It's STILL tough and not getting better - so how are we coping?

sammy_kaye18

Morning all

Feeling alright this morning. Tired and thank god the headache that seems to have plagued me the last few days has finally gone. Sat at home with babe and Ben on this unusually sunny saturday morning.

have sat this morning and looked at my debts. Worked out the totals of how much I owe, set up repayments and will get working on the remainders getting paid off asap! Figure my total outstanding debt is £2189.01

I have managed to pay one debt off this month! :j:j:j:j so that is one gone and the now extra £45 I have in this months pay will go towards another smaller bill so will fingers crossed get rid of that by Xmas and I'll be under the £2K mark. How the hell I even got into debt in the first place this badly is beyond me - mostly through incurred bank charges after we brought our sofas from DFS! doh! :eek:

The sofas still have £940 to pay off at £40 a month,

a bank overdraft is £840 (it was unauthorised with halifax!) but they thankfully have stopped the daily overdrawn fees on it as Ive set up a repayment plan with them! and they are now getting £25 a month towards it - its all I can comfortably manage at the minute.

Another bank overdraft is £210 but reduces by £20 a month but this is my direct debit account but only have dentist coming out of it at the minute so as long as I put in £50 a month (£30 for dentist, £20 to reduce with) its good

and the last is a catalogue debt of £200 which is now reducing by £33.39 a month for the next 6 months. Hoping I can ring these and pay it off a bit quicker though if cash allows.

Also fingers crossed for some good news for boyfriend. My sister in law works in a mental health unit at the local hospital and they are looking for night time porters in their ward , so she is going to see about a job for him. She will speak to her boss on Tuesday and see if there is anything available as her ward is being made the main mental health ward for the local south Wales area so due to expand soon. Plus it will be more money coming in. So fingers crossed there is a job coming up or one available that he can try for!

grandma247

Toomuchdebt wrote: »

{{{{hugs}}}} .I'm so fed up of the cats weeing everywhere.

If you clean the area then put methylated spirits on all areas they have wee'd on they will not do it again as they hate the smell. It is the smell that atracts them back to certain spots. Just make sure to let it dry thoroughly.

mardatha

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1310942/Shoppers-facing-10-rise-food-bills-wheat-meat-costs-soar.html
****************
Next step, the workhouse. Just you watch. :mad:

JulieGeorgiana

EstherH wrote: »

Also the celebrity culture doesn't help, all the magazines that concentrate on celeb marriages have pushed up expectations for the wedding day and young people start their married life in loads of debt from 'the perfect day'. Of course real life isn't like it is in the magazines, and really from what I have seen of celebritys and I have to confess, not a lot because it all bores me to death, but they never seem to be happy for long anyway. None of their relationships seem to last.

I agree... My husband and I married in Scotland in June, and including our honeymoon and spending we paid £3k all in!!

That includes hotels for family, a lovely sit down meal in a 4 star hotel, a lovely cottage on the coast...!

We are happy, and when we married we had no expectations of anything changing, so we are still happy!

Ps. We were engaged for 2 1/2 years... we saved and paid for the wedding in full... at the same time as paying off all our debts!

6 weeks after the wedding we became debt free :T

grandma247

debtdesperado wrote: »

Suddenly, this amazing looking woman in a bright red suit, with this amazing dramatic red hat, skinny as a whip, gorgeous styled blonde hair, looking immaculate strolls in. There was a ripple through the congregation... it was the 'abandoned' mother. Well, she certainly didn't look abandoned, she looked incredible. Think My boyfriend couldn't get over how much she'd changed, and when later he spoke to one of the sons, the son said, oh yeah, well, now she doesn't have to look after dad, she's got time for herself. It turned out she now lived in a tiny, but by all accounts beautiful little flat, spent lots of time visiting friends and going on holidays, because of course, all their friends had sided with her because he had behaved so badly, so she had this amazing support network whereas he didn't. I commented to my boyfriend that clearly, it wasn't that she'd let herself go, but that her ex-husband had an unfortunate effect of dragging the women in his life down... my boyfriend said nothing. HA!

That sounds just like what happened to my ddil last year at her sons' wedding. Her ex turned up with his very young wife who he left her for and he looked like a very old man and his wife was a frump whereas ddil looked fabulous.

JulieGeorgiana

Mardatha, thanks for the link...

‘People are going to have to consider buying cheaper items. Whereas people might not have thought twice about buying a nice steak, they are now going to have to consider buying mince.’

What about those people who are already buying mince... or eating vegetarian because meat costs too much??? What are we going to do? Starve!!!

Show's you that some people are just not struggling yet... I hate that they comment in these articles without considering those who are already finding things tough!!

sammy_kaye18

mardatha wrote: »

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1310942/Shoppers-facing-10-rise-food-bills-wheat-meat-costs-soar.html
****************
Next step, the workhouse. Just you watch. :mad:

shocking.

Im sat here with £5 in my purse to last me 6 days and its a scary thought - boyfriend doesnt have the work there for him in his current job and we are very much living off benefits. Thankfully we are not at the stage of missing meals to feed the kids like some families are but I hope these price increases wont hit us too hard as we already buy everything value or reduced as it is.

now off to look up recipes for chicken thighs as i defrosted a pack of 6 yesterday to make a stew and only ended up using two so got 4 more to use now!

pink_numbers

Mardatha, thank you for the link also. What a great timing when we're cutting our food money by 30%!

As for mince, we now buy shoulder of pork and mince it in the food processor, as this seems to be the cheapest option. Then bulk it out to an inch of its life with very finely minced vegs and lentils

penelopedee_2

JulieGeorgiana wrote: »

Mardatha, thanks for the link...

What about those people who are already buying mince... or eating vegetarian because meat costs too much??? What are we going to do? Starve!!!

Show's you that some people are just not struggling yet... I hate that they comment in these articles without considering those who are already finding things tough!!

I thought that when I read it. Might have to get mince instead of steak! In our house its a good week when there is as much mince as veg in the meal :rotfl:

JulieGeorgiana

penelopedee wrote: »

I thought that when I read it. Might have to get mince instead of steak! In our house its a good week when there is as much mince as veg in the meal :rotfl:

Last time I had Steak a friend made it for me... before that... I think it was October 2009, we had it for our Anniversary!

Normally we use meat in a meal it will be 1/3 of the meal max... however more often then not it's made into a pie or something similar... and the pie is 1/3 of our meal!

Ha! Steak!