New and need help please

RAS

You can certainly reduce the food cost a fair bit, particularly if you have time to cook from scratch. Try a trip to the Money Saving Old Style Forum.

Is there stuff knocking about the house that you no longer use and could sell at a car boot sale or on e-bay of amazon?

Could you do baby sitting (rather than child minding)? Cat sitting, dog walking etc?

AndyJR81

Hiya sorry it took me some time to reply. Your credit union is like peer to peer lending. Its all over counter like an old fashioned savings and loan I guess and held in a pot (Its a wonderful life anyone?). They do encourage you to save as you borrow, and some might want you to save regularly before accepting you for a loan - mine didn't, but wanted a payment equal to the monthly payment going into my share account before I could cash the loan cheque. Was all sorted out in under 2 weeks.

If you mean interest on the savings, you don't exactly, I think you get an annual 'dividend' based on what you've had in and how the particular unions cash reserves are looking.

If you are going to do the DMP, do a DIY one through Payplan or similar. I didn't and have paid a small fortune in fees to a company over 4-5 years (£29 per month), although that was a conscious decision as I didn't want the hassle of writing to 6 different creditors constantly