What can't you afford?

[Marleymerm]

Last week at work my colleague told me her recent eye test showed she needed glasses, but she couldn't afford them, she's known she's needed them for a couple of years but said she doesn't have the money. We both work full time in office jobs and neither of us have expensive hobbies or social lives, we're both pretty boring.
I realised this morning I haven't bought new shoes for months despite the ones I have coming apart, because I can't afford them. I've picked up pairs but put them back down when I've thought of what else I need instead.
When I asked this question to my friend about what she couldn't afford she told me her monthly prescription! She hasn't got it for 3 months.
It's a weird time we're living in so everyone's doing without something. But do you have any necessary things you need but can't afford?

Yes...just opt out....thats a waste of money to me....send them wirh water....they can drink some milk at home if they want

Which is over £2 a week, that would buy about 5-6 pints of milk in a supermarket. As he's unlikely to be getting a pint of milk a day at school, you could save a lot by just giving him milk at home instead.

It is a hell of a jump. I think it must include the cost of driving the milk to schools, fuel costs bundled in.

Had a google and it seems to be a small 189ml carton with a plastic straw so not environmentally friendly if you wanted a reason to opt out.
If child really likes milk at school then you could send a small reusable bottle with them.

Well I can no longer afford Muller Corner six pack yogurts having gone up from £1.99 (start of covid) to £3.50 (yesterday). It’s such an insane increase I just can’t justify that cost anymore.

@RudsyFarmer £2.25 in Morrisons

We don’t have any Morrisons locally but that’s interesting! So Tesco is bumping up the price not necessarily Muller.

There’s an app called Trolley you type in product and it lists prices in all supermarkets.

Thank you. I’ll go do that 👌

I’ve just done the same, thanks for the tip! I often get my order delivered from Sainsbury’s, but I went in today to get the discounts.

@RudsyFarmer are you sure the £3.50 isn't the non club card price? Tesco basically make up mad prices to force people to get the club card so they can data harvest.

Funnily enough that Trolley app has proved it’s the new set price across all the supermarkets. Morrisons just had it on offer. It’s bonkers. How high is this stuff going to go?!!!

Yes I checked when you posted and it was that high price everywhere but ‘on offer’ at Morrisons. Yoghurt has gone up a lot.

I can't afford to eat meat regularly.

I am retraining myself to cook with pulses instead.

I don't mind this, but I suspect things will get worse and I will be skipping meals entirely as the weather turns colder, as I am on prepayment meters for gas/electricity.

I'm ok for glasses, yet, thankfully, they usually cost around £200 from specsavers, and my prescription tends to shift every couple of years. I need them all the time (strong lenses) so I pay to get the lenses thinned for comfort. That's the majority of the cost.

Outer London area big , expensive cars such as Range Rovers, BMWs and the like are being taken from large houses almost on a weekly basis (Nextdoor!). Apparently organised gangs with sophisticated scanning equipment can clone the codes, nick the cars, overcome trackers and ship them out of the country in containers for places like Thailand or Africa. Owners often say police don't care / don't have the manpower.

Thanks just downloaded that it looks brilliant.

Yes, on cars, our local police put out alerts as it is so common particularly for those with the most modern kind of keys you should ideally keep in a special container to deter thieves and catalytic convertors - our local police say keep the car backed up against a wall/garage so those cannot be taken. No one will want my old Volvo however which is one advantage of old stuff I suppose.

On the pyjama issue of someone above I sleep with nothing on with the window open in all weathers and it's quite farm once you have pulled your duvet around you.

I have dreams about someone nicking DH’s not 100% reliable wank mobile. The thieving bastards would have to get through the gate to the road, the gate to the house, sort the alarm on the garage and break into the house to find the keys. There is little hope. I left mine unlocked once and they rifled through the glove box and the door caddy and left everything behind in disgust.

You could also hope someone writes it off instead @RosesAndHellebores, that's what happened here.

DP had some horrible old Subaru that was his pride and joy fuck knows why and one day he was coming out of work and watched a delivery van scrape down the side of it.

They exchanged details and to his horror, and my delight, the insurance wrote it off, deposited the best part of £2k in our bank account, which was far more than it was worth especially as it needed a new gearbox, and took the car away the very next day.

However, that was about 3 years ago and he still mourns the loss of that car. He's currently talking about importing a similar model from Japan. Sigh.