Thank You Everyone

chimp_choker

Well the penny has dropped when we kept missing one cc and paying at least £50 a month in late CC fees.
After struggling on i have found this site and read like a maniac and the title says it all. THANK YOU EVERYONE. Indeed I would love to shout it from the rooftops but it's a bit icy tonight.


I've cooked a meal for 3 for 64 pence and stuff out of the cupboard. I've learnt how to reduce my sky costs and above all I have some grasp on budget now. My budget used to consist of " I'll put some pertol in......£50 should do, here sir take my plastic.
I went to fill out the budget planner on here and to my astonishment i only knew how much I spent on the endowment policy. After doing the budget pages my / our outgoings got to £3200 a month and our income was £1700 PCM.

I've found out that if we both die our son will inherite over £400,000 cash (after morgage paid off)and the 210k house. The dog is costing me over £80 a week. Food is another £500 a month at least and we spent about £300 a month on petrol, ( nice big car / short runs)The car, an omega 2.6 v6 auto is a beuat of a car and costs about £220 a week all in to run.

It got to the point where I would give a card to the cashier and say " here try that one, see if there is anything on there".

I've also found the CCCS and have an appointment with them on the 5th dec.

We have actually walked everywhere for a whole week. we are totally knackered but several pounds lighter and we have spent £40 on a weeks shopping ( would normally be £110.00 at least)because we have had to carry the bags and aldi is up the bank rather than tesco which is 2.2 miles away. We have not gone to the take away this last week and also found out you get more meat on 3 tesco chicken legs at 64 pence a pound than you do on 3 healthy eating chicken breasts at £2.97 a pound. By the way the chicken is for the red setter dog....

I've still got to write to the CC companies, all 8 of them and do a few other bits but I've learnt an awful lot of usefull info from these pages. Long may you all contribute.

Thank you.

Alan The Chimp Choker ( well I do come from Hartlepool)

Entrepreneur_en_faillite

Well done! Keep up the good work. The CCCS are a real help, the advice they gave me was fantastic and free. I had one insolvency adviser offer me the same sercvice if I paid £3,000 plus VAT!!!!

Sadly in my case even the CCCS could not stop my impending doom (see bankruptcy woes and pro's thread posted today).

There but for the grace of God go all of us!!

jobbingmusician

Great to see a new poster, and one with such potential!

£80 a week on the dog!!!!! :eek: Excuse me while I recover..... Does/did he just eat chicken breasts? I think dogs are meant to have biscuits, aren't they??? - and I'm sure someone over on the old style board can tell you, but I'm sure there are places on the net where you can buy really good quality dogfood in bulk for prices MUCH cheaper than in supermarkets, petshops or vets. (But perhaps it's vets' fees that are costing so much?)

I really applaud your willingness to learn and to change your habits :T - keep up the good work - it's great that you are accepting the challenge and being positive and creative about it. :beer:

chimp_choker

the thing is, jobbingmusician, I never thought of the cost. He's a pedigree red setter who's father won crufts 2001 and he exercises a lot so he needs the food. He does eat biscuts as well but my main point is that, ashamed as i am to admit it is that i didin't realise what we were spending money on. We would pick up 6 trays of chicken breast and fling them in the trolly .........because that's what we did....period. When I rold my wife we had to cut back I said he ( the dog) will have to play his part as well by having chicken once a week and sausages the rest of the time...You can just see the board up homeless dog, bancrupt father, can you spare a chicken breast?

Out of all the catagories on the budgeting planner on this site I could only tell you what one of them cost.

I looked at a cc statement yesterday, saturday and we had spent nearly £180 on petrol in 2 weeks. it cost us £52 + to see hartlepool united at an away game then the next day £56 for me to go to scotland to see a fave american singer songwriter and then £70 for the next away match.

Needless to say the last two away matches have been missed saving about £220 including tickets, petrol and food.

When in town I'd buy my son (who's 16) a pounds (£) worth of jelly sweets about 4 oz. In aldi last night there were tubs of the same sweets about a pound in weight for £1.59 before coming on this board I wouldn't have gone to aldi ( which is literally up the road from my home ) because we "do our shopping in Tesco's"

tomstickland

All good stuff. Sounds like money was leaking out all over the place. It's amazing how quickly a lot of small sums add up to a large result.

Icemaiden

Been there, done that and got the t-shirt!

We were just the same Chimp choker and I will admit now we were young, stupid and did it to keep up with our friends. Fast cars, 2 x hols a year plus weekends away, meals out, the list goes on and on. Many so called friends disappeared when drastic action was taken but those that remain we can call our " true friends ". It was a real shock to our system as we had lived like this of so long and had the Debts to prove it!

My O/H found it especially difficult at the begining but eight years down the line I can honesty say it was the best thing that happened to us. Yes really. We are better and happier people for it, we didn't know our son(now 14yrs) as he was passed from one person to another and just fitted in with our lifestyle, something of which Iam now so ashamed of. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. We now live within our means, I have learnt to cook some wonderful food to some peoples amazement for next to nothing, we don't buy for the sake of it or to impress other, have savings in the bank and I walk most places(only 1 small car now for O/H) but most of all I know my son and he is a beautiful person. We were also able to have another child (4yrs old now) when I was 37 and I don't go out to work but spend my time being the mother I've always wanted to be.

Eight yrs ago it was a new chapter in our lives of which had a happy ending, you have made the first steps too. I won't pretend it was easy because it wasn't but with the help of this site and the the lovely people on it you will soon find your way. If I can be of any help, just ask!

I wish you luck.

Ice.

TAZ

well done for seeing the light. not a lot i can add to this post but i just wanted to say thank you for seeing the light were your dog is concerned even if its because of the cost. giving your dog so much chicken is actually quite dangerous. i know you felt you were doing what the dog liked but chicken is protein, best chicken is even more, with no fat etc to balance out. in dogs too much protein can be hard to deal with and the liver and kidneys find it difficult to get out the poisons from the blood. this can cause the organs to fail and therefore the dog ends up at least needing vet care, or worse.
i had to mention this as my mum lost her beloved pet earlier this year because of it, she thought she was pampering him giving him best chicken every day
the best diet for dogs is the balanced diet from a reputable maker, this will give all the vital things he needs without giving his body too much to handle.

taz

headchef

Following on from Taz's post in a way. You can give your dog chicken (with meal) but here's how to do it: buy whole chicken, roast it for family. Eat the lean bits, pull off skin and meat sticking to bones for dog. Make stock from carcus, strain and when carcus is cold, pull even more meat and gristle off for dog! Not for the faint hearted I fear but our pedigree lab loves it. I do feed her sausages too but as they are fatteneing, I balance it out by giving her tuna (around 29 - 30p a tin it is cheaper than so called dog food). A few vegetables won't go amiss either. Look on the Old Style board for lots of food ideas (for dog and family)

Entrepreneur_en_faillite

headchef wrote:

Following on from Taz's post in a way. You can give your dog chicken (with meal) but here's how to do it: buy whole chicken, roast it for family. Eat the lean bits, pull off skin and meat sticking to bones for dog. Make stock from carcus, strain and when carcus is cold, pull even more meat and gristle off for dog!

Thanks for the recipe! We've just had a roast chicken for Sunday dinner, and my wife is in the process of making Monday nigths chicken stew, the dog (a Heinz 57 rather tahn a pedigree) is tucking into the scrapings.

Yum yum yum :j