A new 'tougher' thread... and so it continues

fuddle

The make do and mend. That is what is driving me to lose weight right now. I can't breath in my jeans and trousers, they're very uncomfy. My jackets and 1 winter coat I have won't close up (my padded one does but it's almost wrecked and quite shabby for the school run) So it's a case of losing some weight and get back into my clothes or buy new. I cannot buy new, not even Primark (they are getting dearer too I notice) so I must lose some weight. Such a rotten time of year to do it hough and plus I am an emotional eater. With all the doom and gloom I eat for pleasure and rightly or wrongly it chears me up... for a bit :cool:

mardatha

That's same as us Millie. Farm supplies is 44 miles round trip, supermarket is 40, doctors 20, hospital 40, bank /library/post office is 20. Everywhere is spaced out and costs petrol to get to. It works out cheaper to get online deliveries but you still have to go out for some stuff.

ninnoodle

I am also grateful for the mild autumn. It is getting nippier but I have discovered blankets and hot water bottles are my friends! We have bought a small oil filled heater from Gumtree to heat up the living room on really cold nights and only have the central heating on for 2 hours in the morning. I work from home and don't have the heating on during the day, so blasts of the oil heater will help in the middle of winter.

I am discovering freezing. I have always been afraid of freezing food - silly I know but I think because we have been told for so long by cooking programmes that frozen food tastes inferior, and also my OH won't do it. But I'm ignoring him for now - we just cannot afford to waste good food. It's a bit of a revelation actually!

We both have decent salaries and for that I am eternally thankful, but we are up to our eyes in debt and on a rubbish mortgage deal. Because of OH withdrawing from our joint bill account (because he had no money himself), some of our mortgage payments didn't go through immediately so I am very worried about that. We both work in a very volatile industry and could lose our jobs at any moment. I am so thankful we have jobs but realise we must do something to stop the spiralling debt and try and save after it has been paid. It's a constant battle with my OH who consistently spends beyond his means. But someone has to try and keep us afloat if the proverbial hits the fan!

SpikyHedgehog

Know what you mean about cash, Mardatha, we had to run around at work yesterday to sort out the cheques to pay wages as my boss is ill in hospital, which is worrying in itself, but there's only her & me that sign cheques for 1 account. Luckily for the account that wages are paid from, there is another signatory so we got paid...

And I'm also lucky, because I have to see it that way, in that since Errant Husband left us, I get maintenance from him each week, plus child tax & working families tax credits each week, so I do have money in the bank to pay the rent. A few of my colleagues are still in the position of needing the wages cheque cleared for the rent etc to be paid at the beginning of the month - not to say that none of us need the money for paying rent, but for myself & a few of the other colleagues, its more making sure there's enough money to pay the rent than actually crossing fingers that the cheque's cleared in time.

7_week_wonder

Hello, I'm yet another poster who mainly lurks but is mighty glad to see this thread back. Like everyone else I'm getting fed up of running just to stand still. yesterday I spent ages searching for different quotes to get our house insurance down: I eventually managed to save £30 only to have the garage phone to tell me that the bill to get our car fixed was going to be £150 more than they'd originally quoted :mad:

My biggest worry is fuel bills over the winter. My dad died earlier in the year, so my mum (who's in her 80's) is spending more time with us. And, bless her, she feels the cold so much that we always have the gas fire or the heating on when she's here. She has a quilt that she wraps round her, but even then she still doesn't feel warm enough. I'm trying not to think how much gas/elec we'll use when she's here for at least a couple of weeks over Christmas.

On the plus side, my OS skills are getting much better and we can live off HM soup and bread if need be! (And Mardatha I think the hens have definitely given up laying for the winter. I hardly saw them at all today - the poor wee things spent most of the time up in the roost as every time they came downstairs they almost got blown away:eek:)

Softstuff

westcoastscot wrote: »

living proof I'm in a similar situation - I could increase my grocery budget but having one eye on the short term future and the other on the long term i'm trying not to, and in any case it isn't sustainable - we can't keep squeezing more and more money out - we have to have a sustainable way forward, and imo going back to the old ways of house-keeping in terms of budgeting is the only way.

wcs

I have $100 a week housekeeping (about 66 quid), this is to cover food, medicines, cleaning stuff, clothes, gifts etc. The past few months it has been harder to stretch this to cover everything. Hubby offered more money, but I think it's more prudent to stick even an extra dollar on the mortgage with the hope of being mortgage free sooner, you never know what might happen in the future (if it goes like it did when hubby was a kid, interest rates on mortgages here were in the double digits).

