only £479.10 per week. So considerably lower at £25,000 a year. A lot of people are not even earning the average salary, It's massively increased due to the London figures which are Average £41,000 and Median £33,250. Rental costs Found Here are pretty stupid across the country now, with the Median rent now being £730 per month (Average £864). That's a massive chunk of salary for a large proportion of the residents of this country. It's not surprising that a lot of people don't have savings of any decent size.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 16:51
|
|
|
Jedit posted:........ Ahhhh... you've basically described my sweet spot  and iv'e more or less been in it for over two decades.  I'm sure i'm at the weird end of the social bell curve but that doesn't make me feel any less content with my life.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 16:54
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/jimwaterson/status/1432708402870951948
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 16:55
|
|
|
On the subject of money though. I'm in the very privileged position of having increased income while still living like the cheap bum I have for the past 20 odd years. So I'd like to put some of that excess towards some charitable causes. Can the thread recommend some good charities to me please? Maybe something for animals and another for maybe the unhoused as we have been recently discussing them. I'd prefer something where I felt my money was making a difference instead of paying for slick adverts.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 16:55
|
|
|
There's always the UK Megathread Solidarity fund which goes to assist the readers of this thread. And no expenses are taken out for dodgy adverts or salaries as the shitposting is given to you all free of charge.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 16:57
|
|
|
I don't know if I would characterise my lack of interest in that sort of stuff as a brain problem, I mean yes I do have brain problems and I could probably draw a line between formative trauma and my social reclusiveness, but on the other hand at what point is that simply who I am? The adaptation to minimise consumption I consider to be advantageous, and I experience neither joy from, nor need of, a lot of things that other people do. E: also re: charity I just give people on the street money which seems better than giving it to some charity to keep charity bosses in a job.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 16:59
|
|
|
Give Directly is always an option if you want money to go directly in into poor people's pockets. 88% of donations ends up in mobile money accounts of the poor in East Africa, with the other 12% taken for costs.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 17:06
|
|
|
Mega Comrade posted:On the subject of money though. I'm in the very privileged position of having increased income while still living like the cheap bum I have for the past 20 odd years. So I'd like to put some of that excess towards some charitable causes. Doctors without borders, Syrian American Medical Society are both good ones as far as I know. You can also use this website if you're a Numbers Fuckstein kinda person. The UKMT solidarity fund is always a good shout, and really help some really nice goons. Last, I would always recommend finding something local. Depending on where you are, try seeing if there are any animal rescue farms or anything of the sort near you.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 17:13
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/OscarCullinan/status/1432685761715900416
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 17:21
|
|
|
can someone photoshop me captain tom riding on the alpaca's back please.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 17:22
|
|
|
Mega Comrade posted:On the subject of money though. I'm in the very privileged position of having increased income while still living like the cheap bum I have for the past 20 odd years. So I'd like to put some of that excess towards some charitable causes. You may want to check this out before committing, survey of charity CEO pay. https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/charity-pay-study-2021-biggest-earners/management/article/1713966 I nearly stopped supporting Save the Children when the International version awarded Tonty a 'humanitarian' award of some sort but they managed to convince me that they were separate and I could actually feel the bile (re the award) in the person who responded to me's email who commented that they had received many negative responses to that award. I did finally stopped supporting when I discovered their CEO was being paid over £250k pa. - aka 4000 months worth of my £5pm subs - just to pay her for 1 year. I can confirm that the small charity I work for has just 3 paid employees, we're all part time and the max (headline, un-pro-rated) salary is about £25k for the CEO and £19k for yours truly. We're all paid pro-rated for that with hours varying from 15 to 22 pw. Though we all also do mammoth amounts of unpaid work above and beyond! One thing I did when I was working full-time and earning enough to pay tax was sign up to the Charities Aid Foundation. Then I could make random charitable donations when I felt like it (used to be a cheque book but I guess they've advanced since then) and they would claim the Gift Aid. I also used it to give cheques to friends getting married as their wedding present - that is friends who had a lot of stuff which some appreciated and some didn't LOL. You can also use it to set up regular donations to a specific charity. (I would sign the cheque and they could fill in whatever charity they fancied as long as it was registered.) <WHINGE> If you're single noone buys you all that household stuff, you have to get married to be inundated with loads of household goods. And some of my friends are on their 3rd marriage while little old me gets unrewarded for not wanting to shack up with some bloke in polyester slacks going bald. But I digress. </WHINGE> Anyway, CAF take a cut of approx 2% from your donation for admin. But if you think that if they don't take it, then someone somewhere has to spend time processing the donation, gift aid and all that (and learning how to use xero or other accounting package, figuring out whether a claim is GA or not etc. source: me) so processing isn't free anyway. If you like cats, there's a small non-charity based in Gloucestershire which I support: they care for about 30-32 'complicated cats' who have various things wrong with them and rely entirely on donations. You can either donate via their Amazon wishlist (cat food etc) or via paypal. https://www.complicatedcats.com/Support Jaeluni Asjil fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Aug 31, 2021 |
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 17:29
|
|
|
I have a mothly DD with The Unity Centre who assist asylum seekers, and are good eggs all round. Plus I like supporting a local organisation in an area where there is little public sympathy or support.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 17:33
|
|
|
Seen in a Wetherspoons. The supply lines are now seriously affecting the boozers. This will be schadenfreudic. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 17:55
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 22:24 |
|
|
I feel like strike action is within your control, if you give them what they want they will stop striking.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2021 17:58
|
|