If things get tougher?

tootles_2

The rises are depressing for those of us who live on a fixed income and are faced with rises in heat, power, water rates and council tax, the rises in pension will not cover the rises and so we are forced once again to either dig into savings, if we have any, or cut down on either heat or food. Things like holidays become a distant memory and there comes a point when there is nothing else to sell on ebay........

Chipps

Juni wrote:

So how come we're still struggling like mad with the mortgage rate at a 1/3rd of that?

Could it be that the amount of money borrowed back then was a great deal smaller because the house prices weren't so ridiculously high?

Or is that the endless stealth taxes have taken the place of the high mortgage rates?

I suspect its a bit of both.

Also - our first house was a 2 bedroomed mid terrace - brand new - but had no central heating, and minimal kitchen cupboards (actually just one - the one with the sink!) So maybe expectations were not so high!

And - we could not get ourselves into quite the degree of debt that can happen now. For the mortgage, we could borrow up to 2 1/2 times the man's salary, plus 1 times the woman's salary. In fact that had only just increased, as it used to be 2 1/4 his plus 1 hers. So we just had to save really hard for a deposit before we could get married. :happyhear

HOLsale

apple_mint wrote:

When we moved (into a much older house with sash windows etc.) we bought a hot water bottle each. Wish I'd done it years ago ...

something you can do with old single pane windows is to buy caulk and caulk gun for a few quid then caulk all along the edges of the windows once it starts to get cold.

you need to leave at least one window so it can be opened (kitchen is best choice) but the rest can be sealed up with the caulk to keep out the drafts

in the spring carefully use a utility knife to break the seal of the caulk so you can open the windows again

i'd recommend asking the employee at the DIY centre which caulk can be removed fairly easily

this makes a HUGE difference in how draughty a house is. you can also make your own double pane of sorts by using bubble wrap (good for windows that aren't overlooked) or by putting up clear sheets of plastic stretched over your window sill and stapled in place with a staple gun. it aint pretty but it saves a lot of heat from escaping. you can use the clear plastic tarpaulin type sheets for this, they are very cheap

HOLsale

Judi wrote:

SueRob, what an awful dilema to be in but I think if i couldnt afford to run my house i would sell my house and downsize. My fuel bills are quite high at this time of the year as we are in an exposed area and my house is old and draughty but i would consider moving into a decent sized flat. Dunno where we would put the stuff in the two sheds though.

we're really up the creek without a paddle if things really get bad, we're in a similar situation to suerob but we rent so don't even have a home to sell :eek:

johanne

Im desperate to find money for this months bills never mind if the bills go up!

Ive been on SSP since septemeber and now since xmas eve unemployed and am waiting on hearing about my benefit claim (exactly a month yesterday since my claim should have started but Tesco my last employer are holding it up by not giving the jobcentre the info they need that they have requested 3 times!!!!! :mad: :mad: :mad: ) So i have gone from approx £1000 take home pay a month... to £300 take home on ssp.. to nothing at the min while i wait for benefits claim.. finally plummeted into my overdraft yesterday after wiping out all my savings by paying my rent of £425 and my council tax of £80 on wednesday which of course some of my benefit money should have gone towards (although as i have a 2 bed house my housing benefit will only cover 1/2 my rent as i live alone)

I live on bare minimum now and my only "luxuries" are:

- tv licence (already paid) and with basic cable at £3.50 a month cos it worked out cheaper than getting an aeiral fitted to the rented property.

- dial up internet its my lifeline as i dont out or speak to many people and i do all my banking/bill paying etc etc online)

- my mobile phone.. which is PAYG and the best possible package i could get.

Im a 20 year old girl and all the people i know who are my age are out clubbing spending £60-100 a night, buying new outfits each week, going the cinemas, spending £30 on haircuts every six weeks etc etc... im scraping by.. went the pub after a scouts meeting the other night (havent been out since maybe october properly? ) and i winced as i handed my OH a £10 note to get a round in cos i knew it was my gas money.. (landlord wont let me swap off prepayment or get a lodger btw) OH realised this and gave me it back and paid for the round... but hes unemployed too so cant afford to do these things all the time.. but all our friends are working or students with money and all live at home with their parents (OH lives with his parents too) so they dont understand why im so "tight". Sometimes i wanna scream and give in and move back to my parents house...... but id feel like a failure and would have to give up everything ive worked so hard for!

