To ask how people afford plumbers or new fridges?

Yes, I'm real. I have gone without a fridge before, when I haven't been able to afford one. People did live without fridges in the past!

You are paying too much for your TV licence at £29.08 - its around £180 a year
Home insurance can be shopped around for less than £43.25 a month ditto car insurance

You may find calling the Samaritans for emotional support is more effective than counselling. The latter often makes you go round in circles. I used to call them when much younger. Very good indeed IMHO.

If you can't afford to pay your heating bills the house is freezing anyway, not far above fridge temperatures.

In the 70s we didn't have a freezer, only a fridge with a freezer compartment.

You can buy tins, fresh veg will keep out of the fridge at low temps.

Evaporated milk or nasty powered milk non dairy creamer for tea/coffee.

I think it is actually quite easy to live without a fridge. Not great but certainly possible. You just need to shop a bit more regularly if you want fresh food, especially meat, and eat it on the day you get it.

Has OP been back yet?

Are you for real? Without a fridge?

Can you get a second job? This is what I did when I was short of cash, I worked on Sundays.
Lots of shops are recruiting seasonal staff at the moment.

Some of the comments on here?

Counselling is important for a few people and employee schemes aren't that good.

Do without a fridge for the short term.....it's getting colder....and watch out for a second hand one.
Some of your figures seem high....house insurance, etc.
TV licenses are not £348 a year.
Take a break from counselling.

Save. Cut back everywhere you can. Buy second hand clothes etc. Learn to make do and mend. Go without. (1970s child of 1930s poor parents gives a very different perspective on necessities) learn to budget to within an inch of your life. Buy a second hand fridge to tide you over. It is difficult if you are not used to it. Try downsizing a level in the supermarket until you find the cheapest you like. Some essentials and some own brand.( Eg: Swapped branded cornflakes for own brand different cereal or essential weetbiscs as I only like Kellogg's.)

This of course will not be possible for the lowest incomes as they are already doing this.

This has already been discussed. I wouldn't be telling someone with a Tv to just stop paying their licence. I watch catch up TV and that costs me nothing

Oh yeah and dont pay TV license. I haven't for years so you can save yourself a bit that way

Can you not use klarna to pay for a fridge a8 pay in 3 over 3 months? Abd surely you dont need new clothes every month?

The cheapest fridge freezer on ao is the fridgemaster at £179, not £500.

Or wait for Black Friday and get something better with a discount.

second hand fridge - you could probably get a free one somewhere on marketplace or similar - or go in a British heart foundation furniture store and see what they have

How often do you need shoes on clothes? i've not bought either for at least 6 months

Also depends on whether OP has claimed before or not

It really is. We paid it every month, and extra £100 on top of our mortgage. It was meant to cover everything, illness, loss of job etc. I became seriously ill and my husband became my full time carer. We put in the claim for my illness and they didn't cover it. We ended up having our house repossessed and were made homeless right in the middle of me getting treatment and a lot of other things. It's one of the biggest scams going

Or charities like The British Heart Foundation.

You are doing very well!
You can buy used fridge sometimes at a fraction of price and still well looked after.
I had to furnish a house on similar income two years ago. All used fridges then available were horrible, old, yellow inside. I ended up buying the same fridge freezer I previously had in rented home, a new one from AO, Fridgemaster make. It was £200. Good time now for purchasing anything, black Friday is just around a corner.

so you haven't claimed recently? or ever? Unfortunately, following some serious storm damage 18 months ago, my house insurance doubled in cost. And as I have to declare that I've made a claim when looking for an alternative provider, it keeps the price high. And not all of us live in leafy suburbs where nothing ever happens. I can only laugh at your ignorance in telling someone they should just look on a comparison website - in some cases it might help but frequently there are other factors in play which determine the cost of premiums.

£400 a month for food and toiletries even with a dog is huge, you could halve this and start building up some savings.

It isn’t, though. Monthly costs for my dog come to around £120 for his food, medication, vet and insurance. And £70/week for my food and other supermarket shopping is doable, but doesn’t have a lot of margin to squeeze. I can have a cheaper month or two but then I’ll need to stock back up on all the items I have run low on.

Well said Rubypanda42
Contact AgeUK, they usually have a local warehouse full of second hand fridges etc and don't only sell to OAPs. They also have lists of local tradesmen, and again - they don't only help the elderly.
At least phone them and ask - they can only say NO
I presume you've tried the liquid drain blockers from Amazon?

OP is asking how people afford the plumber/fridge and that is how, by prioritising the debt repayment.

I recently got a new fridge from John Lewis including taking away the old one and paid £250.

But in your circumstances I would get the cheapest one I could find on FB marketplace and focus on paying off the creditcard asap. Move it to an interest free card if you haven’t already. Because once you’ve done that you have £200 a month to save, and you’ll be able to upgrade to a nice new fridge before you know it.

Some of the commentary in this thread isn’t terribly helpful. In debt? Just pay it off! Problem solved! Of course if OP didn’t have credit card debt there would be more spare income each month. Not really that simple though is it.