Cant afford to live....help

In_Search_Of_Me

Just wanted to send a hug. Obviously hard for you with an oh who seems incapable of getting himself out of the doldrums? Perhaps hes actually enjoying not having to work. Bottom line is that if he doesent get a job sharpish then you could be looking at being forced to sell the house which you want to avoid if you can. Have you contacted payplan to discuss your current situation? OH is the key I think, as is cutting down on the unecessaries that you have ike virgin V - thats a luxury that you CANNOT afford at the moment and needs to go....what is the HP for? That seems alot?

barnaby-bear

continualdiamond wrote: »

Just finding it a real struggle. Fridge broke 2 weeks ago, OH parents ended up buying us a new one, that wasn't cheap, £200. Toilet basin is cracked and leaking water all the time, carpet is always damp and smells because of it, but cant afford a new toilet + someone to fit it.

Get a basin / toilet off freecycle - no one wanted ours when we fitted a new one ourselve - most people just chuck out their old suite, fit it yourself just take the connectors and pipes to plumbcentre or equivalent plumbing centre and they'll give you the right bits - it's like lego...

£320 for food (but no child benefit?) that's an awful lot for food for two and no kids - you could save £150 on that if you needed to (most of your deficit).

continualdiamond

Have always sold things on ebay. Actually to our surprise made £100 last week on selling what i thought would be items of like £10 max, but OH sold some guitar related items that sold for £18 and £22 each.

That £100 is yet to clear into our bank account (paypal transfer). Where also listing things every night this week. I'll give OH credit with that, he's had a right sort out of things we don't need. Im trying to convince him to sell his 2 electric guitars as he doesn't play them and when he does, he isn't very good...hahaha.

Hire purchase is.....a car. We had a 97 Vectra that just was going in for repair after repair for about 4mths running, it got cost more to fix that what it was worth, so we got rid of it. But are on a high APR with out 2002 model car.

Actually successful with a basin/toilet off freecycle later on today, YAY. But the toilet is all in 1 piece, our current one has the cistern seperate. So with this all in 1 piece toilet we've collected today, could it be fitted you think? Its only 2 years old, so im really pleased.

£320 for food was our old SOA with payplan when OH was employed. We knew nothing about what payplan were setting for limits, just went along with it.

I've now set the food budget at £216, a limit of £50 a week, but i try and do it for less than that if i can. I am buying for 2 adults, 1 dog and 4 cats. But i never spend more than £50 as we take a calculator now and add up as we put things in the trolley.

barnaby-bear

continualdiamond wrote: »

Actually successful with a basin/toilet off freecycle later on today, YAY. But the toilet is all in 1 piece, our current one has the cistern seperate. So with this all in 1 piece toilet we've collected today, could it be fitted you think? Its only 2 years old, so im really pleased.

Ok the easiest thing with basin taps is often the flexible hose things rather than pipes.

With the one piece toilet you'll have to work out where the pipes will go behind it, (they often have an internal overflow so don't worry if it seems to be missing a pipe) it'll probably mount lower but fundamentally the big waste hole will determine where it'll sit. You can buy a concertina like attachement that fits most scenarios but take loo home put it next to existing one - take loads of photos of the existing one and the new one and go to the plumbcentre desk and say what do i need or google DiY sites (worked for us) If it looks a bad fit just re-freecycle it and get one more similar. We didn't have a problem - but make sure you have a good look find out what you'll need to do, get an opinion off anyone you know, look at similar loos - then do the job when B&Q is open (not at 10pm at night when you realise a missing connector and only one loo in the house - that was our hiccup). We found it went fine. Mastic (silicon sealant is great!)