To ask how people afford plumbers or new fridges?

[coldinside]

I need a plumber to look at a drain blockage in my bathroom (have already tried to clear it myself to no avail) and my fridge has broken so needs replaced. But I’m wondering how I can even afford these things. I earn £1979 per month and my bills are as follows:

Mortgage £620.48
Council tax £125
Income protection insurance £17.48
Car tax £16.62
Gas £20
Electricity £40
Broadband £23.99
Mobile phone £10.50
TV licence £29.08
Counselling £100
Petrol £150
Parking £80
Dentist £20
House management fee £20
Car insurance £45
Home insurance £43.25
Credit card £200

This leaves me with a total of £417 per month to feed myself and a dog, to buy clothes, shoes and toiletries. I can’t save any money each month and I have no idea how I will pay for a fridge (£530) and plumber. AIBU?

I'd say forgo the car before stopping counselling.

It's not necessarily cheaper to pay for subscriptions to other services.
We just have the BBC TV licence.

Andi too have used counselling extensively after my husband died, but I didn’t want to wait for the NHS to see me. The quality and availability of mental health services provided by the NHS vary massively around the county unfortunately. Luckily for me the cost was irrelevant, but even if it hadn’t been then I’d have prioritised it over most things at the time.

I know the OP mentioned it in her post, but I am concerned that the many posters saying ‘counselling? Cancel it’ are going to either make the OP feel she has to justify it, which she absolutely doesn’t on a public forum, or possibly more damaging actually cancel it.

If you are self employed I would agree. If OP is employed, somewhere with reasonable sickness pay, then it may not be worth it for her. I’d need to be off work for a year before it made sense for me, and in that situation I’d retire.

It would pay out if she lost her job (assuming we are talking about income protection and not critical illness cover - they are different) but whether that is worth the monthly cost is debatable, when she has no savings whatsoever.

I am not saying it is never worth having for anyone. I am asking whether it is worth having for OP.

How can you say that?
Op surely needs a car for work if she's spending a huge amount on fuel.

The OPs post was about affording monthly outgoings and additional expenses. When someone else jumped in with misinformation about UC I corrected it, particularly because that poster jumped on the one they were responding to about "not giving advice when not knowing what they were talking about". And I did that because its my professional field. I also added another comment about when SMI on UC is paid, in relation to mortgages, which is a clarification and again as the OP wasn't asking about going on benefits, I clarified because there was a comment about UC and mortgages. The other post I made regarding credit unions was my offering of practical advice regarding the OPs original question. Hope that clarifies things for you.

£100 a month is a LOT. Most counselling is around £50 an hour. Most clients go once a month.

OP may well be able to reduce it to once a month.

Capita, masquerading as the BBC, charges you double for the first 6 months when you start paying for a TV licence monthly so perhaps it’s that - in which case at some point it’ll reduce.

I dont pay for ANY subs. No TV licence, nothing. I watch stuff on U tube and on catch up on ITV Channel 4 and 5 etc. Also JustWatch is good. All free

@coldinside if you’ve tried to clear the blockage yourself to no avail, are you sure it’s on the private side of your drainage and your responsibility to clear? A possible option would be to call out your waste water service provider and see if they can locate the blockage - it may be on a shared public pipe in which case they’d clear for free. Even if it’s on the private side they might clear while investigating or even as a goodwill gesture.

Yanbu. Big unexpected bills are really shit when you're basically living pay cheque to pay cheque. I can't see anything obvious in your outgoings thay you can immediately cut to be honest, except maybe the income insurance. Assuming the counselling is essential to you. How much is the credit card debt in total? I'd definitely look for a cheaper fridge, we got a Logik one from curries for about £200 and it's still going strong after 8 years.

Your car commuting costs look very high to me, £150 petrol and £80 parking. Is there anywhere to park for free with a short walk? Public transport options? Move closer to work, or move job so it’s closer to your house? Even when I was commuting 30 miles each way I wasn’t paying more than £100 per month and that was on a much higher salary.

I personally don’t think you can afford to be paying that in commuting costs. Sorting this alone would allow you to save a small amount each month.

Please look up Dave Ramsey Baby Steps, he is American and can be a bit loud, but is very good at helping people get out of debt and sort their budgets out. First thing he wants you to do is save £/$1000 for emergency purchases. You need to suspend all ‘nice’ spending until you have it.

https://www.ramseysolutions.com/dave-ramsey-7-baby-steps

Came here to recommend this for drains as it was the only thing that ever worked but just noticed that due to new laws they now only sell it to businesses.

£530 for a fridge?! We bought a Beko fridge freezer for £200, it’s still going strong with no issues.

If you’re getting an American style double door fridge freezer, that’s a want, not a need.

I'm suggesting she watches her TV and doesn't pay a TV licence like the millions of other people who have stopped paying.
If anyone ever does come to her house to check (which is very unlikely because they are now millions of people they need to 'check on') she can tell them they aren't coming in. They have no rights and all they can do is send letters.

I can't get a plumber to come out to me (I'm rural and they all give me 'might get to you in six months' even when there's water pissing all over) and I sort my bathroom blockages with a drain snake and drain rods. Might it be worth investing in some of these for next time? I think they were about £20 apiece.

We are very well off and we’ve still bought several white goods from Facebook marketplace over the years- one lady was selling a fridge that was only a year old because it didn’t match her new kitchen! We also bought a brand new dishwasher from a guy who had just moved into a new build and, again, wanted something more to his taste.

I don't think it's good advice to tell her to break the law and saying other people do it isn't relevant.

I didn’t realise people were doing this!

People afford these things by earning more than you do. Is there any scope for you to do overtime at work, or pick up anything else to earn a bit extra? How long will it take to pay the credit card off and can you pay less on it for a couple of months to pay the plumber? When is your house insurance up for renewal, as that seems high?

I watch a lot of bbc stuff, so not paying the tv license wouldn't be a good outcome for me.

I really don't agree with doing this. The fine is £1k and I know people who have been fined

If you:
Stop watching live TV
Stop recording live TV
And stop watching iplayer

.....you no longer need a TV licence

There's LOADS of stuff you can watch on TV which doesn't require you to have a TV licence

Literally millions of people, like I say sadly I can't because my tele is in full view of the front of my house but if its not then crack on. They have no rights to enter your house, they can't prove anything to take anything to a court, there are no 'spy vans' that they used to try and pretend they had. It's all come out over the last few years and more and more people are cancelling.

Maybe you could recommend that she shop lifts for her shopping or steel a phone. Some people really are morally bankrupt.

But like all forms of tax or payments, the honest people shoulder the burden as the costs will be passed onto them (to make up the shortfall.) Just as PP says like shop lifting.

Have you checked your house insurance recently? It might be to do with where you live but I pay much less than that so it might be worth checking you have the best value.
I would not cancel the dental cost. I have just paid £150 for a crown because insurance pays most of it and in the long run it pays especially if there are unexpected things needing doing. It has really been worth it for the peace of mind.