I take a tablet now that's $40 a month, husbands nasal spray is $12 a month, his prescribed shampoo $30 every 2 months, the contraceptive pill is $20 every 3 months. This all adds up needless to say. I tried doing without my $40 a month tablets, but quickly realised that was a no go.

So something else had to give. Well, I already buy the cheapest brands, buy reduced when I can and cook 99% of things from scratch. We eat meat mostly as a seasoning in other meals.

I decided to try making my own cleaning products - all purpose cleaner, clothes washing liquid, washing up liquid, cream cleanser, window cleaner and laundry softener. That seems to be working fine for me, and the costs are piddly. for about $6 I'm good for the lot for about 6 months!

I also revisited the local farmers market. It used to be very overpriced compared to the supermarkets, but I'm finding now that they're selling it cheaper and there's more "seconds" and reductions. I went this morning and got 250g strawberries, 4 bananas, 4 zucchini and a cucumber for $4, that was quite a haul. Yes, they're seconds, but they're fine.

I'm looking at things in the supermarket and also asking myself if it's as near to "from scratch" as it can go. For example, I wanted to make a cheesecake (for MILs birthday) and most recipes needed a couple of dollars worth of biscuits for the base, instead a concocted my own (a variation on twinks hobnobs) at less than half the price. A recipe calls for condensed milk to make caramel, well, I can make that with caramel with milk, sugar and butter and again save half. The only exception to this is if the item premade is significantly cheaper, like the ritz crackers I bought in bulk for $1.

I apologise for the long post, but hope it helps someone. It's certainly helped us, we're feeling pretty rich at the moment.

lilac_lady

Don't try to keep heating so low that you freeze this winter. Low temperatures can lead to heart attacks and strokes. (Nice cheery comment!)

I try to buy food that's on offer as some of the prices are really ridiculous.

Although I'm not struggling, (yet) it's not the first time I've screeched in the supermarket "What? :eek: They must be joking!" when spotting another big price rise. Out loud too!

Cat501

From now on I'll definitely be doing my shopping at night when things are reduced, normally I go to Farmfoods for sausages, chicken fillets etc, but I got a great haul at Mr T tonight, a fair bit of fresh chicken and sausages for 10% of the usual price and the freezer is packed now. It wasn't as good as recovering spendaholic's haul that she posted on the November grocery challenge thread, but I was very happy with it! I would have skulked about longer waiting for more things to go on the RTC shelves but my [STRIKE]chauffeur[/STRIKE] dad was going a bit berserk after an hour and a half!

fuddle

What a night! If it wasn't the wind keeping me awake it was the worry fighting proactive plans to fight the worrying!

When I think how worried I was last year when I signed up here I never thought for a second that it would actually get this bad. Naive and clueless yes, I agree. We once had a little spare money but we're at the point now where we live hand to mouth each month. We have no savings or any money put by for emergencies... MOT tomorrow on the car that we need to get DH to work. He's looked at as much as he can and with the brake pads being fixed last month, new wipers and 1 new tyre we hope we've pre-empted some of it. Hope.

I'm wound up so tightly today that I feel like a little cry. Proactive it has to be, just to get myself back in fighting positive mode.

Plan of action:
:starmod: Heating on only hour in the morning, 2 hours of an evening. Electric heater downstairs in livingroom on very low setting if it's cold. Everyone wears woolies and socks (my lot are better but still whinge about the cold when they have bare feet.

:starmod:Stitch hooks onto large throw to hang on archway. Not heating the dining room part while the electric heater is on. Containing the heat in one space.

:starmod:Use today to find recipes that use pulses rather than a lot of meat. Find how to flavour rice, pasta and cous cous too.

:starmod:Find and reserve soup making book at county library online.

:starmod:label 3 pots - car, dog and contingency for saving small amounts for emergencies.

I've let my battling slip and now I feel a bit overwhelmed. To think that things are this bad and predicted to get even worse scares me because 'even worse' means not able to cope at all.

zcrat41

The farmers who have manure to sell are all several miles away, and although you can get it free, or very nearly so, in the countryside, you need transport and I only have a bicycle. Farmers are being stretched by the cost of diesel, although I imagine that the tractor which drags my trailer of muck to me today will probably be running on

Even Red derv has gone up by at least 15% in the last year. Yes it's cheaper than normal diesel but we get through an awful lot!

Fuddle - I'm a newbie to this thread but just wanted to say you sound like you're doing a fab job and keep your chin up!