Is anyone else just constantly financially hammered by life?

[Haruka]

It feels never-ending since I bought my house 2 years ago.

Car crash that totalled my car a year and a half ago, the only halfway decent one I could afford short-term seems to constantly need repairs now. But I need it for work and other cars are financially out of my reach.

The house has needed urgent repairs since - fence, boiler, stop tap, broken water taps, roof, missing side tiles from the storms. There is still so much else that needs fixing, but right now I can't afford this.

3x the need for pest control in that time - first bed bugs, then pigeons (with proofing being installed shortly), now it appears we have wasps happily building a nest and need another callout.

I save up as much as I can every month, but it feels like every time I have saved up a few hundred, the next big thing happens. Others don't ever seem to have to deal with all this, especially in such a short space of time (all of the above happened within 2 years).

I am good with money, but I am on my arse financially. I am a single mother of two and pray every month that not another thing goes wrong as I am fast approaching the line where necessary repairs will lead to debt.

Part of me wants to go fuck it and go back to renting, but then I remember that having to move all the time because of landlords selling up wasn't much better.

Am I just incredibly unlucky recently or is everyone just being financially hammered all the time?

Post on local Fb group if on one

What area are you in as said se

There is a local bee keeper on ours and happily collects bees free

This link may help

www.bbka.org.uk/Pages/Category/swarm-removal?

It's not a swarm as far as I can tell, it's loads of them establishing a nest behind the tiles of my wall. So while I have asked, and also through social media, beekeepers are unlikely to touch it because it's not an easy removal. My usual pest controller doesn't do honey bees; he phoned me earlier.

As an added difficulty, the entrance to the hive they're building is on next door's house (while it looks like the actual thing is on my property) and their LL needs to deal with that part. So that takes even longer.

I feel I just work to pay for constant replacement of things - small and large - everything from shampoo and household items which might need to be replaced on a weekly or monthly basis, to having to replace furniture, lawnmover, car etc on a yearly or more basis. It's all just 'oh such and such has run out or X stopped working so we need a new one or Y is on its last legs so needs money spent to fix it'. So any money I earn is used up constantly just treading water.

And then there's the cost of working. Commuting now we're all back in the office. Office clothes, nails, make up. Lunches. And the cost of things to balance the stress of work - meals out, holidays that I might not need if I wasn't so stressed by work and life generally!

Add this to an increased monthly mortgage payment courtesy of that bitch Liz Truss and still sky high energy bills - courtesy of what? Definitely not Ukraine because it started before that and everyone said it was because we all started buying petrol again after Covid and the energy companies needed to recoup their covid losses.

I look at what I spend and reckon it's all just about maintaining a knackering, stressful merry go round. I don't foresee me ever getting on top of it before I die.

Being an adult is certainly not as fun as I thought it was going to be when I was a child!

Beekeeper just confirmed it needs pest control. Likely removal of tiles, possibly even parts of the wall. So £1000+. I have no idea where to even start with finding that sort of money right now, and the longer it gets left, the worse this will become.

Call beekeepers that are further out. I’m sure one of them won’t mind removing a few tiles for a free hive.

It sounds like you are having horrendous luck, life can be so hard sometimes, especially when the bad luck feels constant. I hope things improve for you.

@Haruka

I found out they are honey bees. Not wasps. Removal can easily be £1000. Wasps would have been around £100, for comparison.

Wow you sure are popular with wildlife!

You do seem to have had more than your fair share of bad luck. Hopefully it will be over soon

I do sympathise with the bed bugs. I had them. Also had mice in another flat (next door were ripping their kitchen out).

Wow you sure are popular with wildlife!

Yeah no idea why Snow White was so keen 😂

I'm surprised a bee keeper said pest control for honey bees. Honey bees are important as they're pollinators and pest control companies won't destroy a bee hive.

I'd call your local bee keepers association and get another bee keepers view.

Pest control companies do and will destroy a hive, especially inside walls. Beekeepers happily take swarms but will not touch an establised colony inside a wall or cavity. Bees are not protected.

Don't get me wrong; I'd rather they took the bees, wax and honey away alive and then proofed my wall, but from everything I've read and been told so far it won't happen.

I have managed to message one guy who is both beekeeper and pest control, so maybe a compromise can be reached on that front.

An email just reminded me of this thread.

The good thing is, the bees have been taken care of (managed to get a live removal from above-mentioned pest control) and so have the pigeons.

BUT now I have a plumbing issue in addition to a potential leak. So yet another callout to a professional, who has done an initial assessment and will be around in a few days to fix one of the issues, which cannot wait due to the noises keeping me up at night. He hasn't quoted me for the job yet; I'm hoping this one isn't too bad as I cannot catch up with my savings for all the money I have bled this month.

Heaven only knows where the leak is, but I have a small damp patch in a floor corner that is either from a roof leak (unlikely because nothing seems to be coming down the walls) or a pipe inside said wall. Or maybe just rotting timber. It's a difficult spot to pinpoint anything down.

Oh, and my home insurance is due for renewal and if MN is anything to go by I will be stung there, too.

At least, I guess, my plumber is attractive and charming, so I don't mind having him around.

I think you need to get something like British Gas home care insurance, to cover plumbing, drains and electrics. And use your home insurance for expensive things like bee hives in walls.

Well it just keeps on going. I now need a new boiler because the one I have is leaking from several places, so the repair is almost as much as a new one. I had been trying to save for a rewire that's well overdue and will no doubt cause issues soon, but that's now all wiped out. I mean fully, every penny.

Honestly I just want to cry at this point.

I tried reminding myself this morning that I'm still better off than renting, having seen that rents have risen another £200 in my area since last year. But honestly, it's hard to keep going when you're a single parent and responsible for everything in the house and constantly get financially shafted.

I'm sorry you're still being clobbered by one issue after another OP.

Do see if you're eligible for any government help with your new boiler: https://www.gov.uk/apply-boiler-upgrade-scheme

I am very sorry to hear of your bad luck OP, i too have been feeling the same hence stumbling across your post!

for the boiler, try BOXT - we had a new boiler installed May 2024 and they do 2 years interest free payments, so we have a new boiler and could spread the cost x

Thank you for the suggestions. Sadly, I'm not eligible for government help and it's too late for the other one. The boiler has a 5-year warranty at least, so hopefully the only cost over the next few years will be service (that should not condemn it every year!)

I think the upsetting thing is, I was finally getting somewhere with my savings, which are now completely wiped. Now I have to hope to god that nothing else goes wrong.