At the moment im on "emergency" credit on my electric meter so i can get the money together off my mum or something to get electric on monday..im using an "emergency" carton of UHT milk so that i dont have to go the shops... getting some bin bags from my mum so i dont have to buy them.. and am currently sat in a fleece with a hot water bottle so i can eek out my gas credit aslong as possible.....

I think the only way i'll survive if prices go up is to move my OH in with me... which when weve only been a couple 4 months in total pushing it slightly!! :rolleyes:

SueRob_2

So it has happened, the fuel bills are going up by 22% , I've borrowed £500 from my daughter, we need to put a new downstairs loo into our house as the last one was wrecked by the previous tenant. Hubby has work for next 2 to 3 months, so we will pay her back with his wages. At least we can then put the house on the market if we cannot manage & we have to downsize. My heart sank when I saw on the news about the fuel bills. It was what I had been dreading. It seems the light at the end of the tunnel is still an express train coming towards me, lol.

frosty

we have just decided to have cavity wall insulation done there are some good grants around,its free for people on benefits or tax credits, people who have to pay receive a grant aswell,for our 4 bedroom semi we will have to pay £190.00 which I think is good value and we should feel the benefit with cheaper bills and a warmer house.

skylight

If things get tougher???

Buy less meat too. Already buying Turkey as its cheaper than chicken and you can't really tell the difference.

I have already changed from BT to Talk Talk for my landline. Will be changing my broadband from AOL to Tiscali next month. Thats a £30 a month saving for those two.

I suppose we could get rid of the people carrier - but there is 6 in our family and it is kind of a necessicity - but again, we only use it once or twice a week when we all go out together. We do have another smaller car - but thats just a run-about - the idea is to save petrol on the bigger one. After 4 months of keeping petrol records I am not convinced keeping the smaller one is beneficial either (in terms of tax and insurance compared to the extra cost of petrtol!)

I could start a vegetable plot, but am not sure if the megre amount of space I could allocate to it would be enough.

Am also on a crusade to turn the lights off! My kids think the heating is free and the electric is free too! My bill was £140 for 6 weeks over xmas new year - not happy! I have reduced the amount that the heating temp is set at, as well as timed it - its been like this for months. If the gas/elec goes up 22% I will have to reduce the usage by 22% to stay even and I dont have a clue where thats coming from! But its no

I have curtains at the front door, but my Nan is giving me a pair of thicker ones, so hopefully that will help.


I did the same as Spendless - the cordless phone broke, so replaced it with the cheapest one I could find in Argos (with Nectar points!). Now its corded, the eldest two are not always ringing their friends!

And will be calling my council about the cavity walling insulation too! Great idea (as its a council house, I dont think we will get help/grant elsewhere)

tootles_2

We thought about downsizing our car, but it does 55 - 60 MPG and I could not find a smaller car which comes near, so we decided to keep the octavia until it conks.... apart from anything else we could not afford to buy a newer car and there is no way we will take on a loan when we have a perfectly adequate vehicle.

squeaky

I had to give up my car a long time back, living on benefits as I do now.

I really tried to hang on to my car, but because I didn't need it for work (and it took me long time to accept that I was never going back) I started taking account of how much a car costs to run per year.

I know you will have different circumstances, but bear with me.

I live in a village with a few shops, but was finding that I only went into town for the things I couldn't get locally about once or twice a month - and THAT was with bad planning.

A car costs at least £1500 a year to run.

Mine was sitting doing nowt for all but a couple of hours per month.

The car parking fee was more than the bus fare into town is.

Honest!

Even if I bussed in and then, tired and loaded with shopping, got a taxi home...

..total cost ten quid.

That makes £120 per year for bus and taxi once a month as opposed to £1500 for a car that sat around for most of the time doing nothing except rust.


Now I know for sure that everybody's circumstances are different. You might not be close to a town like I am (or in one, which should be easier)...

..you might HAVE to do a school run if it really is too far to walk...

..mixing on-line shops in with expeds on foot just might not work for you (but see the chic shopper thread)...


But what I'm saying is - do your sums. Add up your real driving cost and then see how you might do better using public transport and yes, oh my gosh, taxis, to good effect. And this doesn't even add in the fact that at least some of you could cycle instead of drive, which I couldn't.


At the very least the exercise might point you to ways of reducing the expense in much the same way as keeping a track of all your grocery spending so often turns out to be right eye opener.