Help - I'm a mess :(

immie

Have you tried daysoft for contact lenses? I used to pay £28 a month for 'premium dailies' or something from specsavers, but now i order them from daysoft and it only costs £10 a month, they're just as good as the specsaver ones if not better:)

Giraffeseeker

flis21 wrote: »

I do get free prescriptions, but have to pay £30 a month for my contact lenses. I am on a water meter, but we have 2 water companies here and that is what I'm told to pay, don't think I can really cut the water.

Just check this with your water company if you are paying Direct Debit. I went onto a meter when I moved into my house and funnily enough £41.60 was EXACTLY what they recommended to me as a monthly DD payment for 1 adult and 2 children.

Fast forward 2 years and I was £600+ in credit with them (but as I never open bills I didn't notice!!). They stopped taking my DD at that point though but didn't credit me the money back to my account. Last month I opened a bill, noticed the massive credit balance and rang them.

I have restarted the DD at £18 per month which is what they have worked out I am acutally spending on water. And I have £500 back in my bank account. So please do double check, just in case, as I think £41.60 is an "average" figure they give to households of our size, it doesn't mean you're actually using that much.

skintas_2

what about debt relief management? just a idea, do you really need ur house phone? what is the lowest u can have sky on until ur contract runs out

BitterAndTwisted

I'm convinced that with some practice you could cut your grocery-shopping bill in half. Presumably if you're childminding you're doing that in your own home, so I'm assuming that you do have time to cook meals from scratch. Take a stroll over the the Old-Style part of the forum and have a read of some of the threads on there, especially the Grocery Challenge one. You should find some interesting information there, and most importantly recipes and ideas for very cheap meals. It's friendly forum and hugely supportive like here. Check out the cheap-family-recipes.org website. When they set it up they reckoned you can feed a family of four for £100 a month. With a bit of practice perhaps you could, too.

What might prove to be an incentive to see results is to maybe cut everything right back to the bone for three months and see how you go. Buy a little note-book and write down every single penny you spend. Keep all of the receipts. Then, after a month go through all of the purchases and mark everything absolutely non-essential with a highlighter pen. It's a real eye-opener and things you could cut out or cut down on could almost suggest themselves.

As previously suggested start an account on ebay and go through every single room in your home and sell everything that you don't absolutely need. Most of us have thousands of pounds worth of stuff and most of it is non-essential for life. Toys the kids don't play with any more, their outgrown clothes, your own clothes all squeezed into the wardrobe. The lot. You have no idea what you can buy in charity-shops and boot-sales, especially kid's clothes. For pennies sometimes. Sign up to your local Freecycle and scour for offers of bundles of kid's clothes and often toys as well.

About the smoking: you could think abut trying rolling tobacco. The cheapest is Bayside from @sda at £8 for 50 grammes which should last you at least a week. It comes in a yellow packet, the blue one is stronger. Buy a little rolling-machine from the pound shop. My local one also sells menthol filters, so they might suit.

flis21

I just wrote a very long reply to the last post, then realised there is no point. That post was not helpful and I have enough stress and problems to deal with to be wasting energy on what some random person who doesn't know me thinks about me on here.

flis21

skintas wrote: »

what about debt relief management? just a idea, do you really need ur house phone? what is the lowest u can have sky on until ur contract runs out

What is debt relief management?
I do need my home phone as otherwise I'd be using my mobile a lot more. i'm on PAYG and only put £10 a month on it at the mo, but I need the phoneline for my internet. I am looking into moving it all to sky as i think it might be cheaper to have it there and all together.
I think if I cut the channels out sky would be arounf £20 a month, but that would defeat the point of having it as I only have it for the kids.

Thanks, F

flis21

immie wrote: »

Have you tried daysoft for contact lenses? I used to pay £28 a month for 'premium dailies' or something from specsavers, but now i order them from daysoft and it only costs £10 a month, they're just as good as the specsaver ones if not better:)

I'll try that (assume I can google the name). But if you buy lenses online what do you do about eye check ups?

flis21

will try to start keeping a spending diary as suggested, that might help me identify some areas I can cut back on.

flis21

Will look in poundland for menthol filters and try the rolling tobacco, thanks for that idea, I know that is a large expenditure, so if I can cut it back that would be great x

Will also check with water company about my bill, as I said it is 2 seperate companies tho, one for waste and one for supply. One is £26.60 and othe is £15.

mooomin

Hiya Flis

When I joined here I was a 20 a day smoker with £10,000 of debt and no monthly money left over - without allowing for my smoking :eek:

I quit within a month of really understanding my debt problem because I could see it just wasn't affordable. I understand how it feels like it decreases your stress, but once you don't have to find the money to pay for it you will honestly be less stressed. To put it another way, you're spending £80+ per month to smoke and less to buy clothes for the kids :eek:

I suspect that if you cancel Sky the kids will moan for a wee while but soon forget about it - they are quite resilient when they're teeny. My friend had her kids over staying with us the other week and they wanted their usual channels (which I don't have) but were soon quiet when we put on Toy Story for them on DVD

You'll get there. Good luck!