It is that time of year when restaurants and the like start sending out invitations in the hope we will pay out huge sums of money for a Christmas lunch. Please, take me off your mailing list.

I get £46.95 a week, which is the carer's allowance I receive for looking after my elderly father (unpaid) and his property. That has been the case now since 1988 when my mother died. That works out at £6.70 a day or 28p an hour.

I have to run a car, telephone, buy household items - you name it'.

I can knock up a Christmas meal for two (as I do anyway) for £2, not £55 or more per head, according to some of the circulars I have received in the post.

RICHARD GRANT, Burley.