The long haul supporters thread...

Keeping_Positive

Great shop Dubgirl. Couldnt spend much because its an hour from me and worried about 1) defrosting and 2) not fitting it in my freezer so brought enough to fill the coolbox. £22 for what seemed like loads. Would like to stock up more. Not sure if its worth a special trip for it though unless we buy another freezer.

Feeling down todays guys this selling the car seems to have eaten any profit and although the car repairs were needed I have spent alot more than I had planned. Just placed an add in Autotrader so hope that helps.

Might be because its the dreaded time of the month so sorry if I am a misery for the next few days. Trying to be positive but not much success so far.

dubgirl

Hi Wendy, glad you liked it, we normally spend about £30 and come away with what seems like loads, the only thing is that some things seem to change and they do not always have certain items in the shop. Perhaps a gander at freecycle for another freezer!! sorry to hear about the car, we have put ours up for sale as it is too costly to run (Saab) and have bought a diesel, old Astra estate, taxed and mot'd till next April and will have to do us till then. Hope you feel better soon.

In_Search_Of_Me

Hugs wendy...know that feeling! For those with full freezers do think about a no spend week on grceries...I was amazed at the fact that I could do it, didnt starve (as if!!) although did panic on week 2 lol!! All a learning curve! Hope you manage to sell car Wendy...

ltm07

Hi all! Well the new way that we are budgetting seems to be going OK so far,however we can't get too complacent & lead ourselves into a false sense of security. I am off this week & OH been off the last couple of days. Went out to our local for dinner yesterday & although we didn't spend a fortune on food we made up for it by spending way too much on alcohol. Going down to my Mum's later to use her printer(as ours is cream crackered) to get a 2 for 1 voucher for Alton Towers on Sunday through the Walkers Brittrips site. We have budgetted for this & it is a surprise for DD so looking forward to that. Our freezer more than half full so we will try & use as much up as possible before our next big shop. Chin up Wendy, I know what you mean about car repairs though, they can be a nightmare. All the best to you all!

dubgirl

hi everyone, well we have tried selling the car without success, it is now on Ebay for a second time, at this rate we will be making a huge loss on it when we do sell it. The car we have bought (Astra) has 2 oil leaks, I am reliably told by OH! Oh well. Talking of printers, our cartridge has run out and we cant afford a replacement from the shops, any suggestions on cheaper cartridges?

In_Search_Of_Me

Dubgirl can you get one of those cheapie ones from cartridge world? Think they also top up your existing ink for a fraction of the cost...hope car sells soon. So disheartening that its not sold yet..have you tried auto trader?

ltm07

Hi all! Well printed off voucher for Alton Towers(it's half price not 2 for 1,silly me read it wrong)! Also bought another 2 tickets online,which saves us another £14. Bit of a scam though, Alton Towers charge adult price for any child over 12. DD is 13 but closer to 14, so we wouldn't get away with trying to get her in on a child's ticket! Not been feeling too good today, redone SOA & it's much worse than we thought. Not that we are living a lavish lifestyle, but just by budgetting for everything we need to,we still have a shortfall of over £200 a month & that's with us already earning £300 a month extra in overtime. I see oils going up again, this has given me the kick up the aris I need to walk to work or invest in a bike. OH also bought some freezable containers so we can make more meals out of them. Had chile con carne & jacket potatoes today & we froze a container full of what was left over,so will have that with rice one day next week. OH making a curry tomorrow so will do likewise with what's left over. Hate to feel sorry for ourselves, it just gets so frustrating at times when you are doing everything you can to get on top of things. Oh well, I guess that's life I suppose:(

dubgirl

Hi, ISOM, tbh I normally leave techy stuff like ink cartridges to OH as he is normally good at sourcing cheap options, but will mention cartridge world, of course it also depends on actually having the money to refill it anyway! Nothing on the car yet, ads like auto trader will be next port of call. I guess it is the kind of car that everyone thinks is costly to run and puts bods off.
LTM - sorry about your SOA, dont feel bad about feeling sorry for yourself, I can totally sympathise. Is it worth putting your SOA on DFW as a separate thread, just to see what others think? I'm beginning to think that the increase in oil is going to be more worrying than any of the other increases.

sam89

dubgirl wrote: »

I'm beginning to think that the increase in oil is going to be more worrying than any of the other increases.

Totally agree, it affects every aspect of life, car fuel, central heating, grocery prices.... it's very worrying .

Sam,
x.

ltm07

Thanks dubgirl, put our SOA up on our own thread earlier(our road to recovery-part 2). We both know that we could & should cut down on a few things but even so it really is getting tough. The way we want to budget allows for a little slack but this isn't possible as we will be paying out more than what's going in IYKWIM. It's our own fault we're in this mess but to be fair lot of what we have spent has gone on doing the house up. Really want to stick at this but I don't know how much longer we can(OH doesn't know I'm posting this but I think we need to sit down & have a chat again). Just want to live a normal life IYKWIM. Worked six days a week for years now + done loads of extra overtime but I'm sick of living to work & not working to live. Want to be able to work just a normal week now & again without worrying about debts. You folks really are a tower of strength to us & without Martin & you good people we would be in an even worse mess than we are now. However how can I give people support & advice when we can't get on top of our own finances. We did contemplate conolidating all our debts, which I know is a big No No, but maybe consolidating half of our debts so that we can budget for everything that we need would give us breathing space & allow us to live a little. So we can go two ways here 1) Carry on as we are & have nowhere near enough money to budget for the things we need, or 2) Add on to one of our loans to clear CC's & overdrafts,making our outgoings much easier to deal with & then budget every single penny for the things we need, the downfall being that the loan will be for another 7 years & doing it the DFW way we 'should' be debt free in less than 4 years, but with a hell of alot of stress in the meantime & that's not allowing for unexpected expenses ! Sorry if this post has upset or offended anyone & I/We haven't made our minds up yet what to do but I will be honest, I just feel that we are going round in circles. Just simple things like refusing to go for a pint with my Brother or Mates because I can't afford it or lecturing OH & DD about where every penny is going have really started to get me down. Maybe I'm going through a bad patch & it doesn't help that I tend to bottle things up & on the outside I'm the happy go lucky guy with no worries, but inside these debts are really getting to me, alot more than even OH realises. Thanks for reading & if we do go down route 2 then there's one thing for sure, we will have an adequate budget for everything we need & will continue the DFW journey & we have learned so much & WILL get there in the end. Not going to desert you good people whatever we decide & if OH is happy carrying on as we are then we will stick it out for a while at least. Back tomorrow & hopefully will start to feel more positive about things. Thanks again.