SusanGaszczak

Tories to give marriage advice?!

Have they ever been to councelling or thought about it - it can make things better not worse if you are forced to go!

rule out tax increases (at about 3min 40) but we will freeze council tax for two years...

Am I the only person this makes no sense to? Surely it has to be one or the other... Or are we going back to the old days of making good spin and taxing by the back door?

NB it is amazing how quickly the BBC removed the story that was there this morning on not ruling out tax increases, hence video link.

Over the weekend I was discussing with my mum the ever increasing problems caused by the credit crunch. My mum relayed to me a discussion she had had, with her mother in law, who accused her of being wasteful by peeling not scraping her carrots.

These days we always peel our carrots, mainly due to pesticides, but it did remind me of how we lived, even in the 80's. On a Sunday we would always have a roast, Monday would be the left over meat and Tuesday would be soup made from the bones of the Sunday roast. One Roast, three meals.

With that conversation in mind I did my weekly shop, planning ahead to try to reduce the weekly food bill.

I noticed a knock on effect - I brought home less shopping, less packaging and therefore less waste. I made a deal with myself that I will not do a top up shop. Anything we run out of will be bought from the local shop, supporting local business and saving diesel.

It will be interesting to see what other knock on effects happen. I normally only produce one full black bag of rubbish a week - will that reduce? I also normally cave in mid week and have a take away, this I have vowed not to do as I never manage to eat all of it; it ends up in the bin.

Only the credit card statement at the end of the month will show whether I have been successful on the cost saving exercise.

Brown has announced a ‘major expansion' in childcare places by extending free places to two year olds. He is quoted on the BBC as saying ‘This is not a government that walks away but a government that's on the side of hard-working families, helping them to climb the ladder.'

Currently parents of three and four year olds get 15 hours a week of ‘free childcare'. This was brought in a few years ago because standards in schools were dropping and it was felt that getting children into nursery would improve those results. It also saw the introduction of the 0-5 curriculum.

Being a mother of a daughter who has just started reception I have to say it will not help parents ‘climb the ladder'. When you break down the 15 hours childcare a week into what it really is, 3 hours a day, you see that is does not help. By the time you have spent up to approximately 30 min either side of the nursery session getting your child to and from nursery you are left with two and a half hours.

Has anyone seen a job advertised that allows you to work for two and a half hours?

The only way to be able to work is to take your child to day care nursery, as I did, a childminder or have a very helpful member of your family look after your child.

It will cost you a large sum of money each month to be able to work. My daughter went 4 mornings and one full day a week at a cost of £280 a month. If she went full time that cost would have been £500+. That includes the 38 weeks of 15 hours ‘free childcare'.

What this spin, in my opinion, is doing is getting more children into education at a younger age. Making children engage with the 0-5 curriculum to try increase standards at KS1 & 2, but as we can see this has not helped this years results!