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've bought more than one second hand white good in the past. Fridge. Fridge freezer. Washing machine. There is no need to spend big on a fridge. I paid around 120 pounds for a small fridge around five years ago (new).

Hi. Have you swapped credit card balance to 0% balance transfer that can save a lot. Also Amazon and John Lewis do 0% interest over 5 or 12 months for fridge freezers. Perhaps get diesel car for better fuel economy?

A fridge for your situation is £200. Plumbers can be expensive but if you can find a local ‘handyman’ who does odd jobs they can be pretty cheap. Also, for a blocked drain, B&Q will sell you a liquid to pour down there that fixes most blockages (depending where the blockage is). If it’s hair then it can unblocked no problem.

I bought some online only a few weeks ago without any problem.

According to my bank statement, I got it from a company called Flow Express and it was under a tenner.

I anm in similar situation and dread needing tradesmen but for larger purchases I buy second hand or use pay in three with PayPal to spread the cost as I don’t have a credit card. There is a local project that resells quality second hand furniture and I bought my sofa and a tv and a washing machine there. The electric items are serviced. The machine looked like new cost me £65 plus a share in £10 delivery charge with sofa and touchwood has been ok for nearly 8 years. £530 seems a lot for a fridge to me

Oh and have you tried rodding the drain? Mine used to block a lot at my old house and so I cot used to doing this every so often I don’t think a set is expensive

I hope that fridge cooks your dinner and does a waltz across your kitchen upon demand for that sort of money. Lots of free or cheap fridges on gumtree and in charity shops. If scratched, you can do them up with vinyl stickers or appliance paint. Home insurance sometimes has add-on packages such as home repairs. Ours does and I have called them out a few times. However, your drain blockage maybe further down the pipe and causing back up to the first port of entry to your home (which could be the bathroom). The dreaded fat blocks or baby wipes drain disasters can be easily remedied. You need to find the drain lid in the garden or around your home outside and lift it. Check there is no blockage in there first. Then do the old bicarbonate soda and vinegar trick to foam the pipe from your bathroom. If you use enough, the chemical reaction is so violent it can shift fats and hair stuck. There is a gel drain clearance product on amazon which also shifts minor blockages. Just use in a well ventilated room. Lots of youtube videos on how to sort out plumbing jobs, and that way will cost you little more than some basic tools. I am a property developer and run holiday lets. If I called a professional every time something went wrong, I would be bankrupt.

Does you home insurance include emergency repairs? A blocked drain may be cover especially if it’s backing up into the house. Where exactly is the blockage.

AO online cheapest fridge freezer including delivery is £209. You cant have a posh all singing one if you no spare money. Sort yourself out first

A handyman might be able to unblock it for you and be cheaper than a plumber.
You can replace your fridge for £100 give or take, not sure why you need a £500+ one.

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

Are you buying cheaper fuel, can you work from home, carpool, any other car parking options at work?

£20 a month at the dentist, surely you only go every 6 months?

Cancel the TV license also

I've never heard of a wage guarantee before, are you expecting to suddenly lose your job or something? Confused by this

Counselling, can the NHS support you with this?

I once sold a fridge for £30 to someone. There was nothing wrong with it, I just didn’t want it anymore. There’s no need to spend that much.

Do people really believe this?

OP is living month to month. Don’t you think it possible the credit card has been used to pay for emergency items in the past?

I think that's a lot, too. I have a 2-bed semi in Sussex and my buildings and contents insurance combined was £125 and a few pence.

I use one of the comparison sites as soon as I get the renewal notice from the current insurer, and always manage to get a cheaper quote by switching, rather than accept the renewal premium offered.

On a couple of occasions, the existing insurer has offered a lower premium than quoted by the new one when I've rung them to cancel the renewal. I think insurers take the piss and rely on people just accepting inflated premiums because they can't be arsed to shop around.

Have you tried a decent Plunger?

I think it depends on what you insure.
We have 'new for old' and also contents up to around £75K. That includes some listed items of higher value.
It's a large 3 bed house and we pay around £700pa for contents and buildings.
This was the cheapest of 3 quotes.
TBH I think a lot of people under-insure because if you had to replace everything (ie fire or water damage) you're looking at kitchens, carpets, furniture, books, electricals, all clothes etc etc.

We got a fridge from fb marketplace for £50 recently.

Why is TV double mine I pay £15/month?
What sort of blockage is it? I can strip out most plumbing in our house and have never in 45 years of home ownership called out a plumber.
Fridge, I can get one secondhand of Marketplace for £20-50 to tide me over,

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.

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.

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

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?

£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.

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.

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.

Or charities like The British Heart Foundation.