Finally Debt Free After 34 Years, But Still Need to Live Frugally

Onebrokelady

Sorry you have a cold Hairy,there are a lot of lurgies going round at the moment I've been stuffing myself full of satsumas in a desperate attempt to boost my vit c supplies,it seems to be helping as I feel a lot better than I did a few weeks ago,I'm not actually that keen on oranges but I find I'm looking forward to eating them now

It's been a lovely sunny day in my little corner of Devon too today,it was so nice to be out and about in the sun and not get soaked for a change

I hope your cold goers better soon,wrap up warm and take care

Onebrokelady

carbootcrazy wrote: »

Sorry to hear your cold has spread to your sinuses. The pain of that can be horrible so I hope you'll feel some improvement soon, manage to go shopping tomorrow and find some lovely edible Christmas bargains:beer:


Thanks to everyone who wished me well at the funeral, Everyone who visits HH's diary is so nice:A


Things went really well, it was a sombre but well thought out service. There were lots of people there, I think my friend was really grateful so many had bothered to attend as a lot of them were in their late 70s and 80s and not in the best of health. Even the sun shone when we gathered at the graveside but it was very cold. I thank my lucky stars that I found my black coat in the charity shop when I needed it for my brother's funeral in March. I've needed it for 2 funerals now, both in very cold weather. For the £14 it cost me I've already had more than my money's worth:j. My cold is no worse so maybe it will just stay as sneezes and a runny nose without all the extra nasties that you are suffering from, HH. I've not been home long and the house is freezing cold. A bit of a shock to the system after my friend's lovely warm home although I'm used to being cold here normally. I've already had 2 cups of tea but still have my coat on. I might have a hot shower soon and an early night. OH has fiddled with the temperature dial of the shower and it's stuck:eek:. It only gets up to lukewarm at best and I don't fancy ending up colder than I already am so I expect my hope for a hot shower is a bit of a dream. The shower is ancient and needs replacing but OH keeps insisting he can fix it but only makes it worse:(


Night night, all. See you in the morning.

I'm glad the funeral went as well as these things can do and I hope you managed to warm up what is it with OHS insisting they can fix things and then either not doing it at all or messing it up,a lukewarm shower sounds horrible at this time of year

System

Carboot I love reading your entries on HH diary , very interesting read about PA .

System

HH sorry to hear you aren't feeling tip top , sinuses problems are painful I believe, my DD suffered greatly years ago until she had an op to sort them out.

Drying washing with no heating or outside is a problem especially if it starts smelling before it's dry. Hopefully your new maiden/clothes horse will sort it out.

I am still in awe that you haven't turned your heating on. I am being very mindful of my use of mine .

Hope you get out today if you feel up to it.

HairyHandofDartmoor

Thanks Cumbria . Carboot is lovely .

It's quite mild in Devon, plus we live in a terrace so can benefit from our neighbours heating . We also wrap up in lots of layers, I wear my outdoor fleece in the house, and we have warm blankets to keep us warm on the sofa. It'll be an interesting experiment to see how long we can keep the heating off.

You can tell it's mild here because my cyclamen is flowering in the garden and my geraniums are still flowering .

I'm going to Mr T for the weekly food shop as I'm fed up with being in and am feeling better than yesterday. I can use £40 from DS1 towards it as he gets his payment today :T. I'll keep an eye out for any Christmas food offers.

Have a good Wednesday everyone.

Willowtree222

Hope you get some bargains. I saw some selection boxes reduced to £1 in there. I'm not sure if you have any little ones to buy for, but I always buy next doors kids a selection box and I got a nice one for £1. I think there were some biscuit packs on offer too for around £3 for a big box. x

Onebrokelady

HairyHandofDartmoor wrote: »

Thanks Cumbria . Carboot is lovely .

It's quite mild in Devon, plus we live in a terrace so can benefit from our neighbours heating . We also wrap up in lots of layers, I wear my outdoor fleece in the house, and we have warm blankets to keep us warm on the sofa. It'll be an interesting experiment to see how long we can keep the heating off.

You can tell it's mild here because my cyclamen is flowering in the garden and my geraniums are still flowering .



I'm going to Mr T for the weekly food shop as I'm fed up with being in and am feeling better than yesterday. I can use £40 from DS1 towards it as he gets his payment today :T. I'll keep an eye out for any Christmas food offers.

Have a good Wednesday everyone.

It's lovely here at the moment,I'm glad I don't live in the midlands anymore it's was freezing there by this time of year, I hope you find some bargains in Mr T 😊

HairyHandofDartmoor

My food shop came to £71.98 this morning which is £11.98 over budget, so I'm disappointed with that. But it did include a few extras that DH requested like squeezable honey and hot chocolate. We also needed rabbit food, dental floss and bin liners and stuff like that is so expensive.

I need to rethink what I buy as that amount of money spent is unsustainable. It doesn't help that all the prices are going up. The value toilet rolls used to be £1 for six, then £1.20 for six. Last week I noticed they'd gone up to £1.50 for six :mad:. If they add 20p or so to each item the final bill is going to be a lot bigger.

I did splurge an extra £12 on Christmas treats (in addition to the (£71.98 ). I got 24 diet cokes for £6 (reduced from £8) for me to drink at Christmas and a gift set of three craft beers for £6 for DS3 as a Christmas present. I'll have to get him some Proper Job to drink over Christmas too as he loves that . I've hidden the cokes in a cupboard so I'm not tempted to drink them before Christmas .

The bereavement counsellor just rang so now I feel upset . I've got an appointment in early December to see if I'm bad enough for their service. They are for complicated grief which you don't get after only four months apparently, but as I've had two bereavements in four years they thought it was worth assessing me.

I want to ring NPow3r this afternoon but I'd better wait a bit to recover my equilibrium. I may need to be firm with them and I feel more like jelly at the moment .

Seasidegal58

Hope you feel better later Hairy after your phone call from the counsellor.:(

Yes - perhaps it's best to leave NPower for the moment.

HairyHandofDartmoor

I forced myself to ring NPow3r as it's been niggling me for weeks and I wanted to sort it out one way or another. It's not good news .

I spoke to someone and although we are using LESS power, wholesale electricity prices have gone up 50% and gas prices have gone up 25%. Unbelievable I know. I got her to repeat it three times. Did you say 50%? Fifty per cent not fifteen percent? 50%? But yes electricity really HAS gone up 50% :eek: :eek:. Unless you're lucky enough to be on a fixed tarrif, which we are not.

So despite not using the heating, not using the tumbler, and DS3 having moved out, we still have to pay £45 per week :eek:. We could move onto a fixed rate but that would be £47 per week.

We can't move to another supplier because we're in debt to this one, now even more in debt apparently :mad:. So all we can do is try to use less.

So DS1 has been banned from having the tv on in the daytime (he has a laptop and phone he can use, or books he can read). And we're going to ask DS2 to give us £20 a week towards fuel, which would actually cover the increase.

Anyway, this has made up my mind that we won't be going to my niece's wedding in Scotland in the spring. It would cost around £500 and if we had that money to spare we could pay off our debt to NPow3r.