Just hit me. How do people cope without credit??

whoopsydaisy

Today whilst driving along merrily in my new (old!) car my speedo suddenly died. Now i'm no car expert, but i'm imagining that something like that costs a LOT to put right, whilst worrying about how much that costs, I remembered that the car tax expires and the end of next month, and that christmas and my daughters birthday are just 3 1/2 months away, and that she's been invited to 3 parties in the next week and I haven't bought any presents yet.....

And it has begun to sink in that whereas in the past my credit card(s) picked up the bill, I now have to find ALL of this extra money from SOMEWHERE myself....

How do people cope when things go wrong so close to Bankruptcy? (and does anyone know if it's illegal to drive whilst not actually knowing your speed?????)

MissMuppet

My ex partners speedo never worked all the time we were together, I don't think it's illegal so don't panic about repairing that urgently.

As far as birthdays, Christmas and car tax, I have no idea! I guess I will find all this out soon enough... although since being made redundant in May I have been managing on cash. I think as long as you look ahead things should work out ok, when I got made redundant the first thing I did with the little money they gave me was book my train ticket to my Mum's as she lives in France. I do have something coming up in October which I know I am going to struggle with but I guess I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

I think budgeting is the answer...

rog2

It IS tough when you've been reliant on credit cards, but you will learn to cope without them, whoopsy.
It is NOT illegal to drive without knowing your speed, but it IS illegal to exceed the imposed speed limit, and it is difficult when you don't know how fast you're driving.
Time to get to know a local mechanic.

Broken_hearted

They do without the same as they did before credit came in. I think people do amazingly well coping but it must be hard.

sarah0404

Been a long time since I've had to do any work on my car. I used to have an old banger, and if I remember rightly there is a cable that goes into the back of the speedo. Mine came lose one time and I had to tighten it up again. I don't think it was a big job though. I used a Haynes manual to find out how to do it. (my library has Haynes manuals you can borrow for lots of different makes of cars) So it might be worth trying to fix it yourself.

I've been wondering the same thing though. How can I live without a credit card? I've made a really good comprehensive budget that covers (hopefully!) everything, but I really need nothing to go wrong while I'm accumulating that money! I've put aside £35 a month for dentist/optician/prescriptions. But O/H had a dental emergency the other week and it cost £150! I only had £35 saved up. How are we supposed to pay the rest? All the rest of my money is budgeted for other things. (luckily his parents gave him the money to pay for it) Since I've just started my budget, I'm really worried about covering the cost of Christmas. I'm only going to have about 4 months of savings saved up. Previously I'd probably just have paid for stuff with a credit card.

I don't want to rely on credit cards though. I think adjusting to living without them will be hard!

p.s - in the last few weeks I have repaired my fridge freezer, unblocked my outside drains, sorted a problem with my car battery (though it will probably need replaced very soon) and fixed a leak in the bathroom - probably saving a fortune in repair bills. (I'm not a very handy DIYer either. Just read up how to fix things on the internet!)

whoopsydaisy

Thanks for your post Sarah, very helpful. That's just it, it's hard saving up so you have the spare money for the emergencies. I think that i'll try having a look at a Haynes manual, although I might ask my Dad to do it (he doesn't even drive so that might be interesting!)

I think i'm going to have to be creative when it comes to christmas this year. I've also decided that I need to make friends with a hairdresser, a mechanic, someone who works in Argos/Woolworths/Toys R Us, and someone who works in Topshop and maybe a clinique lady who can give me lots of their little freebies... I have a close friend who works for Waitrose (30% off) so I have that angle covered!!!

RAS

Lucy has a really good thread on cheap housewarming pressie on DFW at the moment and there are some good ideas on pressies there.