Desperate, am I in the wrong place?

catman-without_wings

You have come a very long way in such a short time. Congratulations.

Forgetmenot68

Thank you Verbatim and cmww.

GeorgeUK

Hi FMN

Any news from CCCS yet or are you still waiting to hear back?

Have the kids calmed down now and stopped blaming you for things getting out of hand? I remember you had said early on that you may need to move - this isn't on the cards anymore, is it?

New SOA looks pretty good. Gas, electricity and water still seem a bit high, but i guess you've shopped for the best deal. Have you tried using a water hippo or plasic bottle in the cistern to reduce the amount of water used?

Good to see you've made so much progress. Well done and good luck on the 8th if the interview is still on.

gwenmoon

we live in a fair sized house and our electric and gas bills have shot up. My next to last bill was over £600 for that quarter for electric and over £400 for gas , I nearly died. I took a look at it because i used to work for a power company on customer disputes. I went straight out and bought a wattage meter and a units counter and ran them . worked out what uses the most wattage and either got into a habit of using them less. For example your dryer uses loads so make sure you got full loads and don't quite dry them fully air them after until dry and time the load rather than just put it on full cycle and leave it. washer make sure its not a cold fill as heating up the water takes more money. And make sure your loads are full, the less time your washer is on the better. turn the temp down and buy a good washing powder so they will come clean at lower temp. spin things well so they will dry quicker. Turn off all standby modes at night and never leave chargers for mobiles or games consoles plugged in unless they are charging and you really need them. energy saving bulbs everywhere you can place them . Prices of these have come down a lot and don't forget they last up to eight times longer than a normal bulb so you buy less of them . Turn things like computers off if your not using them and if you have more than one try to limit the time spent on them or use one rather than two share. half fill the kettle so it boils quicker its scary to see that wattage meter go into the thousands at a kettle building up to boil. See if you qualify for a home energy saving grant. curtains with linings and draft excluders if you live in a house that is old and drafty like ours. make sure all lights are turned off after use and turn radiators to very low in rooms that are not used and close doors at all times to keep heat in . Turn the temp on your fridge up 1 degree but no more you don't want food poisoning so no more than 2 degrees and on freezer should be -19 degrees. our house computer is on the most and other only used if needed. If our daughter wanted to watch tv she now watches it on the computer so the tv is on less as the computer is on already. cook potatoes and hard veg in microwave rather than on hob if you have halogen or electric cooker cooks i half the time. Make sure you cook things that have been fully defrosted first doesn't take as long using even less electric. If you have the heating on dry clothes on rails instead less usage on dryer and the heating is on anyway make us of it. Only use dish washer once a day and with a full load any extra pots hand was as you go . Dry clothes outside as often as you can ( I know impossible in this great British weather) but try. We have tried this and kept it up for this quarter got my bill for electric yesterday managed to shave a full £100 off this quarter :T And £ 140 off the gas :eek: , but the real testing time will be the winter. It's worth a try you got nothing to loose only a few quid off you bill every little helps , you might need it in this credit crunch :A

Forgetmenot68

Hi George - Thank you, yes I heard from CCCS last week and I have the template letter to fill in for all of our creditors - one of my jobs for today as the children went back to school this morning. They have stopped blaming me and my husband, I hope. It think it's helped that we have both calmed down and are managing our money and budget now without so much panic. They know that money is very tight and that clubs and pocket money have stopped for the moment, but I hope that will change. As for moving, I'm hoping now we've addressed our deficit that won't need to happen, but living on a budget and fulfilling our DMP committment of £207/month over the next few months will make that clearer. Thanks for your comments about our new SOA. I've turned our thermostat down because I realised it was on max (!) and we're not leaving things on standby any more, so hopefully that will help with power costs. Water is rated, not metered and I did one of their comparison charts recently and it seems we'd pay more if we were metered so will stick with what we have for now. RE the job, I got a call yesterday to let me know I hadn't made it through to the next stage. They were worried that with the travelling distance and the number of children I had I wouldn't be able to give the job the committment they needed :mad: . After I've done the DMP letters I'm going to contact all the agencies around and I'm optimistic that something will come up. I'm prepared to do anything as I realise more and more that I just need to show I can work!

Hi gwenmoon - thanks for all those fantastic tips and I'll do my best to follow them. Sounds like you've done amazingly bringing down all your power costs! we have a tumble dryer but rarely use it because we have rails up where our boiler is and clothes dry there. No microwave - I'm a bit Amish about microwaves! We have lots of energy saving bulbs, they're great and I'm replacing normal ones with these where I can as they blow. I feel very stupid about our boiler thermostat as it only ocurred to me to check the other day. I hate to think what it's cost us to have it on maxiumum for months. I am guilty about having the computer on all day, but so often I'll think, "oh I'll just go and check an alternative to that 0870 number..." but end up checking emails, MSE forum etc... I am an internet addict .

FMN xx

lucielle

Hi FMN, those tips are great that have been posted. Sorry to hear about the job. You must be destined for greater things. Anys news re book? Bought the school shoes which cost a fortune and like you I managed to budget for it. Mine are back to school on Tuesday.
L

Forgetmenot68

Hi Lucielle, thanks but don't worry, though of course I'd have managed somehow, the hours would have been hard with travelling, not that I let them know that! Told them I'd love to have 2 hours driving time to myself every day! Petrol/extra childcare costs might have made it barely worth the salary so I'm still looking, and will find something soon I hope. As for the book, I still have some writing to do and plan to start tomorrow, aiming to finish before the beginning of October. I've been in touch with the agent about it and asked if she could kindly read it again at that point. Today is getting ready to set up the DMP with letters, finding all the paperwork etc. Glad you got school shoes. There's so much satisfaction in paying for something, though a lot of money, but being able to say to yourself, "well, it's there in the account just for this purpose"! Very different to before....

I just had a very nasty moment. I realised that our restored tax credits were being paid into our old account :eek: . I rang First Direct, preparing to beg for them to release the money, but they couldn't have been nicer and trasferred it straight away...which of course made me cry...:o Some of these people restore your faith in human nature. In fact we've had no real nastiness - hope it's not to come...

FMN xx

lucielle

Morning FMN. I am so pleased the bank made such a smooth transaction. Its the little things that help. Yesterday I went to my usual fruit and veg man, last week I had got some apples and underneath the skin they were all really badly bruised. You couldn't tell until you actually bit into it. I told him and he gave me some for free.
L

Forgetmenot68

Someone gave me free apples today too! A bag of bramleys in the supermarket car park - an old couple had brought them for somebody else but they didn't want them after all, so they approached me. Aren't people nice? Lots of lovely blackberry and apple crumbles...

FMN xx

rog2

Forgetmenot68 wrote: »

Someone gave me free apples today too! A bag of bramleys in the supermarket car park

That is great, Fmn - it really is good to know that there are still some genuinely 'nice' people around. :T :T

We've just started using our Bramleys - at the moment we are just using the 'fallers' as they could do with just a few more days 'on the tree' so to speak. However, if tomorrow's weather forecast of heavy/storm force winds is anything to go by, it looks as though they will all be 'fallers' by this time tomorrow.
Last year we had so many, that I put a box out by the front gate, with some old carrier bags and a notice for people to 'help themselves'. Maybe people have become 'naturally suspicious' but whilst lots of people were reading the notice, very few people actually did 'help themselves', but I do remember one old chap, who picked out maybe half a dozen - took them home and came back, half an hour later, and put 20 pence under the box - bless him.
The blackberries, on the other hand, seem a bit scarce, so far, this year.