Is the 'credit crunch' affecting your life?

[LyraSilvertongue]

There's been so much in the news about the credit crunch, rising food, petrol and utility costs etc over the last few months.
But is it really affecting your life?
Personally I haven't seen much of a difference. I don't use the car that much and I buy lots of special offers in Sainsbury's the keep costs down.
Who's really been affected by the current state of the economy?

But the set amount has gone up hugely, GdG.

yes very much
dp self employed mortgage buisness has gone , left us with lot's of debt
he now has to do hourly commute to new job so petrol costs gone up
my fuel bills gone from 80 to 120 a month
i am now shopping on whopps stickers / cheaper stores
Am on mat leave at the minute but child care costs will go up when / if i go back to work as dp can't help with child care anymore
It's a nightmare!

agree with expat - seriously dreading winter - we live in a rural area and have oil ch

at present my dd is £212 a month. this is now (just) in credit, after last winter. A tank full of oil was doing about 6 weeks at a cost of roughly 48p per 1000 litres

I had a new delivery the other day and it was 60.62 ppl

This would mean that unless we cut back it is going to cost me £100 a week to have heating and hot water

My diesel is approx £350 a month now

on approx £24k a year those two things are a big chunk

Cazboldy, I feel your pain! We switched our heating off in January as had been paying £170 per month in oil on top of coal, logs, gas bottle and elec.

I whinged and whinged about the cold but tbh honest got used to it (both living rooms have woodburners which are v.toasty & had heated towel rails on in the bathrooms).

Having been brought up in a house without CH (as was dh), it now doesn't seem like that much of a big deal, and I strongly suspect dh is going to want to keep the heating off again for most of the coming winter

I wish we had a woodburner/fire.....

The only alternative for us would be an electric heater, which would probably work out as expensive - if not more so

Caz, there was me thinking my fuel bills were expensive! You are forking out far more than me.

my sainsburys weekly shop keeps creeping up
full tank just cost us £100
we come off our fixed rate deal for our mortgage in Oct so that will hurt

The petrol price rises are quite alarming.
Last week a full tank cost me around £60. A year ago it was more like £45-£50.

Same for me lyra. Last year a tank was around £45, now at least an extra £10 on top of that for the same amount.

reports saying it could be as much as £2 a litre in 2009!

If it gets to £2 a litre I'll stop driving.

it's aaffecting me because i work in retail. i normally get a bonus of at least 10% so around £2k. didn't get it this year as we didn't do as well as we expected. customers just aren't spending as much. our takings this year are running at 20% less than last year.

as far as petrol goes that's hitting me now. i normally take dd on days out round and about but now think twice and stay much more local. also, my elderly gran lives 2 hours away from us. i'm her next of kin and used to go and see her every other weekend. now i have to limit it to once a month. too costly in petrol.

if we stopped driving DH would be unable to get to work.

Utilities DD has gone up. Food does seem to be more expensive. I dont buy much petrol but I suspect I'm spending another £5 a month on it.

the credit crunch is affecting me in that (hopefully) I will shortly be able to buy a house. If prices hadn't dropped we'd be saving up for at least another 3 years.

Prices have affected us a little, but mostly only in that I've finally managed to persuade DH to drive more efficiently (i.e. accelerating slowly, sticking to speed limits). since we don't drive much anyway, that has almost offset the diesel price rises.

I've noticed food has gone up obviously, but then food prices have been artificially low for a very long time. I've compensated by buying less out of season stuff and cheaper cuts of meat.

Our fixed rate runs out in 18 months, and that will be the yikes moment for us I suspect. That and energy bills. I heard on the radio earlier that they are expected to go up by an average of £500 pa per household by next easter

We are just about managing on one salary ATM, and I'm going back to work next year (fingers crossed), so I'm hoping that will offset the increases in our costs. Which makes us quite fortuante I think.

I can't stop driving at the moment but come September when all the boys are at one school we can def walk the school run some days (other days I need to get to after school activities so will still need to drive).

Sorry, didn't think about not being able to afford the direct debits.

It will really affect us if/when DH's building work dries up.

Self employed/freelancers will feel it.
My work has been much quieter than usual the last 2-3 months - bobbing along with work to do most of the time but just not such big jobs as usual. No idea if this is anything to do with the economic climate or just a normal blip which does happen sometimes.

im only just thinking about this and realised that it will affect everyone.the thing im most worried about is the bills as we only just cope.and food.

my heating is off already, I can see us this comming winter going to family again for the day to save our heating bills.

whilst I did grow up in a house with no CH we did have gas fires at least, this house is so cold I have to have something on for ds - might well invest in more jumpers for him this year.

rent etc i'm hoping will be the same at the end of the year, food wise I get next to nothing for my money any more - esp as I have to buy nappies as well.

see my thread about dps job. Commuting 2 hrs each way on diesel car
was 93p litre in September
is £1.35 today
is projected £2.00 by end of year. Will cripple us with commuting costs of £16000 per annum
he has to change job...

We got completely shafted moving house 3 years ago and had to borrow more money or face being homeless (long story) we are just about to come off that fixed rate mortgage so our mortgage repayments are going to jump.

Electricity has gone from £25 to £90 a month to pay off our debit then it will go back to £50 hopefully in 6 months.

Really feeling the petrol as we have went from a Clio to a people carrier as DC3 on the way.

Food is creeping up and up as well.

DP has had a good promotion and pay rises but it's all being swallowed up.

MaloryBriocheSaucepot- i live in cornwall-your welcome to the playhouse if rents right