Feeling depressed again

sugarpants_2

Hi guys

Every morning I awake feeling down. I long for the day I can wake up debt free, what a feeling that would be!

Anyways, today I have to go food shopping on a very tight budget (£30!) with 2 kids (school hols, kids aged 5 & 2 yrs..eek!)

Then come home do a pile of housework and get reasy for my evening job.

ALong with this we cant pay our loan this month, our 2 credit cards, or our council tax!

APril is gonna be a crap month! Thank god were off on holiday at the end of April (my mum paid for us)

This is gonna be a tough day with a few tears I can feel it..

smashedbooboo

Hey honey, please you are not alone, Someone will be along with advice re your shopping very soon. Have you posted up your SOA for someone to look at.

sugarpants_2

Yeah just done SOA, works out we should have surplus money of £135!!?? Dont know where that goes.

Im really struggling with my food shopping too hun.

sugarpants_2

I just wanna cry...Gonna ask for extra hours at work tonight but I doubt it as the company are cutting hours at moment due to company not doing so well.

loopylu36

Hi there
Just wanted to offer my support, as Im off work with depression at the moment, thanks to a rubbish job and mountain of debt!. Life does seem (and possibly is!) rubbish at times but try to focus on the positives. You know all the old cliches, family, health etc I have a friend who suggests you play the "glad game"when you are feeling down. Try to think of at least one thing that you are glad about today - even if it something as basic as "i'm glad ith's Thursday and not Monday"

With your shopping, have you tried www.mysupermarket.com ? You can fill your trolley on line and then print your shopping list so you know exactly how much your shop will cost. As well as comparing the price with other supermarkets (I usually start in Asda which is never normally beaten on price by Tesco or Sainsburys - no surprise there!) it also tells you what "swaps" you can do for similar products that will save you money. And if you finish your shop and it's over your budget, you can go back and change things til you are happy. It takes a little time, but it's much easier than trying to do it whilst walking around the supermarket and def saves you overspendig.

Hope it helps.

thepinkladez_2

big hugs to you hun. i am sure there will be omeone along soon that has some great words of wisdom than i do but in the mean time i have just started doing the click sites etc for some extra pennies, do you do them? athey soon add up, and every penny helps!

newmum1

Dont worry, sit down and see if there are any ways to cut back- as for the food shopping do you make your food from scratch and have you try the moneysaving old style boards as they are pretty good for cheap good meal ideas. I know exactly how you feel I had £30 for my food shopping yesterday went slightly over leaving me with £3.50 until sat but provided you have food you wont go hungry. As thepinkladez says try clicking sites hope this helps in some way

Cleosmum

Have you done a meal planner and checked what you already have in for it? Last week my groceries came to £19.88 which included 2 packs lamb mince, 2 packs beef mince, 8 pork loin chops, fresh fruit and veg, soap powder, beans, chopped tomatoes, fresh garlic, toilet rolls. Think that was about it. And then put £8 a week in a money bag which covers milk and bread for the week. I dont meal plan, I could probably shave a bit off if I did. This week my groceries comes to £16.19, as I dont need soap powder.

I always use mysupermarket.com, I start off with Tesco and fill my basket, then I do swaps, then I check to see if it would be cheaper in Asda, then Sainsbury. I have to say that Asda is never cheaper for what I buy, its usually Sainsbury thats cheaper, though this week its Tesco. I think it depends on what you buy as to which is cheapest. And I never even look at Waitrose, its always about £15 more than the others :eek:

Try not to worry, dont let it get you down, just remember its a means to an end - you will be debt free and it will be great

PS have you thought about doing a diary on here?

jo1972

Hiya, hugs to you.

I presume when you say you can't pay your council tax you mean the one that was due on the 4th or whenever last week? Please ring them to explain your situation cos they only send one warning out now I think and you will lose any rights to pay in instalments and they will be very quick to prosecute.

Go over to the Moneysaving Old Style board for some shopping tips, there's some fantastic recipes that have been posted on the Jame Oliver feed a family for under a fiver thread here

Good luck

autismmum

big hugs, its so hard for you, when my first two were small, we had such a huge mortgage and bills and it felt like id never see light.. we used to shop on all somerfields basics, i used to feel down and long for sainsburys basics!!:) lol
at least when i opened my cupboard it would look another colour.
keep going and get cooking with some basic self raising flour and oil budget oats and syrup you have biscuits and cookies. hugs xx

SingleSue

Aww please don't feel down.. life is a challenge to be met not a challenge to defeat you.

I too am having a pretty crap last month (ok 6 months) with my car going wrong and using up any small amount of savings I had managed to build up for the MOT later this year and the tax which was due at the beginning of this month, and it has been a bit of a struggle ever since.

I have recently come off the tablets for depression after being on them for over 2 years and I can fully understand the feelings you have right now where everything seems hopeless but you must battle on and as someone else has said, try to think of at least one semi bright or bright thing that has happened to keep you focussed on the good things in life. Sometimes these are onyl very tiny things like a son/daughter giving you a cuddle (in my case, one of my son's actually relating to me would give the whole day a shine!) or a neighbour saying good morning.

Onto the shopping budget....hmm, difficult one but not impossible to do. I too have £30 to last me through to Monday and some shopping needs to be done. My usual plan of attack is to either go to Tesco's and buy all their value stuff (it's not that bad a quality) or head down to my local Morrisons and see what reduced stuff they have. Failing that, Morrisons noodles (8p) make a nice meal with value Morrisons sausages (frozen and approx 80p for 20) or some nice potatoes (again value, approx 99p for a largish bag) and you can do sausage and mash or sausages and chips for the whole family for pennies.

Not keen on sausages? Jacket potato (using the same big bag of tatties) with value marg (approx 20p), and you could really push the boat out and get some value beans (pennies again) and have jacket potato with beans.

Another good one is stew, get the cheapest beef you can (I am usually lucky and find it reduced) or any other kind of meat and stick it on to stew with your value tatties, value carrots (less than 60p) and any other veg you can find in your cupboard and it will serve one person for several meals or a family for one meal with some left over for someone to have for dinner the next day.

Oooppsss going on for far too long now!

Final thing....please try to speak to the loan,cc and council tax people. If they don't know things are tight, they will assume you are just not paying and then they really rack up the interest and penalty charges.