First Time post on here - felt sick and a loser

lynzpower

one piece of advice that I gave before was
a) theres loads of ways to save money on your utilities
have a look at https://www.est.org.uk and follow the tips you will g3et free energy saving lightbulbs as you are recieveing benefits. turn lights off when not using them, use lids on pans, exclude drafts, watch your bills drop

Also- do free dvd trials through quidcoi- you get paid for watching films brilliant, this can reuce your sky. ALso dont forget your library and readitswapit for books

dips_3

weymuffred wrote:

IMPORTANT NOTE FROM MARTIN.
BEFORE REPLYING PLEASE READ MY POST ON THIS SUBJECT.

I have lurked on this board for a while and have many sleepless weepy nights wondering how I am ever going to sort the mess we are in out.

Our income is 99 per cent benefits due to me being unable to work due to illness and my wife being at home to care for me/daughters

Income - Which is made up of the following:

WORK pension - 217-49 per month
Housing benefit - 206-54 per week
Income Support - 10-61 per week
child benefit - 116-60 every 4 weeks
tax credits - 228-00 per week
Carers allowance - 187-80 per month
council tax rebate - 119 per month


.

This doesn't seem to make sense. If you are getting carers allowance then should you also be getting DLA? Are the girls getting DLA?

If they are 16 and not in education or employment because of a disability they may also be entitled to income supoort in their own right.

samarnesen

hi and welcome back my original post was about your housekeeping costs me and my partner have 6 kids 2 are twins who are both still in nappies the amount we spend on food a month is £400 that includes food,toiletries,cleaning products,nappies and cat food my eldest son also have several food allergies including nuts(which is severe)and some fruit so we cant always buy the cheapest items
just by reducing your bill to £500 per month would save you a whole £400 which is a lot of excess money
good luck with everything and i hope you can sort it out

weymuffred

Anthillmob wrote:

do you really need magazines? and cleaning materials should (most of them) last longer than a month. (unless im a mucky swine)

no I dont need magazines or newspapers really so they are being cut out straight away.
We are looking at the boards people have mentioned regarding cleaning and my wife has been watching "how clean is your house" so she is going to use tips off of that.

Sinkingindebt_2

Is anyone getting Disability Living allowance? Surely you ar entilted to soemething if your are claiming Carers allowance?

weymuffred

looby75 wrote:

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, re shopping, I have found that I save a fortune every week by doing my shopping online, I use asda as the delivery charge is only £3.99, and there are often money off vouchers flying around the coupons board.

I find that shopping online makes it much easier to keep to my budget, I have a fixed amount I want to spend (£40 a week including all cleaning/laundry products and toiletries for 3 of us) It's easy to make sure you don't miss any of the special offers so you can maximise your budget, and I find it much easier to shop to a meal plan online than when I'm in the shop. Then obviously you haven't got the temptation of impulse purchases.

I used to spend at least £60-£70 a week when I shopped in person and often bought loads of stuff we didn't need and often ended up in the bin because it went out of date. And very very best of all I don't have any of the hassle of the supermarket, I just click and put away LOL

Unfortunately our local asda doesnt do deliveries yet, I will have to see what the other local supermarkets do. We have an aldi,Lidl, a little tesco, a little iceland and a large morrisons.

jellyhead

fred do any of you have mobile phones? just wondering, because i just signed up to a really good tariff of £10 a month with virgin, it's for 300 texts and 300 minutes. if you're an ntl customer 2 people can have the virgin deal (and if you pay £2.99 you get a phone), or if you're not with virgin you could pay £15 am month for the tariff.

of course if you don't have mobiles ignore my post and don't get one

can i be nosey and ask why your phone/internet is so expensive? i'm on the NTL 3 for £30 deal which is phone, basic TV package and internet, with free local weekend calls or something like that.

if you've got a BT lije can't you get free internet with sky?

weymuffred

D&DD wrote:

Hi Weymuff sorry I missed your thread first time around so I'm not up to speed on your disability/daughters etc, but with regards to your water bill we're on a meter too but have a special tariff for what they consider vulnerable customers and its capped at £24 a month.Do enquire about it asap as I'm sure a lot of companies do this its just not publicised very well!!!
Regards to the girls needs if you get dla for them you are entitled to extra taxcredits too.Then there are the kids charities also vocational charities..I've always been too proud to ask for help but this time last year it got to the stage where I had to so do consider it
I also remember reading that you can claim carers allowance even if you yourself are disabled so maybe you could get more help,I'm sure it was on the benefits board somewhere??
Best of luck in sorting yourself out

thanks for your post, our local water company wessex water does offer a social tariff for people on certain benefits and i am happy to say we are now on it and instead of paying the costly amount of 79 a month we are now paying 29.

quickstepqueen

I was searching this forum for something completely different when I came across this thread. I just wanted to add how heart warming it felt in here. So much generous and warm advice to someone who was obviously struggling with finances, but found the strength and courage to admit their difficulties and ask for assistance. Good luck weymuffred. The guys and gals on here sound terrific and sound so supportive. You've really done the right thing and I wish you and your family well.

weymuffred

keatergreyhound wrote:

Hiya
In realtion to your porrly dogs. I lot of animal tablets can be brought online much cheaper. Its now illegal for a vet not to issue you with a prescription for your animal. Does you bottles that the tablets come in state the streghts of the tablets. There is articles on MSE about doing this and it is safe.
Having worked for a vet I can say with honesty that the mark up on tablets is silly but they do it cause you know you will pay. Why not have a google for suppliers. Im not saying all of those will be avalable online but you never know
Good luck

thanks for your reply, I do know the strength of the tablet6s and had a quick google and the ones i visited were approx 10 quid saving, I will put it on my huge list of things to do.