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

BigMummaF

Like I said, a bluddin good bike then, as my rellies are 'Amshur & Glosster & Wess Kun-ree

I posted THIS on the Prepare for Winter thread, & thought some of you may be interested too..

jackieglasgow

I saw that and saved it, just realised I never thanked it though, will do so now! Great links, thanks

pagangirl

Sorry to hear about your son's job Taplady, hope something turns up soon.

Ceridwen, have sent you PM.

Had small spend at 2 car boot sales today (total £6.40), was very restrained, didn't get anything not needed. Wished I lived nearer Ikeya for kilner jars, none at cbs or in local charity shops as yet. Will keep trying. 'Local' Ikeya is Warrington which means a day out for me - 1/2 hr train + 45 min bus ride each way - too expensive - wish we had a nearer one. They were going to build one in Liverpool a few years back, but it got stopped on account of no car parking/too many cars etc. :mad:

Bigmummaf - thanks for link - will investigate those for HM Xmas prez.

Hugs to all

taplady

pagangirl wrote: »

Sorry to hear about your son's job Taplady, hope something turns up soon.

thankyou Pagangirl. He's appealing about the job as the company havent gone about it properly and in the meantime he's already applied for another job.

jamanda

Taplady, sorry about your boy. Just when you think its safe to put your head above the parapet ...........

Pagangirl, I'm sure I've seen kilner jars at Asda recently at £1 for a small one (don't know about quality, but might be Ok).

taplady

Thanks Jamanda DS1 is taking DS2 and they are off to the nearest job centre tomorrow.

jediteacher

Hugs to Taplady and anyone else who needs them.

We'll we've had a mixed week. My poor car gave up on me last week it's only a 2004 reg so I expected it to run a bit longer! :mad: Took it to the garage and it's going to cost £1000 to fix. :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: We don't have that much money just lying around and cannot be without a car. I was starting to get really worried but them my lovely grandmother said she would pay half and my mother in law the other half. :A Such a relief that they have been so kind. We will pay them back but without the stress. Amazing the difference this year as last year we would have put this on the cc and thought no more about it. However, we really need to clear the cards now and are not spending anything on them.
My brother who has no real concept of how tight things are suggested we just buy another car and scrap this one. When I asked where on earth I would get the money to buy one he suggested I buy a £200 car from ebay and then after a year get another. When I said I would not be happy to just buy an unseen car and I need one that keeps my little girl safe he thought I was mad!!!!

Anyway, rant over.

Larumbelle

Jediteacher, our household know all about car woes! The clutch and gearbox are both grinding on ours, we were quoted £1200 :eek: to fix - the car itself is only worth about £300, it's 15-odd-years old! But it is a Volvo diesel, and OH (who claims to know about these things ) reckons that their engines go on forever. Plus, it is insanely cheap to run. But the grinding is getting worse and worse, and everyone we've spoken to (happen to have a brother and a mate who are both Volvo mechanics) that it's ready to go at any time. £1200 is an awful lot of money for a car that's not actually worth anything - what if, heaven forbid, we had an accident and the car was written off, just after we had spent that money? Plus, we're taking my mother away to France in a month or so and she is disabled, so under the circumstances we've had to bite the bullet. OH is looking to spend around £2k but that's a huge chunk out of our £3k savings... but we are lucky to have savings, I know that, so I shouldn't be grumbling. It's just we've never actually had savings before...

tiff

Hi everyone, I'm not very good at keeping up with long threads so will prob just post now and then.

My story is that we struggled with debt, then Jan 09 I got a second part time job and have managed to clear all but £400 of credit card debt in the last 18 months, total of £5000+. In April I was told I would be made redundant from this job in July, so last Thursday was my last day. I've applied for 5 jobs and got 3 interviews, one ruled me out as I have holiday booked in Oct half term and they couldnt honour it! I was a bit cross as I worked hard on the application and they gave me a telephone interview before looking into my holiday!

We recently had to change our car as the old one needed £1100 of work to get through the MOT and we'd had the car for 6 years and hated it so had to spend most of our savings on replacing it £1200). This money was meant for going to New York for 5 nights in October, so desperately need a job for the spending money! Seems like just as we were getting on our feet, we are shot back down again. Hallway is halfway through being decorated, we had just paid for it to be plastered when I was made redundant. Its lucky I like shabby/vintage style!

Determined to keep living within our means but its so hard!

tiff

Silvercharming, we've had similar car woes. I was gutted that we had to spend our savings that were meant for our holiday, its the first time we've had savings too but secretly I was chuffed to bits we paid cash and didnt get a loan, MIL wanted to lend us £4000 and thinks we've made the wrong decision buying an old car but we are very happy with it!